Why You Need to Read Fitness Research

I remember the first time I forced myself to think about exercise science in a critical way. It was the late ’90s, and I was just getting settled into my new gig as fitness editor at Men’s Health magazine.

I’d spend the previous six years at Men’s Fitness, but the two jobs couldn’t have been more dissimilar. At the Weider magazines, more often than not, we got training information from people who used it. Bodybuilders supplied workouts to the bodybuilding magazines (in theory; the writers themselves often came up with the actual programs), and at Shape and MF we relied on trainers who worked with celebrities and athletes. Proof that it worked came from the physique or performance of whoever they trained.

MH, though, liked to have a research-based angle to everything it covered. I could see the need when it came to health and nutrition articles, but I was way out of my depth when I tried to connect research to meat-and-potatoes workout articles. I’d never visited PubMed or read a fitness study.

The MH fitness advisor at the time was Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., a truly nice man. But I didn’t like the advice he gave the magazine, particularly when it came to research he’d done on Super Slow training. The magazine accepted it uncritically as proof that slow lifting — 14-second repetitions — made you stronger than fast lifting. I knew in my gut this couldn’t possibly be true, but to prove it I had to find and point out two serious flaws in the study design:

• The “fast” lifting was the Nautilus protocol of 7-second reps.
• “Strength” was measured as who gained more strength at each rep speed. The 14-second lifters got better at lifting weights in 14 seconds, and that became the proof that Super Slow lifting made you stronger.

It was like comparing the table manners of an idiot and a moron and determining that the former should rule the world because he didn’t drool as much as the latter. There was no measure of functional strength. (If you’re curious, Clarence Bass wrote a complete takedown of the study.)

Over time I learned to enjoy finding, reading, and attempting to analyze research. I knew I’d gone off the deep end one day when some coworkers and I were warming up for our weekly basketball game. Here’s how I started a conversation: “So I was reading this Taiwanese handball study …”

I’ve never heard Mark Young begin a sentence that way, but I have enjoyed his blog posts, and I learned a lot from his new product, How to Read Fitness Research … something I really could’ve used back when I was struggling in my new job at MH.

Mark is a fitness and nutrition consultant in Hamilton, Ontario, and currently finishing up his master’s degree in exercise physiology. I got him to answer a few questions about his obsession with research.

What do we know from fitness research that would surprise the average person working out in a gym? Hit me with some bullet points.

• The infamous Tabata studies [20-seconds-on, 10-seconds-off intervals] did not investigate fat loss.
• Fasting for up to 72 hours actually increases the metabolism, not decreases.
• Meal frequency is not very important for muscle gain and fat loss.
• In a recent study comparing various diets, the largest difference between diets was less than 10 pounds in a year.
• Glycemic index has very little additional effect on weight loss.
• Reps as high as 25 per set can stimulate muscle growth just as well as low reps. (This study was just completed.)
• Concentric contractions may be equally effective for muscle growth as eccentric contractions when the amount of mechanical work is matched. (This is from my own research, which has been submitted for publication.)

What do you think is the biggest misconception about fitness research, and who’s responsible for it?
 
I think the biggest misconception is that it doesn’t have any validity in the “real world.” I can’t say for sure who’s responsible. There are some in the industry who state that research is of little value, but I think people rationalize this so they don’t have to make the effort to read it for themselves.
 
How should a fitness professional use research? At what point should he alter what he’s doing with clients to reflect the results of studies he’s read?
 
I think a good place to start would be to take a look at the assumptions or rules that they currently use to govern their program design. If research suggests that the rules are not really based on any solid evidence, then they should feel free to attempt something new. I’ve found that reading research disproves many of the common rules associated with training and nutrition, and allows more freedom of choice in the programs you design.
 
What would you say to my 1998 self to help me learn to read and use research?
 
I would suggest three simple steps:
 
Step 1: Start reading lots of research. It’s going to suck at first, but it’ll get better with practice. Many people never take this first step.
 
Step 2: Learn basic statistics. It may sound like a snoozefest, but a very basic statistical primer can totally change how you interpret research and fitness information in the media.
 
Step 3: Focus on one area. Methods for studying physiology are so complex that even researchers specialize. Start with a laser-like focus and then expand your reading over time.
 
Let’s assume that the average fitness professional has limited time to read studies. So when he sits down to catch up on a topic — let’s say he’s writing a blog post on whether interval training is more effective than steady-state cardio for fat loss — what’s the most efficient way to do that?
 
The first thing I would do is look for a review paper, which is basically a summary of research on a specific topic. This will give you a pretty comprehensive understanding of where research in the field is heading. From this, I would go to the references of the paper and extract all those that are relevant to you. Get those papers, and read them for yourself so you’re not influenced by the biases of the person writing the review. Those studies will have their own references, and you might also want to check out some of those.

But for starters, a review paper will give you the most relevant information in the least amount of time. 
 
Help me filter out the noise. What kinds of research should I ignore, or at least push to the back of the pile?
 
Correlational research is one of the more popular types cited in fitness circles, but it probably deserves way less attention than it gets. For example, it might suggest a correlation between the invention of cold breakfast cereals and obesity rates.

Really, it only shows that these two things happen to be related. It doesn’t mean that one thing necessarily caused the other. You can’t conclude that you need to stop eating cereal to lose body fat. In fact, you can’t really make any hard conclusions from this type of research. If you’re short on time, it might be best left at the back of the pile.
 
Mechanistic research is often used by researchers to look at why a specific change happens on a program. But it doesn’t really tell us what the specific outcome of that program will be. For example, researchers could look at calorie expenditure or even fat oxidation — trendy terms in the fitness world — but neither of those matter unless the study is actually measuring fat loss over time.

Both of these types of studies indicate fat loss should happen, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will. I wouldn’t alter my programs because of them.
 
My favorite example of the limits of research came at the end of baseball’s steroid era. The stat community was outraged that sportswriters drew conclusions about the influence of steroids on performance. They dug out studies on steroids and growth hormone to prove that PEDs didn’t actually enhance performance all that much. My response was that the research didn’t look at the doses and stacks the athletes used.

I’d love to say that my old blog posts were vindicated, since every ballplayer whose performance raised red flags has either admitted steroid use or is known to have juiced beyond any reasonable doubt.

Now that I’m done ranting, tell me what we can’t learn from research.
 
I don’t think that there is anything that can’t be researched. If it can be tested, it can be studied. However, in specific cases you’re limited by ethical concerns, so you can’t do a well-controlled study. You could, but you’re not allowed.

For stuff that we can’t ethically study, like smoking and high doses of steroids, we can use correlational research and look at the relationships to outcomes — performance, death rates, etc.

Again, this stuff doesn’t demonstrate cause, but in some cases it’s all you can get. And in the particular case you mentioned, those using the drugs would have to come right out and admit to it so correlations could be done.
 
What do you think we don’t now know, but will know in the next 5-10 years?
 
I think we’ll know a lot more about brown adipose tissue [aka brown fat] and its potential effects on fat loss. Much research is being done to develop drugs to stimulate this tissue in the hopes of finding a treatment for obesity.
 
I also think we’ll start to see more research done on cognitive behavioral strategies for weight loss. I have a strong hunch that the research on behavioral change will influence the way we help people lose weight and become active, as opposed to the current focus on physiology.

Thanks Mark!

Click here for more information on Mark’s new product, How to Read Fitness Research. (I’m not participating in an affiliate program. If you choose to buy the product, tell Mark he owes me a beer.)

Tags: Tags: baseball, correlational studies, fitness research, mark young, mens fitness, mens health, steroids, weider