Things That Are Bullshit 1 - Power Balance Bracelets

By Adam Sinicki

I am a man of SCIENCE. Every day I wake up, like Dexter's Laboratory, I smell the air and pronounce 'ah, today is a great day for science!'. And as a man of science, what I am not a man of is wishy washy shit that's made up.
Enter: Power Balance Bracelets, also known collectively as power bracelets, energy bracelets, magnetic bracelets and 'those horseshit bracelets'. The idea behind these is something that is appealing to every sport including bodybuilding and that promises great things. You see Power Balance Bracelets are bracelets that allow you to run faster, to last longer in marathons and to swing your golf club better – according to Rich. Yes you see this is a personal batter and I feel like I am battling with the devil for the soul of Rich.
I can understand how R-man would be seduced by Satan himself on this occasion. It all sounds pretty impressive until you realize that it's all a crock of shit. In the spirit of fairness let's look at the 'science' (Ha!) behind how power balance bracelets claim to work. Then we can have a good laugh at it.

How Power Balance Bracelets 'Work' (Ha!)

Essentially power balance bracelets claim to work by using 'holographic technology' in order to affect the user's 'natural energies'. It's kind of a vague description, and you have to do a little more digging to get anywhere close to hearing the full story.
Essentially what you get with power balance bracelets is tiny holograms which of course 'resonate' at a particular frequency which effects the frequency of the natural energy field of the athlete. Oh my god...
To believe this you are required to also believe that the cells in your body oscillate (vibrate for the very dumb) at a frequency and that this can be changed by the vibration of the holograms. You then are basically trying to affect your own frequency through the use of particular vibrations and thereby change the amount of energy available to you. This might sound like good science and if you were to just glance over that explanation you might think 'hmm... that makes kind of sense', unless that is you know a single thing about SCIENCE.

How We Know It's SHIT

So how do we know it's shit? Well first of all let's look at the fact that holograms don't have a frequency and they don't vibrate. Pretty damning already. They change the wavelength of the light around them by refracting it sure, but so does a cup, that's how we see colour. Should I start selling 'Power Cups'? Yes I probably should.
So that's that. Already that's 100% proof that these things are shit. But let's come up with some more reasons just for fun. How about the fact that our cells don't vibrate either? Sure we have a electromagnetic field just like most things, but that's got nothing to do with vibrations it has to do with the firing of cells – and no light wave (such as a hologram) is going to be able to affect our cells in any way. If you're receiving microwaves/x-rays then perhaps they would – but then you're just in trouble and going to fry/get cancer.
And then let's look at another glaring flaw in this theory – and that's that there's no reason we would want our cells to vibrate at the same wavelength as a hologram anyway – even if it did work, who says that holograms have the magic wavelength to help improve athletic ability? Oh yeah that's right, the people marketing Power Balance bracelets do...

The Studies

Me just ranting about how useless these things are though probably isn't going to convince you however so I hand you over to a study carried out by RMIT's 'School of Health Sciences', or by Olympic champion gymnast Dominique Dawes and cohorts the Independent Investigations Group, or by the TV show 'Today Tonight'. All of these have proved conclusively in studies that the bracelets have absolutely no impact on athletic performance. Go ahead and look it up if you like – but let's face it, you really don't need to.
That's not enough for you? Then how about the fact that Power Balance themselves have admitted that the bracelets are nonsense. This is because they came under legal fire from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission who forced them to make the following statement:

'In our advertizing we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility. We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.'

And the chairmen of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Graeme Samuel had this to say of the company:

'It's crock frankly. And we're very disappointed that so many people have paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to buy these power bands'

The company were also forced to stop mentioning the body's 'natural energy field' and in 2010 the Antitrust Authority in Italy fined the company 300,000 Euro. And let's be honest – if Power Balance bracelets worked then the Olympics and FIFA and everyone else would have banned them by now.

Why Does it Matter?

Now you might be thinking 'Adam – calm down mate – why does it matter what people choose to spend their money on? You could even say it's not your business...'. To which I answer 'MORE HORSESHIT!'. I do this in the name of science, and in the name of everyone who has been conned into not using real methods or conventional science to cure themselves by charlatans who just want to make money. I am CAPTAIN SCIENCE (not Captain Inverted Cock as my friends call me currently...) and when you wear those bracelets it's an affront to reason and logic. People buy these things for arthritis when they could be spending the money on real medication. And if you really want to improve your golf swing, or to get stronger then there is one way to do it – practice. If you'd rather believe fairy tales and give credit to this Deus Ex machina device then go ahead but I think it's a shame – the power was in you all along. It's the kind of thinking that sets progress back and that makes people like the Power Balance company extremely rich. So STOP IT!

In conclusion if you think that the Holocaust never happened and still leave milk out for Father Christmas then these Power Balance bracelets are for you.