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Reviews
Sport Science: Hardest Hits (2007)
Terrible science
This show does not follow any scientific principles. They do not maintain any controls between trials, and have terrible samples sizes ( if any). For instance, Sport Science compared the hit of a rugby player to an NFL football player. During this comparison, the football player was told to hit a stationary tackle dummy attached to a tackling stand, while the rugby player tackled another moving player. One target was stationary, and the other was moving. One player was hitting parallel to the ground, while the other had an initial upper trajectory.
A more scientific approach would be to put accelerometers on two rugby teams and two football teams, and then a game played.
Sport Science also compared heavily padded, lightly padded and bare knuckle punches. A scientifically controlled experiment would have the same puncher do numerous punches, in all three conditions. But no, Sport Science had three different punchers, a heavyweight boxer, a hockey player without skates and an MMA fighter.
I think that sport science needs to go back to school and learn what science really means