Bad medicine: sports medicine

At school I wore plimsolls for football, and I slipped and skidded across the mud in a drenched, freezing cotton T shirt. But when I returned to exercise 25 years later, sports science had banished plimsolls as a fashion accessory. I listened to the chatter of the exercising classes: shoes, insoles, isotonic drinks, physiotherapy, personal trainers, heart rate monitors, massive watches, diets, and massages. But for all their physical strength, sports people are the zenith of vulnerable neuroticism. And everything is gospel from the mouths of evangelical sports scientists, supported by a global …