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OPINION
Will homeopathy make you a fitter, faster, healthier cyclist?
Fri, Jul 21, 2017 23:07
19
Droplet (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Dolf Botha|Flickr).jpgNo
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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Why is this just in W Yorkshire? It should be implemented everywhere else as well
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There's the guideline that you don't apply a generalisation to individuals. That didn't happen here.
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19 comments
The theory of homeopathy says that the more a substance is diluted, the more effective it becomes. How come it doesn't work for alcohol then ?
Merely dressing up in skin tight lycra, often explicitly trying to look like other grown fit men who dress in skin tight lycra, then following them around all day getting sweaty whilst looking at their arses does NOT in ANY WAY imply that cycllists are homeos....
I drink Homeopathic Lager when riding my bike.
Really? I just don't like the taste of Aussie lager, but if you like it...
Even though homeopathy is pure quackery and completely useless, if a rider uses it in an attempt to improve performance, they can be banned.
6.3. Athletes’ health care providers should act in accordance with the latest recognised medical knowledge and, when available, evidence-based medicine.
Does this also apply to swimmers? If a swimmer deliberately ingests some sea-water then they're essentially taking every single homeopathic remedy at once including the banned substances.
How are they going to test for homeopathic doping? I bet they'd get loads of false positives.
Regarding the placebo affect, there must be a cheaper way of taking placebos than the high priced homeopathic "products" (water).
dilution.png
No, if it's too cheap it won't work as well ... we have a tendency to believe something is better the more it costs.
Sounds like titanium bits for bikes.
Short, sharp and to the point. Well put.
Q. What do you call alternative medicine that works?
A. Medicine
But if you believe in homeopathy and you use it to enhance performance, then even though there is no medication as such to detect in a test, surely you are still morally guilty of a doping offence?
The same thing could be said about eating a banana, or an 'energy' bar...
I don't recall any person detected as a drug cheat claiming they took a bunch of pills because they were hungry.
Presumably then you will receive a homeopathic ban? Banned from one in 10^20 events.
This is along the lines of a question my daughter asked today
"If a dog farts in the woods and there's no-one there, does it still smell?"
I prefer Steven Wright's:
“If a man says something in the woods and there are no women there, is he still wrong?”
Yes. As pointed out above, if the complaint is psychosomatic in origin homeopathy has as much chance of working as anything else. A positive attitude and belief that something can and will be cured / improved also correlates well with improvement. So, homeopathy may have a place, but so might your horoscope
It might ... the placebo effect does work on some people some of the time ... the precise treatment doesn't matter ... its belief that produces the required effect. Just don't count on it working as success cannot be predicted or guaranteed. For a stronger effect you could always try a hay fever remedy.