I recall reading a recent article regarding intermittent fasting and exercising. The conclusion was that intermittent fasting was an ineffective dietary regime as it lead to muscle loss when it was paired with exercise.
I have been wondering how we can draw insights from exercise science studies and how do we know the conclusions made are credible or not?
There are so many variables in play during an exercise science study (anthropometry, exercise selection, exercise methodology, exercise technique, tempo, flexibility, training history, genetics, diet prior to study commencement, etc…) that how much merit should we give results?
How often does the issue of confounding variables come into play during these studies?
Read the study, the researchers should explain what the methods are, how they selected the subjects, who the subjects were, how they controlled for variables, and the compliance rate from the subjects. They run data analysis on the results, account for outside factors, and do a lot of stuff. If it is a reputable professor/researcher doing the study, you can be sure they are diligent on making sure they account for everything they can and report the results in an unbiased way.
The researcher should explain every one of those variables you mentioned: what the exercise was, how long, how intense, how often, who performed the exercise, any changes in diet from the subjects, the training history/age/gender of the subjects.
In short, if the researcher is credible, they will have taken a large number of steps to ensure the data presented is accurate and everyone understands EXACTLY what the study entailed. I just completed a study under the supervision of a prominent researcher in the Exercise Science field. He was very diligent on everything.
[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
I recall reading a recent article regarding intermittent fasting and exercising. The conclusion was that intermittent fasting was an ineffective dietary regime as it lead to muscle loss when it was paired with exercise.
I have been wondering how we can draw insights from exercise science studies and how do we know the conclusions made are credible or not?
There are so many variables in play during an exercise science study (anthropometry, exercise selection, exercise methodology, exercise technique, tempo, flexibility, training history, genetics, diet prior to study commencement, etc…) that how much merit should we give results?
How often does the issue of confounding variables come into play during these studies?
Thanks for reading![/quote]
Short short answer is confounding variables come into play a LOT in exercise science. A lot. Even in good researchers’ work, and it is due to the nature of the field.
[quote]staystrong wrote:
Read the study, the researchers should explain what the methods are, how they selected the subjects, who the subjects were, how they controlled for variables, and the compliance rate from the subjects. They run data analysis on the results, account for outside factors, and do a lot of stuff. If it is a reputable professor/researcher doing the study, you can be sure they are diligent on making sure they account for everything they can and report the results in an unbiased way.
The researcher should explain every one of those variables you mentioned: what the exercise was, how long, how intense, how often, who performed the exercise, any changes in diet from the subjects, the training history/age/gender of the subjects.
In short, if the researcher is credible, they will have taken a large number of steps to ensure the data presented is accurate and everyone understands EXACTLY what the study entailed. I just completed a study under the supervision of a prominent researcher in the Exercise Science field. He was very diligent on everything.[/quote]
As with any research paper- read the methods section carefully. How many Ss did they have? What was the Dependent measure? Did they perform the appropriate stats? Did they make claims that are supported by their data analysis, or did they go too far beyond? Did they replicate the effect in more than a single experiment?
Once you understand methods and parameters you can judge for yourself the merit of a particular study. This comes in handy, because then when someone starts claiming the magic of a supplement or a particular training program and references articles supposedly supporting their conclusions, you will do what 90% of people don’t - actually read those references and more often than not the reference doesn’t support it at all.