The strange powers of placebo and a social expansion

The placebo effect, and expanding our social platform

Apologies for the long delay between posts!  With a busy work period for both of us, and a slew of bank holidays here in SA, the routine has been rather disrupted.  I'm still sitting on a series on 10,000 hours of training vs talent.  I'm also heading to the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in Denver from June 1 to June 4, and so preparing a presentation on the biological purpose and physiology of pacing strategies, which I'll share with you in due course.

But for now, a quick post to mention our new Facebook page, along with our Twitter account, where we are hoping to expand our social interaction with you.  That's part of the reason;  the other is to use Facebook and Twitter to "outsource" interesting content during these busy times.


So when Jonathan is wrapped up in Vitality work, and I'm involved in whatever happens to be the project of the moment (SA Sevens, UCT, SSISA or similar!), we'll use Twitter and Facebook to provide links to articles of interest, news stories and topics that are often what are keeping us from the site in the first place!  That way we can keep the information flowing when we don't have time for in-depth posts.

So first up, a call to get onto those platforms if you haven't already - join our Twitter feed for sports science shorts, an "article of the week" link to a paper I've been stewing over every week, as well as any other interesting stories that float across our desks.  Then join our Facebook page, launched yesterday, which replaces the old Facebook group, and will hopefully help open more dialogue and expand sports science even more.

We'll try to focus on those when work keeps us from posting more on the site!

The strange powers of the placebo effect

And then finally for today, you may recall a couple of posts in January on the Power Balance bracelets where we ended up discussing the power of the placebo effect.  Below is a great video on the placebo effect, describing some of the strange effects that have been found.  It's also really nicely put together, so enjoy!



Ross