I had to chuckle a little when I read your post. I think you hit the nail on the head. As I said earlier, "the more I learn, the less I know" and a Jedi I truly want to be. As I mentioned in my PM, TP has a couple really interesting PE theory threads going and it's almost comical to read them. They pretty much just go in circles. And, this is with 2 Dr's chiming in. I think it all boils down to testing what we think we know. Theories are just that, theories. And, if no one puts them to the test, they will always just remain theories.
I believe if we ever want to look at PE from a scientific/medical stand point, we have to do more than just formulate ideas. I know others have formed "test groups" and have had little success with it. I think probably due to lack of consistency across the board and keeping participants involved. It would be nice to be able to take a theory or idea and put it out there to "prove" or "disprove." Take heat for example. We are 99% sure heat aids in stretching. We know this from the results of other non-PE related studies. But, there are guys out there who have gained without it, so we know that is possible. But, wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell newbies, "we tested 20 volunteers with the exact same routine, 10 used heat to warm up, 10 did not. After 6 weeks, the 10 using heat had 25% greater gains than those who did not use heat."
I'm with you. I still see guys replying to newbies with ideas that have pretty much been shot down as inaccurate. Yet they continue to circulate. "Hey man, you need to check your LOT and then start clamping with a piece of jagged metal ." I wonder how many erroneous ideas we as a community are slinging around due to ignorance?
We may never "prove" or "disprove" anything without a shadow of a doubt. Of course any non-professional study we could contrive would not be perfect and maybe not as accurate as scientific clinical trials, but,
at the very least the data should point us in the right direction much better than just a theory alone. It looks like it's going to be a long time before the medical community jumps in and helps us out. We're pretty much on our own.
I don't know how practical setting up studies would be. But, I think until we figure out how to accomplish it, we will continue forming theories. But, if that's all we can feasibly do a this point, I think I have a new theory
