Gravitational wellness program

[Jr_Geezer]

(My apologies if this is a duplicate post. I keep getting logged out while composing the post and don't know if it actually was sent.)

Rip,

While doing research for an introductory clinical research course, I came across a paper investigating the benefits of 'gravitational wellness weightlifting'. The program (gravitationalwellness.com) consists of four basic lifts, moving fairly substantial weights over what appears to be a ridiculously small ROM. What caught my eye is that PPST was cited as an example for this (clumsily worded) statement from the paper: "(gravitational wellness is) a weightlifting technique that has been previously reported to result in significantly heavier weights lifted and significant weekly gains compared to other weightlifting programs." I was just wondering if you had seen this particular program. The paper is at Rate of injury and subjective benefits of gravitational wellness weightlifting. There are several flaws to this (self-reported, retrospective) study, but the participants seemed pleased and no one got hurt. Not sure how much strength they actually gained given the nature of the movements, though.

-RJP

[Mark Rippetoe]

First I've heard of this paper. Standard exfizz drivel. Can't even spell my name correctly.

[shib]

The Gravitational Wellness System was developed by Professor Anatoly Samodoumov, a well-known Russian physiologist, weight trainer and licensed spiritual healer.

I feel like this says everything that needs to be said about this. I wasn't aware that they handed out licenses for spiritual healing, but unless Odin himself came down and notarized the document I don't think there's anything useful to be gained from listening to these people.

[Steve Hill]

Note the high degree of specificity in referencing your work as well.

In any event, it was at least good for a laugh:

With all of these exercises completed, the participant was instructed to refrain from eating for 2–3 hours. The instructors noted that this instruction was to avoid a shift in the body’s energy system from muscle strengthening to that of digestion.

[LimieJosh]

This is a good example of what represents one of the biggest challenges to the science industry at the moment - pay to play, open access journals. The traditional model for journal publication is that it is associated with a professional society (American Journal of Physiology is the flagship journal of the American Physiological Society) and society membership dues, plus additional subscription fees for non-members cover the cost of running the journal. However, this resulted in access that was deemed too limited in this modern internet age. The response was a move to an open access model, an approach in which after an article goes through peer review and is accepted for publication the author pays the costs. The journals I work with who operate this model are typically in the $3000 range. The result is a publication that anyone can access and there is tremendous upside to this. The downside is that predatory publishers have exploded with new journals that only pay lip service at best to peer review and accept more or less anything that is willing to pay the publication fee. Dove Press and the "Journal of Sports Medicine" (very similarly named to established respectable journals) are on the common predatory lists.

This website helps track this phenomenon and illustrates the growth of the problem - https://scholarlyoa.com/2016/01/05/b...blishers-2016/

Even as a professional scientist, sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference, and many well meaning scientists have published work they are proud of in these journals. However, almost everyone is now aware that you can land a crappy pile of data and conclusions in one of these pay for play journals as long as you've got the grant money or institutional funds to pay $3000. Pubmed should filter out most of these, as there are criteria that a journal is required to hit to enter into their database, but many of these journals have become successful enough that they've met the Pubmed requirements. This paper in this journal is a case in point.

The need for skepticism and critical thinking when reading so called professional publications is now higher than ever.

[Sean Herbison]

First I've heard of this paper. Standard exfizz drivel. Can't even spell my name correctly.

13. Rippetone M, Kilgore L. Practical Programming for Strength Training. 2nd ed. Wichita Falls (TX): Aasgaard; 2009.

Mark Ripped'n'toned.

[AndrewLewis]

How do they even fuck up citations? That's like the first thing you learn how to do in college. Did they use easybib and then not bother to check it?

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'm sure they misspelled it on purpose. Just being funny.

[Jr_Geezer]

I'm sure they misspelled it on purpose. Just being funny.

Actually, PPST is referenced in a couple of other papers by that same group from Emory. This is the only one I saw with the misspelling. Does show a certain level of carelessness, for sure.

-RJP

[Zackr]

This is a good example of what represents one of the biggest challenges to the science industry at the moment - pay to play, open access journals. The traditional model for journal publication is that it is associated with a professional society (American Journal of Physiology is the flagship journal of the American Physiological Society) and society membership dues, plus additional subscription fees for non-members cover the cost of running the journal. However, this resulted in access that was deemed too limited in this modern internet age. The response was a move to an open access model, an approach in which after an article goes through peer review and is accepted for publication the author pays the costs. The journals I work with who operate this model are typically in the $3000 range. The result is a publication that anyone can access and there is tremendous upside to this. The downside is that predatory publishers have exploded with new journals that only pay lip service at best to peer review and accept more or less anything that is willing to pay the publication fee. Dove Press and the "Journal of Sports Medicine" (very similarly named to established respectable journals) are on the common predatory lists.

This website helps track this phenomenon and illustrates the growth of the problem - https://scholarlyoa.com/2016/01/05/b...blishers-2016/

Even as a professional scientist, sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference, and many well meaning scientists have published work they are proud of in these journals. However, almost everyone is now aware that you can land a crappy pile of data and conclusions in one of these pay for play journals as long as you've got the grant money or institutional funds to pay $3000. Pubmed should filter out most of these, as there are criteria that a journal is required to hit to enter into their database, but many of these journals have become successful enough that they've met the Pubmed requirements. This paper in this journal is a case in point.

The need for skepticism and critical thinking when reading so called professional publications is now higher than ever.

This was really insightful -- thanks for posting. I had heard a little bit about this issue, but I didn't have this level of information.