Every claim here is checked against its original research — graded, sourced, and measured against what the top of Google still gets wrong, with our own numbers from reading those ranking pages. Titles link to the full audit; filter by category or search below. The procedure behind every grade is written down separately.
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CConfirmed
PPartial
HUntested / hypothesis
RRefuted
—Queued, not yet graded
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| Claim | Grade | Where it comes from | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy, Sleep & Body ClockStubborn Fat: What the Science Really SaysTrain the body part you want to slim and you will burn the fat sitting on top of it — crunches for the lower belly, arm work for the arms. One trial has now measured a small local difference, under a workload no ordinary routine matches. Still on Google0 of 18 top-ranking pages present spot reduction as settled fact — 17 of 18 state that training a body part does not remove fat from that areaChecked Aug 19, 2026 | P | Older than its first test: Gwinup, Chelvam and Steinberg, 1971 checked it on tennis players, comparing fat over the dominant arm, worked for years, with fat over the other arm. | Why it spreadAb machines, wraps, creams and problem-zone routines all sell a link between where you work and where you lose, and that zone is where people are most desperate for something to do. What actually holdsThe tennis players carried the same fat on both arms despite years of one-sided work, and six weeks of abdominal training in Vispute et al., 2011 moved ab endurance and no measure of abdominal fat. Brobakken et al., 2023 did record a local difference of about 697 g, roughly 3% of trunk fat, but after 10 weeks and 40 demanding sessions in overweight men — a single finding awaiting replication. |
| Energy, Sleep & Body ClockTraining to Failure: What the Science Actually SaysTo build muscle you have to push every set to failure, because growth lives in the last grinding rep. Training closer to failure may add some size, while strength improves without it. Still on Google0 of 14 top-ranking pages present training to failure as required for growth — 13 of 14 state that stopping short of failure builds muscle tooChecked Aug 19, 2026 | P | Robinson et al., 2024: a meta-regression in Sports Medicine pooled training studies and found muscle growth rising as sets ended closer to failure, a graded dose-response that gym culture compressed into a universal 0-2 RIR target. | Why it spreadThe last rep is the hardest moment of a session, so crediting it with the growth matches what the effort felt like, and it turns lifting into a test of will anyone can choose to pass. What actually holdsRefalo et al. (2023) found a trivial overall advantage for failure and none once the comparison narrowed to true momentary failure; Grgic et al. (2022), across 15 studies, found similar strength whether sets ended at failure or short of it. An eight-week randomised trial in trained lifters (Refalo et al., 2024) produced similar quadriceps growth at 1-2 RIR and at failure. |