Good scientific study or BS: If you've had Covid, you may be more susceptible to getting injured as a runner

Shoe types can be quite a variable in a study like this.

From the description of their COVID:

“All participating COVID-19 individuals were categorized as patients with severe symptoms who were hospitalized between 19 and 23 days.”

That’s VERY severe for a group of previously healthy individuals in their 20s and 30s. If you’re hospitalized for 3 weeks with a systemic inflammatory disease, you develop serious muscle wasting. They basically measured this and said it affected their running mechanics.

The study doesn’t mention how long after hospital discharge they took their measurements.

A few posters already mentioned it would be more accurate if each subject was their own control (meaning compare before and after COVID). It would be more convincing data, but practically not easy to do (how would you know in advance who would get severe COVID).

Bad Wigins wrote:

did they control for the likelihood that the covid 19 cohort was fat?

Don't think "scientists" are even allowed to classify anyone as fat these days or their woke masters will fire them from the university.

This paper is complete trash and a perfect example of bad science and why do many people don't trust "Science" and "scientists". You would get less BS from a Scientologist.

I'm Religious Now wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

did they control for the likelihood that the covid 19 cohort was fat?

Don't think "scientists" are even allowed to classify anyone as fat these days or their woke masters will fire them from the university.

This paper is complete trash and a perfect example of bad science and why do many people don't trust "Science" and "scientists". You would get less BS from a Scientologist.

Hahaha they literally show the height and weight of the cohorts in the first table.

Reading is forbidden on LRC... I know.

PCRF-Guy wrote:

From the description of their COVID:

“All participating COVID-19 individuals were categorized as patients with severe symptoms who were hospitalized between 19 and 23 days.”

That’s VERY severe for a group of previously healthy individuals in their 20s and 30s. If you’re hospitalized for 3 weeks with a systemic inflammatory disease, you develop serious muscle wasting. They basically measured this and said it affected their running mechanics.

The study doesn’t mention how long after hospital discharge they took their measurements.

A few posters already mentioned it would be more accurate if each subject was their own control (meaning compare before and after COVID). It would be more convincing data, but practically not easy to do (how would you know in advance who would get severe COVID).

This.

Being bed-ridden for 19-23 days by itself would have severe adverse effects on running. Add a major disease that affects the heart, respiration, and blood and you have a massive trauma to the body. I'd be more surprised if there wasn't a significant effect.

The probabilities imply that the differences in form between the two groups were not due to chance. Given that, it implies that severe infection can lead to slightly altered form. Not an unbelievable hypothesis. If someone injures their achilles, they will probably have a slightly different gait for the rest of their life. No reason to think infection my not have the same effect.

Low hanging fruit of the study was pace. Essentially 8:00/mile. If you tested a bunch of elite athletes at that pace, you might find meaningful trends, but they would not be extrapolable to faster paces.

amkelley wrote:

pupil3142 wrote:

sample size

ditto

Exactly.

40 people divided into two. So 20 with and 20 without covid.

So, without going any further BS

2600 bro wrote:

I'm Religious Now wrote:

Don't think "scientists" are even allowed to classify anyone as fat these days or their woke masters will fire them from the university.

This paper is complete trash and a perfect example of bad science and why do many people don't trust "Science" and "scientists". You would get less BS from a Scientologist.

Hahaha they literally show the height and weight of the cohorts in the first table.

Reading is forbidden on LRC... I know.

Then those women are generous in girth, especially the covid group if these are their weights after having been in hospital for 3 weeks where they would have lost a ton of weight from being stuck in bed and not allowed to gorge on food like they normally do. Their BMI is right on the line of overweight for the paper so logically with the weight loss they got for free from the hospital, they would have firmly been in the fat category before.

could have done so much better wrote:

amkelley wrote:

ditto

Exactly.

40 people divided into two. So 20 with and 20 without covid.

So, without going any further BS

Come on guys. Do you think money for gait analysis studies grows on trees? It’s a lot of work to recruit, randomize, control, and study these people for likely a very small exercise physiology lab/department.

40 people is enough to get significant differences. Some of the effect sizes are big! Obviously more likely to be confounders with small n but 40 people doesn’t automatically discount the data.

I'm Religious Now wrote:

2600 bro wrote:

Hahaha they literally show the height and weight of the cohorts in the first table.

Reading is forbidden on LRC... I know.

Then those women are generous in girth, especially the covid group if these are their weights after having been in hospital for 3 weeks where they would have lost a ton of weight from being stuck in bed and not allowed to gorge on food like they normally do. Their BMI is right on the line of overweight for the paper so logically with the weight loss they got for free from the hospital, they would have firmly been in the fat category before.

Probably bimodal distribution no? I wouldn’t assume the men and women have the same means. I’d like to see the data by gender.

I have a feeling you don’t really understand statistics.

amkelley wrote:

pupil3142 wrote:

sample size

ditto

And also, it’s debatable whether they’re really “controlling” for the Covid effect…

“ All participating COVID-19 individuals were categorized as patients with severe symptoms who were hospitalized between 19 and 23 days. Running mechanics of COVID-19 individuals were always tested two weeks after hospitalization. Before COVID-19 treatment in hospital, participants ran ⁓ 17 km/week on average. Healthy age and sex-matched controls were used as comparator. Individuals from the control group ran on average ⁓ 17 km/week. All participants were heel strikers.”

A hobby jogger used to running ~10 miles / week is hospitalized for ~weeks (essentially bedridden presumably), then has their form analyzed

Also, have there been studies of injury risk after other type of illnesses, such as mono or a severe case of the flu? I imagine that after any intense sickness you may be at a slightly raised risk for injury because of time off, and lack of adequate nutrition during the period you were sick. Just look at your nails after an intensive illness, they can have ridges in them from a time your body couldn't make new nails temporarily because of nutritional deficiencies or stress.

2600 bro wrote:

The EMG data is interesting, it's not the best controlled study but you have to admit some of the effect sizes are large enough that something is different between the groups. Poor randomization? Confounding factors w.r.t. gait and COVID exposure? Who knows.

This is my take too. Low sample size but the effect sizes are so big it doesn't matter. It's either COVID or something correlated with COVID in this sample [which could be unrelated to COVID].

amkelley wrote:

pupil3142 wrote:

sample size

ditto

True, tho the entire MMA anti vac "study" had 12 patients in it.

nooneisthegoat wrote:

rojo wrote:

Scientists of letsrun, what do you make of this?

Actual study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966636221005804

article on study:

https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/training/injuries/if-youve-had-covid-19-your-running-kinetics-may-have-changed/

it has to be good because we have to follow the science. how can we question science?

I mean, if the folks running the 'study' identify as 'scientists' then they must in fact be scientists and whatever they say must be treated as fact even if evidence to the contrary presents itself. That is unless their findings contradict the narrative being funded by big pharmaceutical companies and corrupt politicians -- then they aren't 'scientists' at all, they're just hick Trumper misinformation peddlers that need to be fired and banned from all social media platforms.

Vidiot wrote:

nooneisthegoat wrote:

it has to be good because we have to follow the science. how can we question science?

I mean, if the folks running the 'study' identify as 'scientists' then they must in fact be scientists and whatever they say must be treated as fact even if evidence to the contrary presents itself. That is unless their findings contradict the narrative being funded by big pharmaceutical companies and corrupt politicians -- then they aren't 'scientists' at all, they're just hick Trumper misinformation peddlers that need to be fired and banned from all social media platforms.

Vidiot and nooneisthegoat's comments are ironic in that questioning science is EXACTLY how science works! No self-respecting scientist blindly accepts new findings - they challenge them, assess them, and poke holes in them if/when possible. Which ironically is what Rojo asked for to begin with. However, with repeated experiments and building up of evidence to support a given hypothesis, science eventually does produce a more and more accurate picture of what is going on, eventually getting the point that something is (or should be) accepted as established truth.

Working out when sick prolongs recovery because the body is diverting resources to actively fighting an infection.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but whenever I attempt consistently hard training when sick is when I am most likely to experience niggles or the precursors to injury.