Summer Olympics Pseudoscience?

Black Swan

While watching the August 2016 Summer Olympics I noticed that many of the swimmers had these unusual red circular marks all over their skin. One of the announcers noted that the swimmers were "cupping," which was claimed to somehow be related to improved swimming performance. Popular Science notes there was no scientific foundation for cupping, and that it's yet another form of pseudoscience that often pops up in highly competitive athletic events like the Olympics.

What do you think?

Capt'n Midnight

It would get the adrenalin going for a while.

And the placebo effect works , even when you know it's a placebo.

There's also the psychological effect when other competitors wonder if there's anything in it.

mzungu

I expect sales of it to go up. A few celebs will join in on the trend, and next thing you know there will be cupping hashtags and endless selfies to boot. Somebody somewhere will make money, and the fact it might not have any real benefits will not matter too much I'd say..

Black Swan

There were several articles published in the area of complementary and alternative medicine that claimed cupping involved applying a heated cup to generate a partial vacuum that mobilized the blood flow and promoted effective healing. For example, Piyush Mehtaa, Vividha Dhapte (July 2015) Cupping therapy: A prudent remedy for a plethora of medical ailments, Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, Volume 5, Issue 3, Pages 127–134.

The articles I have glanced through mostly originated in countries that have historically used cupping, frequently claiming ancient origins for the practice. The early origins and wide spread contemporary practices where all too often claimed as givens, per se, as if they were accepted without question to have merit. They appeared more descriptive in style and content like literature reviews, and not empirical studies guided by the scientific method, so I would exercise great caution before accepting their conclusions.

ScumLord

What are the plasters the divers wear. I saw a bit of the womens diving yesterday and they all had these pretty large plasters stuck to parts of them.

Black Swan

ScumLord wrote: »

What are the plasters the divers wear. I saw a bit of the womens diving yesterday and they all had these pretty large plasters stuck to parts of them.

Like cupping, which had little or no empirical evidence based upon the scientific method to support their claims, the weird tape worn by divers and other Olympians may be yet another example of pseudoscience. It's called kinesio tape, or "K-tape" (named after Kenso Kase of Japan), and it's said to be an elastic brace used to relieve pain for athletes.

If K-tape was associated with increased athletic performance, odds were that it will be attributed to a placebo effect, which may be similar to superstitious behaviour also exhibited by many athletics that wear the same medal about their necks during competitions, or make specific repetitive motions immediately before a competitive event.

Mary McClung and Dave Collins (2007), “Because I know It will!”: Placebo Effects of an Ergogenic Aid on Athletic Performance, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 2007, 29, pp 382-394, was an interesting read on yet another placebo effect (pseudo-enhancing drug) that tended to be associated with athletic performance.

Akrasia

I'd be interested if anyone could do a study of the number of athletes who displayed K tape or cupping bruises and compared them with the number who didn't to see what proportion of them broke their own PB at this years Olympics.

4068ac1elhodqr

Aside from blood circulation, it's suggested cupping can help with lymph drainage (there's much more lymph than blood in your system). therby improving qi flow along meridian lines, so fairly similar to acupuncture and crystal/aurasonic clearing of the 'aul chakara centers(as you do).

For 2020 I'd be disappointment no to see witness pre-event kata combined alpha level meditations for focus enhancement, pyramidology based recovery structures on site, and portable rebounders for even more drainage.

Black Swan

Akrasia wrote: »

I'd be interested if anyone could do a study of the number of athletes who displayed K tape or cupping bruises and compared them with the number who didn't to see what proportion of them broke their own PB at this years Olympics.

I'm sure there will be many studies conducted regarding cupping and K-taping when examining the results of Summer Olympics 2016. The problems with such studies will be that they are retroactive, exhibit non-control design, with terribly small non-random samples that cannot be generalised to the population of athletes, and with self-selection convenience samples of those that cup, or tape, or both, or not, and associated confounding that results. At best such prescientific and retroactive 2016 Summer Olympic studies may suggest future controlled and experimental studies, but have extraordinary validity and reliability limitations that cannot be generalised without better designed future studies.

Akrasia

Black Swan wrote: »

I'm sure there will be many studies conducted regarding cupping and K-taping when examining the results of Summer Olympics 2016. The problems with such studies will be that they are retroactive, exhibit non-control design, with terribly small non-random samples that cannot be generalised to the population of athletes, and with self-selection convenience samples of those that cup, or tape, or both, or not, and associated confounding that results. At best such prescientific and retroactive 2016 Summer Olympic studies may suggest future controlled and experimental studies, but have extraordinary validity and reliability limitations that cannot be generalised without better designed future studies.

It's not a controlled experiment, but in events like swimming and track and field events, it's pretty well controlled for what it is. It's not a blinded study, but not all studies need to be double blinded, and given that the subject of the study is public displays of a placebo and how it affects performance during a competitive event, I don't think blinding is necessary.

A different kind of study would be where the same athlete is asked perform tasks with and without the placebo, but this study should to check whether on average, there is a competitive edge in a competitive environment.

All athletes had personal bests, they took part in multiple events under similar conditions through qualification and in the heats and finals of the olympics.

A survey asking about their history and current usage of these kinds of 'treatments' could allow the data to be tabulated between placebo affected results, and non placebo affected results.

You're going to get a scatter chart of performances, some athletes exceeded their personal best, others underperformed, but if there was a clear difference in the proportion of under or over performance between the different groups, we might get some useful information.

ScumLord

Akrasia wrote: »

A different kind of study would be where the same athlete is asked perform tasks with and without the placebo, but this study should to check whether on average, there is a competitive edge in a competitive environment.

I'd imagine this is pretty difficult. Athletes have to build up to a maximum performance. there are so many varibales in an organism as complex as a human that it would be virtually impossible to get the same conditions over two separate occasions. Weather, mood, nutrition, even getting it all done exactly the same would be no guarantee that you have the exact same conditions. That's why you have to break these kinds of tests down into their most basic, how do cells react, how does the chemical balance change, etc.. And of course the problem then is that those focused tests don't take everything into account, maybe it doesn't help your cells but changes the chemical balance in the athletes favor. It takes many decades of research to know one way or the other.

I suppose the problem for elite athletes like these is that they're dealing in fractions of a percent. I thousands of a second could mean the difference between first and second. As long as the procedure doesn't harm their effectiveness they may think I might as well do it just in case, any improvement may be the difference between a bronze medal and being forgotten.

Black Swan

Akrasia wrote: »

A survey asking about their history and current usage of these kinds of 'treatments' could allow the data to be tabulated between placebo affected results, and non placebo affected results.

Are you suggesting that those that currently use cupping or K-taping or both be surveyed to see if they feel it works before and after their adoption? You don't see any problems with confirmation bias?

Akrasia

Black Swan wrote: »

Are you suggesting that those that currently use cupping or K-taping or both be surveyed to see if they feel it works before and after their adoption? You don't see any problems with confirmation bias?

The survey would be about their history of usage of these procedures (cupping, k tape), the data would be their performance figures which are independently collected and recorded in the competitions they take part in.

In other words, the survey is to ask, when did you start using K tape or Cupping and the study would be to compare the competition performance of the athletes based on their results with or without the cupping/taping intervention, and the control group is the athletes that never used either procedure

If the cupping/taping groups performance increased more than the control group over the same period, then it would indicate that there is a performance advantage to using these kinds of placebos amongst high performance athletes.

It could also show no correlation or even a negative correlation.