He sums up the following observations about how the human mind is hardwired to be biased.
It's interesting, funny and quite true, so I shall quote him!
- We see patterns where there is only random noise
- We see causal relationships where there are none.
- We overvalue confirmatory information for any given hypothesis.
- We seek out confirmatory information for any given hypothesis.
- Our assessment of the quality of new evidence is biased by our previous beliefs.
I also love this quote by Darwin:
Whenever a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones.
I am probably one of the worst people to make assumptions. I do it all the time, making split second judgements on people or cherry picking facts to strengthen an argument, omitting those that don't. That's survival in the real world, when time pressures mean you can't always compile all the facts, but I am still a scientist at heart and I balk sometimes at my own ability to draw really bad conclusions because I want to believe it. My education was in Microbiology and Molecular Biology to MSc level and I confess that does not make me a good scientist, in fact I was dreadful at the practical stuff and had more success in killing things than I did keeping them alive. In spite of this, the process and practical experience does teach you to be critical.
The scientific method isn't perfect and there are many questions it can't answer, but it is a good start. It's a systematic approach which is a good one and even in a field like strength and conditioning research where people often defy all scientific principle there is an essential place for it. These results contribute to a knowledge base for the coaching process, based on some combination of: what you know(5%), what you think you know (75%) and guess work! (20%)
Dr. Stokes, whom I went to see has been working in the field of exercise endocrinology (study of hormones) for the over a decade. It was a fantastic opportunity to get a more scientific viewpoint and a really different opinion to mine, which is I believe it has large implications to training adaptations.
Another Opinion
The really interesting take home message from talking to Dr. Stokes, is he has found no strong evidence to suggest altering anabolic hormone profiles within their "normal" range has an effect on building and maintaining muscle mass. There is no doubt that extreme levels of hormones below or above the normal range do bring about physiological change but there doesn't appear to be a dose - dependent response within the norm; whatever that is! In addition, how these hormones work and what exactly they do is unknown as well. Growth hormone, for example is often touted as the elixir of life for its cell regeneration capacities and increase in muscle mass and fat metabolism, but yet there is no strong evidence that it does increase muscle mass. It's primary role is thought to increase the cell turnover in collagen and hence increase mass of connective tissue; tendons etc. This increase in collagen is a possible reason for why it increases size of muscle. Jury is out on its role in fat metabolism.
Whether these findings or lack of, is because of flaws in the methodology or because that is genuinely the reality, who knows and I think that is where we start to see the limitations of exercise endocrinology. It is very difficult to identify causality, which is what athletes, coaches, practitioners and scientists want to know. The new direction for trying to illicit answers is looking to molecular biology in the muscle itself (rather than circulating blood), gene regulation and proteomics. In terms of practical implications, nutrition and timing is proving efficacious too. Dr. Stuart Phillips has done some interesting work with timing and dose of protein. It is worth a read; Protein consumption and resistance exercise: maximising anabolic potential.
The problem of causality
The question is then, what can exercise endocrinology actually show us in relation to anabolism of muscle? The best one can hope to do is create associations and correlations but causality is really really difficult to deduce. A good example of this, is the following study looking at testosterone and cortisol levels in elite and non-elite women.
Comparison of baseline free testosterone and cortisol concentrations between elite and non-elite female athletes. (Cook, CJ, 2012). The elite women had significantly higher (over twice as much) resting testosterone (87pg/ml) compared to the non elite women (41pg/ml). Cortisol was also higher in the elites (2.90ng/ml) than the non-elites (2.32ng/ml) P<0.01.
Determining why this may be is really tricky to answer. Perhaps these elite women genetically had higher baseline levels anyway? or is this a consequence of a training effect? Again, we see these differences in hormone profiles in trained versus non-trained women with regards to growth hormone. Trained women have the ability to lift heavy weight, thus creating an adequate stimulus to illicit an increase in anabolic hormone. Untrained women simply can't lift enough absolute weight to bring about these adaptations. So..these correlations are really interesting but what actually can they tell you about how to train subject groups.
To add more confusion about how to view hormones and put them in context, Dr. Stokes thinks there maybe an alternate hypothesis about testosterone. Rather than it being an anabolic hormone in the direct sense, it may increase "readiness" to train, focus and therefore the ability to maximise a strength training workout. It is the hard effort which then brings about muscle catabolism and anabolism. Rather like how pre-workout supplements are designed to work.
Everything has a place
In conclusion, manipulating certain hormones through training, may not produce as much of a stimulus for muscle growth and strength gains as previously thought because the upper limit that can be produced naturally just may not be enough. (However, I expect there are super responders that defy that law).
There is no doubt that chemical enhancement beyond these limits i.e injections of a lot of exogenous hormone, do produce big gains in muscle mass and conversely medical conditions that cause very low hormone levels also result in big physiological changes. I can contest to this after a concussion caused a malfunctioning anterior pituitary, plummeting growth hormone levels and a loss of 10kg of muscle mass in a very short space of time. So, it seems hormones and their effects are easier to study at their extreme ranges but within a normal range it's a damn sight more tricky.
Of course there are others who advocate that training does and can alter hormone profiles dramatically but again can we ever really know what is causing what?
I don't know if my opinion of the importance of hormones has been swayed but what I have realised is I need to be a little more critical of what I read, knowing that there is a limitation to what certain studies can and can not tell you; that people are humans and not muscle cells or rats and consequently complex and very difficult to study!! I also believe I fall prey to bad science because I am admittedly biased, probably attributed to from a very unpleasant personal experience. It is amazing at how powerful belief is and how easily it can override rational thought. Placebo effect for a start can verify that.
And then it is a matter of knowing when the scientific method is essential to apply and when it is not. Dealing with people is not always scientific at all and trying to answer questions of the heart and motivational issues are not best by applying logical thought.
So I think, forming good conclusions requires thought of what is the best system or systems to answer it. Deciding whether to give credit to scientific information for incorporation into a coaching method requires scientific reasoning but how you convey that information to a person probably requires a very different approach- sometimes even telling them the opposite of what you want them to do!!
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