Many massage therapists have cited this paper because it confirms their bias that massage helps post-exercise muscle soreness. Unfortunately, it’s a classic “garbage in, garbage out” meta-analysis that shows nothing, despite the “positive” conclusion. frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
Just read fine print: there’s a strong and classic pattern of publication bias in the data, with better quality studies finding nothing of interest, and the shittier ones consistently skewing towards the positive.
Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience) wrote about this paper for Outside. Terrific summary of how publication bias is exposed by funnel plots. Must-read for anyone trying to make sense of research. outsideonline.com/2304106/ultima…
Recovery science is a mess, and most studies are simply junk. This kind of thing is the legacy of decades of publish-or-perish pressure in academia. Boooo.
"The production of systematic reviews & meta-analyses has reached epidemic proportions. Possibly, the large majority of produced systematic reviews and meta-analyses are unnecessary, misleading, and/or conflicted." ~ Dr. John Ioannidis ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27620683
Interview with Dr. Ioannidis about that paper: retractionwatch.com/2016/09/13/we-…
