Who's behind the checks?
Fair question, and a pretty easy one to answer. Here's who writes this, why it seemed worth doing, how a check actually works, and where the limits are.
Someone who trains, and reads the research
Behind this site is someone who trains, races, and has spent years reading the research on training, fatigue and performance. The reason it exists is a happy one: that research is full of genuinely useful findings, and a surprising number of them never reach the people they could help.
There's no name or photo anywhere here, and nothing mysterious about that. It keeps the writing pointed at the studies rather than at a personality, and it means there's no employer, sponsor or reputation in the way when a result turns out to be inconvenient. Every check links to everything it used, so you can always go and look for yourself.
The best part of this sport is how much of it can actually be measured.
Everyone is selling an edge
Endurance sport runs on hope. That is its charm — the belief that with the right preparation, next season's you will be faster than this season's you. But hope is also a market. Sports nutrition, wearables, recovery tech and "faster" gear together form a multi-billion-euro industry, and its marketing has learned to speak the language of science: percentages, studies, "lab-tested", "proven".
Here's the cheerful thing about that list: every one of those sentences sounds testable — and a promise that sounds testable can actually be tested. That's the whole opening, and it's a bigger one than it looks.
It does take some care, because the research behind these promises is delicate work. Not because scientists are careless — the opposite — but because measuring trained athletes is genuinely hard.
Small groups, short experiments, measurements as jumpy as the effects they chase, and gear that can't be tested blind. None of that is dishonest; it's just a hard science being done properly. What usually gets lost is the fine print — a promising early experiment arrives on the box as "scientifically proven", and the caveats that made it interesting don't survive the trip from the lab to the ad.
That fine print is worth having back, and not only to save money. An unproven gel or gadget costs you cash: annoying, survivable. The scarcer thing is attention. An hour spent chasing a 0.3% maybe-gain is an hour not spent on what reliably works — consistent training, sleep, sensible fuelling, patience. Those rarely trend, which is a shame, because they're also the cheapest wins available to almost everyone.
Hype doesn't only sell you things that don't work. It makes the things that do work feel too obvious to bother with.
The slow way, every time
No secret sauce here — just the same unglamorous five steps, in the same order, every time. It's the part we enjoy most, and it's easy to copy if you ever want to settle an argument yourself:
- Start with the claim as it's sold. The exact promise on the box, the podcast, the group chat.
- Find the research — all of it. Not just the flattering studies. The awkward ones count double.
- Weigh how good it really is. How many people, how well run, how long, and who paid for it.
- Separate the lab from the road. A number on a treadmill is not the same as a faster race.
- Say how sure we are. Out loud — including "not very," when that's the honest answer.
Then it gets written in plain language, with every source linked, so you can check the checker. You can see it in practice on the first deep-dive — the carbon "super shoe" and its famous 4%.
Four things you can hold us to
- No sponsors, no free gear kept quiet. Nobody in this sport pays us — that independence is the whole product.
- Every number comes with its source. If we can't point to where it came from, we don't print it.
- We change our minds when the research does — in public, with the date on it.
- "We don't know yet" is a real answer. Thin support gets called thin, in both directions — something being unproven is not the same as it being disproven.
What this is — and isn't
EnduranceProof is educational. We look into performance claims and explain what the evidence shows. We are not your coach, your dietitian or your doctor, and nothing here is personal training, nutrition or medical advice.
Endurance training and changes to how you eat, fuel or recover carry real risks. Before you act on anything you read here — especially if you have a health condition, are pregnant, or are on medication — check with a qualified professional who knows your situation. No rights can be derived from the content of this site.
Say hello, or catch us out
Got a claim that deserves a proper look? Spotted a mistake we should fix? Just want to say hi? The door's open:
→ info@enduranceproof.com
→ @EnduranceProof_ on X
→ or just reply to any email you get from us — every reply is read.
EnduranceProof is a TimChecks project — I'm Tim, and I build things in the open at @tim_checks.
Want the next one when it's done?
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