Getting the proper information through the marketing hype
I admit I’m a sucker for a decent sale, or a really well marketed product, which promises to make me 10x’s faster, than I am currently. You know what I mean? by eating this, wearing that you will improve your performance etc etc. There are some really long shot products out there, that say “they’ll do this”, I can very often scoff and just go “piff” (But maybe some people, can’t go “piff” even at these, because they might not have my same level of knowledge). But there are other products that seem to have a much more credible reason’s why they work, and its hard for athletes to work our way through these products, trying to work out what will do us harm or not.
For the purpose of this blog, I am going to stick to compression tights, running shoes and “sports nutrition” products (I’m talking gels, power bars, electrolyte drinks, recovery drinks, not the more way out and “piff” products that can surround sports nutrition), as the products that seem to have a credible evidence that they could work tp improve my performance and reduce injury. But how do we wade through all the marketing hype around them? and get down to the scientific evidence that these products will do what they say they do, and not do the opposite and harm me.
I’m see the body as a almost perfect machine, it has evolved through millions of years, to be what it is today, it has systems in place to cope with the stressors that exercise can throw at it. Take animals (yes we are animals, but for this example all animals that aren’t humans) for example do you see them having to take electolyte drinks or putting on the latest fade in running shoes, no you don’t. All other animals seem to survive just fine on what there body can provide them. Heres a quote that prooves how well the body can adapt to different scenarios.
What Nigg found is that when you run in shoes with a softer or harder midsole, or run at different speeds, you change the impact forces, but the muscle activation simply compensates and you end up experiencing similar soft-tissue vibration. In other words, your body is “intelligent” enough to adjust muscle at different levels to ensure that you don’t have excessive joint loading and tissue vibration. The science of sport
Our body’s have systems that sceintists can barely understand let alone replicate and improve, so do we propose that we can contribute more to this prefect body to advance it further… I propose we would have to a have a lot more understanding off the body and its system before we can really do that. So the products out there are just best guesses on the tiny bit of information the scientists currently hold.
Having said all that, I am going to say that endurance sport is not a “normal” activity that the human body has been adapted for. Yes the human body can run almost longer than any other animal, and in part is what it was designed to do but not at the intensity that athletes will normally put their body through. And when our body sends us a signal please stop (eg muscle cramp) we push past it and keep going. So because we are putting the body at its limits than maybe supporting the body with what we currently have available is important.
Research that backs the marketing hype
Now the trouble around much of the information available to athletes is that there is often a been produced by the makers of the product. eg the Gatorade institute provide research to support Gatorade claims, skins has research that proove they work, every brand of running shoe has its own research labs, to prove that there latest “technology” works, but do any of the research get published? Not for you or me to see.
Digging through this research to find what is independent or not is hard, and most everyday athletes are not going to bother, so they will just go by what the marketers are telling them and I hope that it is not doing them damage.
Sports Nutrition
In my previous post on muscle cramp, I came to the conclusion that electrolyte drink was unnecessary. The need for these drinks seems to have been more of a marketing ploy than any a piece of research approved by peers. So what does that say about the rest of the sport nutrition out there? I’m not going to answer that one today, that’s another blog. But I am truly developing the philosophy that natural is best, but this is rather hard to come by these days, and damn difficult to carry on a run (still haven’t tried boiled potatoes on a really long day), and with out further research can see the advantage of gels and bars. Especially, now that I’m cutting the electrolyte drinks and the energy they also provided.
Compression Tights
There is so much marketing hype around these at the moment. I was actually going to write todays blog on the pro’s and con’s of compression types. But I got weighed down in the marketing surrounding them, so it is a subject I will tackle at a later date.
I know that there are serious detractors out there for compression tights, especially amoung sporting professionals. I think it’s because there is no conculsive evidence either way. Sometimes I feel concerned that so many people are wearing these garments, and some do not truly understand what they do or even what the purpose is.
I call my self a skeptic of the compression gear, but I love my skins (as mentioned in this post), I wear my tights religiosly after any hard work out, and swear they work (I allowed to be contrary 
)… but I can’t prove that. I have been thinking about doing a test on my self, 1 week wear them, the next week with similar training load without them, but there are so many other factors that could effect the outcome. What I am truly skeptical off is short compression stuff, ie T-shirt & shorts, whats the purpose of that? as the whole point is to aid vascular return from the extremities isn’t it? And wearing them while training, as far as i know there is no benefits. But Paula Radcliffe uses the socks all the time, and it is something I want to look into further. I do use a compression top while paddling, but this is more about supporting my posture over a long period of time than about improving performance.
Running shoes
Every brand of shoe has it latest and greatest technology. And then there’s all the running shoe shops to anaylse your gait and get you into the correct shoe… but what is the correct shoe? why is pronation bad? should we be heading back toward the more natural “barefoot” shoe? Whatever the answer you come up with one of the shoe companies will have the research and shoe to back it up.
Lets look at the basic’s. Pronation is the natural footfall. If you don’t pronate, than sorry theres something wrong with you. So does preventing this pronation, which all those shoe shop analysis machines try to do, prevent injury? No it doesn’t. There is evidence to suggest that by preventing the natural pronanation of the foot we are encouraging more muscle activation, as the body try’s to adjust itself for impact.
I am a severe pronator, I have other issues in a form of a neuroma. I have ugly solid shoes that prevent me from having any “feel” with a trail. I would love to run in my Trubco’s but I can’t as I end up with foot pain. I’m getting expensive custom made orthodics to try and prevent both my problems.
Have my problems only been esabated by being sold “stabilty control” shoes from my very first proper running shoes? Have these shoes just weakened my foot, muscles, so I can’t run in other types without getting pain. If I want to try using a neutral shoe I’ll have to go right back to basics and build my foot muscles back up…but I am not 100% that would work for me, especially when I still need inserts, to prevent the neuroma pain. I thought I was doing the right thing, going to the running shop and getting proper analysis. They told me I had to have that shoe. But what proof did they give me to show that’s why I needed it? I just took there word for it and walked out a happy customer, thinking I had done the right thing but what kind of long term effect has it had on me… or maybe it’s had none, and if I had walked out with a neutral shoe would be in the same or worse position?
Conclusion
Its a mine field out there, and whatever you decide to do, try and do it with as much information that you can gather, it might seem fine, but what could the possible long term effects.
No more snap decisions form me based on what the salesman said, or even what the website says. Take the skins website, they give evidence of “independent” research. They give a highlighted synapses of the results, but they do not give me the entire research paper, so how can I make a informed decision on what they have sumarised for me. So if I want to make a informed decision, I have to go away, try and find a way to get my hands on the paper (probably pay) .
Reference
