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How Traditional Running Shoes Shut Down Your Hamstring

Discussion in 'Biomechanics, Sports and Foot orthoses' started by DaVinci, Apr 6, 2010.

  1. DaVinci

    DaVinci Well-Known Member


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    Do people actually fall for this sort of nonesne:

     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 22, 2016
  2. Sadly Yes.

    Applied Kinesiology by another name. Ideomotor effect would be another description. Suggestibility test would be a 3rd.

    The fun bit is that I bet he actually believes what he is saying!

    Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right, Here we are stuck in the middle with you.
     
  3. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    Utter b*&@$cks would be a 4th perhaps?
     
  4. Fairly accurate description I'd say. :D
     
  5. David Smith

    David Smith Well-Known Member

    What's that then?

    Don't know what he's trying to show but he certainly has a greater mechanical advantage on the last example.

    Dave
     
  6. Gents if I may did you test this on any patients today ?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 22, 2016

  7. http://www.skepdic.com/ideomotor.html

    In a nutshell, your right brain (subconcious) processes most information before your left. That's why optical illusions work (you know that, you've sat through my lecture on cognitive illusions). Works with visual data as in optical illusion, pure data as in cognitive illusions and on stuff like proprioception as well. Your subconcious is horribly suggestible.

    Standard susceptability test for hypnotherapy is to get someone to close their eyes, hold both arms at shoulder level and imagine they are holding a bag of feathers in one hand and a bucket of sand in the other. If you're lucky the sand arm will sag before the feathers one. This is like that, only different.
     
  8. Nope.

    If I had and I had found that it worked all I would have done is convince myself of how suggestible I was.

    Tell you what. I'm teaching a day course in a week and a half. What say I try a blinded study. Random tester, random subject, three muscle tests, say no trigger points, heel compression and squeezing the hallux. Muscle power rated as stronger or weaker than no trigger points for the last two. See what it throws up.

    I could even do one with the subject clenching their teeth.
     
  9. I´m just asking because sometimes it´s easy to say that´s a load of crap without stopping for a minute and thinking about it.

    We/I have spent the last 2 weeks discussing the CNS response to GRF at the foot interface on leg stiffness, pretty cool stuff - which does sound a bit wacky at the start but makes more and more sense to me everyday.

    My 1st thought on this was what a load of crap, but I tested on a couple of patients and the wife N=3 and the results were as expected no change to the hamstring strength, but there may have been something in it. As well as all the problems with my testing procedure, maybe yours will be better Robert even though the sarcasim is pretty clear to read in your post. ;):D
     
  10. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    Thats a no for me as well Mike.

    Point taken Mike - like you I prefer to try and keep an open mind with these things. My dismissal of this as nonsense was due to this chaps intimation that running shoes will have the same effect. Just another individual with an agenda I suspect.

    Rob knows a hell of a lot on suggestibility etc and looking into things such as the ideomotor effect and stage hypnosis make for some very interesting reading. Funnily enough I have literally just posted a link in another thread about this book - and thoroughly recommend it to you (Derren will have to put me on commission soon!). I read it on a recommendation from Rob and learnt a sh!t load.
     
  11. I agree I suspect the agenda would have been stated after the camera was turned off for all at the talk, but was just stirring the pot a little as well.;)

    I´ll put that one on the list with that bad science book you boys keep going on about or is this the same book ?
     
  12. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    Nope different book - glad they are both on the list! If you hold out until you are in London in a few weeks you'll pick them up in any Waterstones quite cheaply (probably 2 for 1).
     
  13. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    Here's an interesting blog entry on their website: http://www.zhealth.net/node/372
     
  14. JB1973

    JB1973 Active Member

    right i'm trying this tomorrow on everone i see from patients to the guy who delivers the water.

    i suspect its a load of betty swallocks mind you.

    i seem to remember some kind of 'magic trick' at school where you would put one arm out in front of you and someone would try to push it down ( and there would be obvious resistance)
    then they would 'draw' a line diagonally from your shoulder to hip with their hand and do it again (hey presto no resistance)
    i remember being quite impressed in 2nd year!
    JB
     
  15. Hey Mike.

    I always get accused of sarcasm when I don't mean it! Sorry if it came over that way. Not intended.

    The thing is, its not just the patients susceptibility you have to worry about, its also your own. Mainly your own in fact. That's why trying this out yourself is futile if you want to discover if there is any truth to it. Because even if you don't tell your patient what you are looking for, YOU'LL know. At which point you can't trust yourself to be accurate with your muscle testing.

    For that reason, Mike's N=3 negative result is also suspect.

    I know a few people who do applied kinesiology for food allergies. They all sincerely and honestly believe they exert the same pressure each time. The sad truth is, you just can't trust your own mind (even if you could trust someone elses)!

    I'm not saying that such a trigger is impossible, its not. But I'm afraid that just having a go will be as potentially deceptive to us as for this chap, who I'm certain believes firmly in what he's doing. Thus are myths propagated,

    There is a subtle difference between scepticism and cynicism. I try to come down on the sceptical side of the line (sometimes I miss).

    But if you have access to 30 or 40 people who don't know what the study is about, and have them in pairs, and "burn" each pair after the test, and don't let them communicate with the OTHER pairs, you might be able to find a pattern, if there is one there. Of course you'd have to be careful not to contaminate the data yourself by the way you delivered instructions. Students are good if you can borrow a load of those.

    One of the mentalism tricks I played with a while back was a non verbal suggestion. You give non verbal and "hidden" clues to somebody while asking them to think of a playing card. About one time in 5 I can get someone to pick the card I want, and they had no idea why they picked that card. When it works its so cool its scary. Based on that, how many non verbal clues would we subconsciously give for what we were expecting to happen?

    Its a bugger.

    Cheers
    Robert
     
  16. RobinP

    RobinP Well-Known Member

    Yes, agreed, not really sure what he is proving there.

    Still, going to see how suggestible I am tomorrow

    I'm no jedi so I fully expect to be wowed by this!

    Also going to get the books suggested

    The manipulations done at the heel - what are they? I have no experience in FMTs and have avoided reading about it as yet because there are too many other massive areas for me to read about at the moment. Are they standard mobilisation techniques?

    Robin
     
  17. Lab Guy

    Lab Guy Well-Known Member

    A classic book is "Power versus Force" by David Hawkins, MD, Phd.

    You can also weaken or strengthen another simply by your intent, words are not needed. I find it all very interesting and have yet to figure out how it works.

    I also will say that I do not believe that running shoes are going to weaken the hamstrings.

    Steven
     
  18. toomoon

    toomoon Well-Known Member

    to tell you the truth Robert.. I could not get all the way through the video... how the hell do these people get away with this stuff.. not sure whether to laugh or cry..
     
  19. RobinP

    RobinP Well-Known Member

    As I said I would do, I did the test on some subjects without telling them the reason for the test.

    Total B@##@*&$ was my reckoning. Which was disappointing. Being as gullible as I am, I fully expected that I would have suggested to myself that I was pushing just as hard and that, in fact, grasping the heel does weaken the hamstrings.

    It doesn't, but as Robert pointed out, even that is a flawed result/opinion.

    Robert, serious question....how reliable is any type of testing? Given the subjectivity and the expectation of a result based on history taking and questioning, are we actually reliable as testers period?

    Robin
     
  20. should we send a email to Dr Eric Cobb of Z-Health and ask about his research, methods of treatment and background science etc, Get him or some one else to come on and discuss it all, or just let it die ?
     
  21. David Wedemeyer

    David Wedemeyer Well-Known Member

    Please do, I would love to hear his explanation.
     
  22. Done.
     
  23. Serious question. I'll try. ;)

    I think it depends on several factors.

    First of all is good ole confirmation bias. We always seek positive information. We seek to prove what we believe. Hardwired that way. We can seek to overcome this by providing ourselves with a NULL hypothesis and trying to prove THAT but thats really just cheating. So there is a natural tendency to find the information we are looking for.

    Sometimes we have the subjects tendency to fill in the blanks. How often, when testing, to patients say ow then when you ask if that hurt say something like "well no but I was expecting it too". If they are thinking muscle testing the same could easily happen.

    Then we have the aforementioned ideomotor effect, which can affect both you and the patient.

    Its easy to get carried away with this stuff. You could end up not looking at anything in case you're really just a whelk dreaming you're a podiatrist having an irrational look at an unrepeatable error. Often time you CAN get it right.

    I would suggest that occams razor "Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate" if you want to be pretentious. Do not consider plurality without necessity. We KNOW that all these inaccuracies and biases exist. Easily reproducible. So when you have a test measurement try to judge, as impartially as possible, what is the most LIKELY explanation.

    Consider the example at hand we see a video in which somebody makes a very obvious suggestion, several times, In front of an audience (which heightens suggestibility btw), tries the test several times til he gets the desired effect, and positions himself in a way which gives him greater mechanical advantage.

    There are two rational possibilities. One is the ideomoter effect. The other is that that trigger is genuine.

    The first has been documented elsewhere. The second has not. The first is consistent with known principles (deductive evidence style) the second is not. To me it seems the second is "pluritas sine neccessitate".

    Now consider case 2. You are examining a patient with little advance knowledge. Testing the hamstrings you find the left leg weaker than the right. No audience. The patient has not been told what to expect. YOU have not been told what to expect. You get that result first pop and every time since. You do not move between tests.

    Same two possibilities. The second is now much more likely.

    I think that this is one of those things you cannot say is reliable or not reliable. A better description might be to say that the reliability is a probability score based on the circumstances of testing. If you see someone at a stage hypnosis show thinking that they can't lift their arm the overwhelming probability is that psychological mechanism. If someone wakes up from a spinal op where there is known risk of nerve damage and the same thing happens the psychological is still possible... but the circumstances make physiological much more likely.

    So, short answer, it depends.

    Just for fun, try the test again tomorrow, but this time do it exactly as in the video. Suggest ahead that this is a trigger, try it a few times, different position etc. And ask the patient if they felt their leg go weak.

    You'll be a jedi in no time ;)
     
  24. One of the slides from my heuristics lecture. Confirmation bias driven by the anchoring heuristic and the availability heuristic if you're interested.

    I do a study.

    I take a lady with HAV. I take a pain score.

    I put a 5mm semi compressed felt pad around the joint to protect it from pressure from the footwear. Like this.

    [​IMG]

    I fill the cavity with a soft, inert gel to protect the joint from friction (from the footwear).

    I replace the pad every week in clinic for 4 weeks so that the patient is never without it.

    At the end of the 4 weeks I take another pain score. Its lower.

    What is the most likely reason? All are possible. Rate them in order if you fancy playing along at home.

    1. The pad keeping the pressure off reduced the pain.

    2. The gel Keeping the friction down reduced the pain.

    3. The placebo effect / the hawthorn effect reduced the pain.

    4. The gel, which I thought to be inert, has anti-inflammatory properties not yet explained by biochemistry.
     
  25. No response in my email box when I got to work this morning. I let you know if I get one and no one comes on to discuss things with us.
     
  26. David Wedemeyer

    David Wedemeyer Well-Known Member

    My bet is you won't get a response but you never know. It would make for an interesting discussion.
     
  27. RobinP

    RobinP Well-Known Member

    HI Robert,

    First of all thanks for the answer to the question about testing - really interesting

    Now for a go at this. I feel like I'm on QI and a bell is going to start ringing as soon as I say something!

    On order of most likely

    No 2, No 3, No1, No 4

    How did I do?

    Robin
     
  28. 5. Gel has analgesic properties
    6. patient has developed neuropathy
    7. patient wasn't blinded and wants to show gratitude
    8. patient couldn't fit their shoes on with the pad so didn't wear any
    9. Patient is now dead

    etc.
     
  29. PMSL at simons!!

    No bell robin, I make you about right. We might argue about the order your first 3 go in but the important thing is that they are all highly plausible mechanisms.

    The last, that the paste had some unknown anti-inflammatory property is still possible, but you rate it last right? I would too.

    Now here's the trick. That protocol was used for a case study into homeopathy (that's where the photo came from). And sure enough it ascribed the reduction in pain to the jollop they filled the cavity pad with.

    Here it is in all its glory

    [​IMG]

    "Aha!" you say "you didn't tell us the paste might have been an active ingrediant!"

    But of course, that shouldn't matter. Because you are then weighting the probabilities based on what you want to find. Whether it's a topical steroid or rountree's jelly does not affect how likely the other factors are. If you were happy to ascribe the result to mechanical stuff before then you should STILL be happy to ascribe them to mechanics regardless of whats in the jollop.

    Confirmation bias see?

    The anchoring heuristic is the primary mechanism here. We tend to "latch" on one element or factor in any judgement or equation, then adjust for other considerations. That's why when you buy a sofa it will often be £600 REDUCED TO £300!!!! you brain processes (anchors) to the first number then adjusts to the second making 300 seem small.

    The way I wrote that experiment "anchored" to the mechanical. The other version "anchored" to the idea of a biochemical effect.

    The workings of the mind are infinitly fascinating!
     
  30. JB1973

    JB1973 Active Member

    sometimes i read a lot of stuff on this site and i get a sore head! could this be to do with

    1- sunstroke from being at loch lomond all day (is there a nicer place on Earth?)
    2-tiredness from lugging arond two under 5's at loch lomond all day
    3-red wine as a reward for number 2
    4-i have a small brain

    as you say Robert, the workings of the mind are infinitly fascinating. just wish it didnt hurt so much trying to understand it!
    cheers
    JB
     
  31. Looked at logically:-

    1: seems less probable since if we let H = "incidence of headache from reading pod arena" and S = "days hot enough to get sunstroke from being at loch lomond all day" then H>S1

    2: Is possible
    3: Has been shown to be a plausible mechanism for headache in ANY amount of small scale empirical studies as well as in peer review journals.24. Inconsistant with the evidence.

    So I'd order those 3,2,1,4.;)

    When you get right into this stuff you get to play the game of trying to process information left brain only and that can really give you a stonker of a migraine. :dizzy: Some books actually hurt to read.

    Robert

    1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_United_Kingdom accessed on 12/4/102

    2. Howland J, Rohsenow DJ, Allensworth-Davies D, et al. (May 2008). "The incidence and severity of hangover the morning after moderate alcohol intoxication". Addiction 103 (5): 758–65.
     
  32. So got to work this morning and "I had Mail"

    So here is my email to Dr Cobb

    I got this back there was no Note about being private information for my eyes only. Ian before you read this don´t hit yourself in the forehead too hard and yell too loudly.

    Ive taken out the persons name from the email the rest is as I received...

    so there you go.
     
  33. Since we're all having so much fun, here is a logic puzzle to see if you have autistic tendancies. Autistics have communication issues between different bits of their brains which make them capable of operating almost entirely in one zone at a time. The rest of us always get the right brain involving itself in left brain processes which makes it much harder to process in the realm of pure logic.

    I'll make it REALLY easy by telling you that the heuristic to overcome here is the same anchoring heuristic we looked at in the studies.

    If I tell you

    You could logically deduce
    With me so far?

    And if I told you

    You could likewise deduce that
    Simple enough

    So if I told you
    What statement can be made about theives and composers?

    Most people find this to be a bit like an optical illusion. Its hard for the mind to focus on the question. Thats because your subconcious right brain is getting in the way of your logical faculty.

    When I tried this first I found that not only could I not answer the question, I struggled to even THINK about the question. Its quite a horrid sensation. The strong instinct is to look at it, think "that makes no sense" and abandon it. To keep trying to focus on it is hard and may bring on that headache JB mentioned.

    I'd be interested to know how other people feel when they try to solve this. Try to focus on the question for at least 60 seconds without letting your mind wander and see what happens.

    Unless you're autistic, in which case the answer is immediatly apparant, or so I'm told. ;)

    Enjoy. Karma and kudos to whoever gets it.

    Robert
     
  34. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    Mike,

    Think that says it all really...
     
  35. Thought you would like it. I did shake my head this morning, but maybe Dr Cobb will come on and say hi.
     
  36. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

    Articles:
    8
    It never ceases to amaze me how deluded and gullible people are. ...of course citing Born to Run show just how gullible he really is by falling for the book!
     
  37. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    Exactly - using a semi-fictional resource a main citation tells us all we need to know about the 'science' behind their thoughts

    I also tend to struggle to fully believe statements such as:

    We've heard the same thing from Rothbart et al when invited to discuss their concepts - always 'too busy'. Funny that.
     
  38. BS doesn't write itself you know! These guys are busy ;)

    I think that's the science equivilent of "no comment".
     
  39. Just had a quick scoot through the website. Interesting.

    They linked to this study

    http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/112775868/HTMLSTART

    This might belong more in the barefoot running thread but interesting reading.

    The full text is online but here are the edited highlights

    I'd be very interested in peoples views on this paper.
     
  40. I think this also would fit in the leg stiffness thread.

    Barefoot increased stiffness and foot surface interface CNS response decreased leg stiffness through increased knee flexion etc. But and this is the BIG butt is this a good thing.

    The other thing is to consider if there is a 11.9% reduction noted in the knee adduction moment there must therefore be a 11.9% increase in the abduction moment. What does this have on the knee ?

    as an aside I know I will get into trouble for this, but

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMnjF1O4eH0&feature=fvst
     
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