Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris was absolutely alarming, and makes me rethink everything I've ever learned in the past.  Everything I believe that is based on "medical research" has lost its luster for me.
And this book was very timely with the current state of the world, and all of the studies and "research" being done for COVID.

Richard Harris uncovers "sloppy science" procedures, and explains that over half of the studies being done cannot even be replicated due to poor experimental designs and biases, pressures to get published, pressures to get funding, and many more reasons.  I found it very interesting when Harris explains that the issue is not all due to sloppy scientific techniques.  Scientists truly do want to produce findings that are beneficial to society. Harris writes that funding is scarce and the pressure to publish in high-impact journals is intense. As a result, scientists prioritize studies that are likely to get the most attention over less sexy but perhaps more beneficial work. Harris explains that the pressure to publish and receive grant money drives scientists to run experiments in a way that undermine the reliability of their work. Sometimes scientists will exaggerate results or ignore data that doesn't fit their theory in order to 'publish' the results they want.

Clearly, this is an issue that will take a while to fix, but hopefully Harris' book encourages every scientist to scrutinize her experimental design and encourage other scientists to try to reproduce findings. In the meantime, I'll be leery of anything that claims to be backed by medical research. 

The Book Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris is a real "wake-up" book!
To be honest it was actually quite scary to see how little scientific evidence is repeatable and in turn, potentially not at all true… Especially when we live in a world the is so driven by data! 

One of the first big things that stood out was the amount of money that is pumped into science… Typically with the desire of founding out something that the funder is wanting to find out. With the scientific field becoming even more cutthroat it’s almost no surprise that at times falsified data/theories are given.  

Unfortunately though, at times scientists seem childish… or more so how science as a whole seems to go about their findings is childish. I once talked to a scientist who told me the whole point of his job was to discredit other scientists finding. This comes across in the book. As well as a lack of wanting to share data (right or wrong) to help the greater good of science to take steps further forward together! 

It seems like a simple have you followed these steps system implementation could help with a lot of wasted trials, studies and findings… How do you govern a body that’s not open to it though?

It seems that with the implementation of new technology we can expect great things… But also greater mistakes being made. The perfect example of this is the A.I bot in which they fed the 1000 photos of static into. The bot was programmed to find a photo of Einstein… It claimed to have found a photo and spat out the clear picture of Einstein even though. It wasn’t fed into the machine! 

This book has changed the way I view scientific backing… It really seems that the scientific world, unfortunately, lacks integrity! 

Regarding CF I think it shows that a trial and error approach to coaching at times is the best method. Everybody is slightly different and the coaching cue that works best for an individual is the one that encourages the correct change you were aiming for. If at first, you don’t succeed, try and try and try again!

	The book, Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris, takes an in-depth look at the medical academic community as well as the urgency for the publication of articles for people wishing to either secure a job or advance in their field of study. I believe the author did a good job in pointing out many of the problems facing the industry such as the lack of reproducibility of the studies and the wide spread of misinformation based on flawed studies. I was surprised at the lack of accountability in the industries over the publication of bad information and the unwillingness for researches to admit when they made a mistake,  
              The book opens with a story about how C. Glenn Begley decided to expose the amount of fallacious scientific studies published in the medical community. Not being in the medical community I was unaware to the extent of published journal articles which could not be replicated of were willed towards a certain outcome due to desire for researchers to have more funding by certain companies. I was shocked to find out that “one of the studies he couldn’t reproduce has been cited more than 2,000 times by other researchers” (p. 13). I feel that this would be a good starting point to use with clients in the gym and use that connection between bad publications to the bad diets out there. 
              The section titled, “It’s Hard Even on the Good Days” painted a picture of how unsuccessful many scientific experiments truly are, but reiterates the idea “are we sure that the success rate of 11% of landmark papers isn’t a bonanza?” (p.39). I felt this was a good way to shift the mindset towards a more positive focus. The author then goes to point out how many of the experiments could have slight variations which cause much different outcomes, such as washing a test tube with soap and water versus acid. This would be a good analogy to use with clients in the gym to show them how even if they follow a rigorous workout regimen, if they do not have the proper nutrition then they might not get the same results as someone else following the same workout prescription. Its about the small variables. 
              The next few sections that dealt with ALS and cancer spoke to me personally. My wife is currently going through treatment for stage 3 breast cancer and reading how a melanoma cancer cell was mistakenly use in research for breast cancer even though they respond differently to treatment made me raise questions to the number of women who have had reoccurring breast cancers since their doctors used studies based on the wrong type of cancer, so they received the wrong type of treatment. This section had me raising some questions. 
              One quote I found very eye-opening was about how the mice reacted regarding stress and the results that had on the experiments. I found the statement on page 80 to be very thought provoking, that animals who are more anxious and stressed-out are more immune suppressed.  I would use this
with my clients at the gym to illustrate how effective using exercise as a way to destress could improve their health not only at the waistline but on a cellular level as well. 
              The center of the reading really focused on making a very convincing argument for the lack on integrity in medical academic publications by presenting case after case where this was very evident. The concept of HARKing could be avoided if “they did a better job of keeping track of their ideas-especially if they documented what they were planning to do before they actually sat down to do it” (p. 146). This whole area of the book stood out because all I could think of was the fact that CrossFit has been an open-source way of collecting information on all the workouts and measuring the effectiveness of the program over the decades by gathering peoples scores on workouts and measuring progress. It is apparent that the way CrossFit documents their approach to health and wellness is far more reliable than even the “one-name journals”, as Harris put it. I would use this example with my clients as an example to the effectiveness of the CrossFit methodology and brand name. 
              The book ends with some ideas about how the broken culture in medical publications can be corrected. The accountability aspect is one that I found to be very interesting. Using the examples mentioned in the text I would be able to show ways in which the FDA has made claims about overall health with the food pyramid, or give clients examples of foods that are marketed as healthy when they are actually just cleverly disguised hyper-palatable edible food-like substances or loaded with sugars. 
              Overall, my takeaway from this book was that in all professions there is a need to get results fast.  Those employed in the biomedical industry are tying to get as many publications attached to their name so that they can have upward mobility in the field, even though the people looking at their publication numbers most likely haven't read any of their publications. Speeding up the research to get results often produces bad results. This can also be true for a health and wellness program. Health and wellness is a life long journey and should not be marketed as a quick fix, rather a lifestyle change. 

Turkey trot time.  35:12, pretty good time for me.
Happy thanksgiving, y’all!!!

For time, with 80# (Rx is 115#)
10 shoulder presses
15 overhead squats 
20 push presses
25 front squats
30 push jerks 
35 back squats 
12:04

Happy Thanksgiving to all!