??? Looking for help--IIG West

[Jon Newman]

Hello all,

My brother wrote looking for some help and I think PTs^* are well suited for to provide some assistance. I gave him some ideas but I think things would run more smoothly if there was an actual PT involved. If you're interested after reading the following, simply PM me and I'll send you more contact information.

This Thursday, my skeptics group (Independent Investigations Group) is going to be videotaped for a story on Yahoo! News. We are conducting a test of the new product called Power Balance bracelets.

Apparently, the founder of Power Balance is going to be there and the reporter doing the story is Doninique Moceanu. She's an Olympic gold-medal-winning gymnast.

Usually, Power Balance tries to prove its effectiveness with demonstrations of applied kinesiology. We might try some of that if we can get the founder to conduct double blind tests. It's unlikely he'd participate, so we want to plan our own little Olympic games with tests of strength, flexibility and balance. Those are the three things Power Balance claims it helps with. Their will be multiple trials with the real Power Balance bracelets, with fake bracelets and with no bracelets. We've figured out a way to double blind the test so neither the athletes nor the test administrators will know which bracelet is which.

The problem is, we need to come up with some "events" that are quick and easy demonstrations of strength, flexibility and balance. You do tests like this all the time. Can you think of anything we might do that will not require special equipment or a lot of time? Or if we need special equipment, do you know any science oriented PTs here in Southern California that might be willing to help? They'd probably get into the Yahoo! News story and they'd get to meet a gold medallist.

Let me know.

Thanks,
Jim

^*I mentioned PTs specifically, but I realize other readers here may be able to help. Feel free to offer assistance if you can.

[Diane]

Jon, it's too bad you are not on Facebook. This is a perfect sort of thing to post there to recruit helpers. Would you like me to pass this on?

[Jon Newman]

Please do. .

Feel free to tweet also. None of my 10 followers would be able to help or have already learned about it by reading here.

[Jon Newman]

Skepticblog did a write up of one of the Independent Investigations Group's (IIG's) previous investigations. You can read about here.

[Jon Newman]

It's Skepticblog, not skeptiblog.

Bernard, is it possible to adjust the settings to allow people to edit their posts in this forum?

[Diane]

I posted this thread to Facebook. It automatically goes to Twitter, so a few bites may come to your brother from there. It got some "likes" at least..

[bernard]

http://www.somasimple.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8715
and surely this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3RjP...eature=related

[bernard]

Originally Posted by Jon Newman

It's Skepticblog, not skeptiblog.

Bernard, is it possible to adjust the settings to allow people to edit their posts in this forum?

No, since this post.
http://www.somasimple.com/forums/announcement.php?f=16
The Rubish Cube allows a freedom of speech but you may assume your mistakes.
Only moderators may change their and others posts.

Do you want to be an arbiter, again?

[Jon Newman]

Originally Posted by bernard

Do you want to be an arbiter, again?

That's very generous Bernard and I'll need a day or so to consider your offer.

Thanks for the video and other links. It would be very cool if there was a "translate" button here at SS. Maybe someone could send the idea to the vBulletin folks.

I just learned the IIG folks are doing their testing this Thursday. I had suggested they use a hand dynomometer and do the "sit and reach" test as both are quick and would give numbers to manipulate. I didn't have a great idea for a balance test. They plan on a large number of trials (for who and what it's for) of healthy subjects, so it has to be fairly quick and give objective data. Anyone with ideas for that? Anyone able to loan a hand dynamometer or a ready made sit and reach gizmo?

[Diane]

This was posted in the notice on Facebook. Deconstructive blogpost re the bracelets.

[Jon Newman]

Here's the result of the investigation. You can watch the test procedure they decided to utilize in the video.

[bernard]

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blog...t_in_iig_test/

If the one genuine Power Balance bracelet had an intrinsic value that really does confer better balance, flexibility and strength on the user, we should have seen cumulatively better scores when people wore it. When compared to the 3 "dummy" bracelets, the real one should have stood out with lower times and better flexibility.
That did not happen.
The scores between the 4 bracelets were very close together - exactly what you would expect to see if there was no significant effect from wearing the Power Balance bracelets. (In the obstacle course times, the genuine bracelet actually scored slightly worse , though not statistically significantly worse.)