“The researchers put 54 gym members through a battery of tests, then did the same tests following ten weeks of workouts. When the study was published, it stated that 9 people dropped out due to overuse or injury. But, Potterf (owner of the CrossFit gym) said nobody got injured from the workouts.”
“Is it a case of an innocent businessman ambushed by scientists peddling fraudulent data? Or is it a company trying to bully researchers when it doesn’t like the results?”
From Outside Magazine’s site.
[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
“Is it a case of an innocent businessman ambushed by scientists peddling fraudulent data? Or is it a company trying to bully researchers when it doesn’t like the results?”
[/quote]
From the sounds of the article (admittedly, the whole truth is known only by the researcher and the gym owner) I think the real answer lies somewhere in between.
I’m an epidemiologist/biostatistician; my whole career is designing research studies, analyzing the data, and reporting the results. A crucial characteristic of a well-designed research study is having data collection forms that are open to as LITTLE interpretation as possible.
In this case, the data collection form should have been designed with a question “Did the participant complete the final testing?” (with a Yes/No answer) and then a follow-up answer “If the participant did not complete final testing, why?” with a slew of potential reasons (i.e. Dropped Out Due To Injury, Scheduling Conflict, Declined Participation, Other). If the data had been collected in this fashion, there would be no debate.
My guess, though, is that the researchers just had an open-ended, free-response question that allowed responses like “Because he tweaked his knee” or “Because he’s a wimp.” The researchers interpreted these open-ended responses and classified those people as “Injured” when that wasn’t really what their data collection form was designed to ask.
Make sense?
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I’m an epidemiologist/biostatistician; my whole career is designing research studies, analyzing the data, and reporting the results. A crucial characteristic of a well-designed research study is having data collection forms that are open to as LITTLE interpretation as possible.[/quote]
How does that work? Something like Company A contracts Company B (your company) to study the effects of something, and then you work from there?
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I’m an epidemiologist/biostatistician; my whole career is designing research studies, analyzing the data, and reporting the results. A crucial characteristic of a well-designed research study is having data collection forms that are open to as LITTLE interpretation as possible.[/quote]
How does that work? Something like Company A contracts Company B (your company) to study the effects of something, and then you work from there?[/quote]
Not quite. I work at a Research Institute that’s affiliated with a large hospital; most of our research is funded by grants from the government or charitable organizations, although there are some industry-funded studies as well.
Studies are generally initiated by scientists at the research institute (doing lab-based studies) or clinical researchers at the hospital (studies done with people). Someone that wants to design a study can consult me in the design phase (I wish they ALWAYS would, but sometimes they don’t, which can be a pain in the butt later if they haven’t designed something right) or bring me in later if they’ve already collected their data.
My salary is paid by the research institute, but people that need my services basically pay a chunk of my salary in exchange for some of my time. So if someone needs a statistician for the equivalent of one day a week, they can put me on the grant at 20% of my salary; if it gets funded, that money goes to the research institute to reimburse them for my salary.
“But in an e-mail before the lawsuit, Smith said he collected the injury information from Potterf. When people didn?t return for the second test, Smith asked Potterf what happened. ?(T)he gym owner went on to tell me how one participant was a wimp, one of them couldn?t stick with the program because of their knee, one because of their back, one was too fat, etc. ? All of the explanations he gave to me matched up with overuse/overtraining issues, so that is the wording we used in the manuscript,? Smith wrote.” -From the article
I thought it was interesting, because I saw this suit described elsewhere online, and the big issue the Crossfitters seem to take (at least by my interpretation), is that the participants themselves didn’t report their overuse/overtraining injuries. Of course how scientific it is to go by the explanation given by the gym owner, and then have the same guy upset that you based your findings on data that he helped provide?
S
Do not fuck with Crossfit unless you want Glassman, Saran, The Russell’s and 2 million kool-aid drinkers up your colon.
I guess this is only tangentially related to the actual topic, but does anyone know exactly wtf is up with Greg Glassman? Like is he partially paralyzed or something? Why is he so fuckin out of shape? I mean I’m sure he has some kind of injury excuse, but I was just wondering if anyone had ever heard specifically what it was.
[quote]csulli wrote:
I guess this is only tangentially related to the actual topic, but does anyone know exactly wtf is up with Greg Glassman? Like is he partially paralyzed or something? Why is he so fuckin out of shape? I mean I’m sure he has some kind of injury excuse, but I was just wondering if anyone had ever heard specifically what it was.[/quote]
I’ve wondered this, too, although I’ve never given it much thought.
Seems weird that the guy behind the biggest fitness “movement” of the day (regardless of whether you like it or not, in the vein of Shugart’s recent article, you have to admit that CF has captured the public eye in the States more than powerlifting, bodybuilding, or O-lifting ever has) is so portly. How does he sit there and say this stuff about how they don’t want weaklings or scaredy-cats when he doesn’t appear to train himself?
The basic problem here is trying to mix research, science or logic with crossfit. This is stupid, you do crossfit because its fuckin hardcore man, not because it makes sense.
I swear, it’s like you guys don’t even know what awesome is.
Does Tom Cruise do this thing?
Waiting for Derek to chime in.
Glassman was injuried in his late teens/ early twenties I believe when he was still doing a lot of gymnastics. During some kind of dismount (I forgot what) he fell and his tibia went up into his thigh, his femur burst out of the side of his hip in a compound break/fracture from landing fully on the one leg and he was pretty much done after that.
[quote]csulli wrote:
Why is he so fuckin out of shape? [/quote]
He’s got the Rhabdo man 
[quote]CLINK wrote:
Waiting for Derek to chime in.
;-)[/quote]
0_o I know where you live
[quote]hipsr4runnin wrote:
Glassman was injuried in his late teens/ early twenties I believe when he was still doing a lot of gymnastics. During some kind of dismount (I forgot what) he fell and his tibia went up into his thigh, his femur burst out of the side of his hip in a compound break/fracture from landing fully on the one leg and he was pretty much done after that. [/quote]
Can totally see how this would end his fitness life
Much easier to get drunk every day and sue people.
He can talk a good game tho.
His kipping muscle was broken.
[quote]Testy1 wrote:
His kipping muscle was broken.[/quote]
Clearly…haha
