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Letter in response to
Response to: Lessons from Popper for science, paradigm shifts, scientific revolutions and exercise physiology
  1. Timothy David Noakes
  1. Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
  1. Correspondence to Dr Timothy David Noakes; Timothy.Noakes{at}uct.ac.za

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2017-000277

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    Robergs1 claims that the central governor model (CGM) of exercise performance has been re-stated so frequently that it can no longer be properly falsified according to the Popperian model of scientific disproof. In response I argue that the CGM is based on our and others' absolute disproof of the Hill model that has dominated the teaching of the exercise sciences for the past century. The basic disprovable assertion of the CGM is that the brain regulates exercise performance to ensure that a catastrophic failure of homeostasis does not occur. Even though the CGM is now more than 21 years old, no one has yet published experimental data that refute it.

    The true history of how the CGM came about

    Before the CGM, there was one undisputed truth in the exercise sciences: exercise performance is limited by the development of anaerobiosis in the exercising muscles.2 3 This explanation was developed by Nobel Laureate A V Hill4 5 in clear breach of Popperian science. Hill had formulated his theory without ever attempting to disprove any existing models, the most popular of which was perhaps that of Musso.6 In 1904, Musso7 described what he considered the features of exercise fatigue: …

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