Sports science may sound like a cake class you took senior year for three forgettable credits, yet every year sports scientists release studies that shed new light on how the brain flourishes under pressure, the limits of human endurance and the trouble drunk fans have getting refills. (Answer: not much.)

Look beyond the write-ups of creatine and blottoed bleacher dwellers and you'll find discoveries that throw a delicious spitball at prevailing wisdom.

Do you think nonstop training could lead to breaking a world record, or top-shelf sneakers are better for your feet? Read our collection of confounding sports discoveries for the answers.

Chance Leads to Breaking World Records
While every paunchy coach loves to blather on about practice being the key to success, scientist Daniel Gembris begs to differ. His team at the Julich Research Center studied results from 22 track and field events that took place between 1980 and 1989 with an eye toward how random factors such as wind and weather affect performance. Using the learnings from those studies of uncontrollable variables, they were able to predict future record-breaking that occurred between 1990 and 1999. Of course, you must already be an elite athlete just to participate in a potentially record-breaking event, but there's also something to be said for the feeling of a cool breeze on a summer day.

The Most Dangerous Women's Sport Is ...
You might think of roller-derby, field hockey or even sample-sale vaulting as the most dangerous women's sport but, alas, you'd be wrong. Cheerleading causes more serious and deadly injuries (at least they did between 1982 and 2007, when this study was done). Some say cheerleading is not a sport, while others joyfully mock the plight of people who willingly toss each other around in the name of sideline puffery. Yet if giddy jiggling is even half as dangerous as the elbowing and tackling that occurs on the field, we must salute these semi-clad athletes who have only pom-poms and a megaphone to protect them from the brutal pain brought on by gravity and AstroTurf.

You Don't Need Dope to Dope an Athlete
While Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens have endured plenty of asterisks and accusations for purportedly taking steroids, such drama might have been avoided if trainers respected placebos. To prove the power of sugar pills, Fabrio Benedetti twice administered morphine to athletes and timed how long men could operate a weight machine with restricted blood flow to their arms. On the third go-round (sessions were spread over the course of three weeks), he gave the subjects a placebo. Responding to the "effects" of a placebo, the athletes were able to exercise longer. If you're thinking that no athlete takes drugs as a part of his or her exercise regimen and then stops on game day, consider that the World Anti-Doping Agency allows for exactly that scenario to occur.

Better-Looking Competitors Are More Likely to Win
From Hollywood's "Rocky" to Russia's MMA champ Fedor Emelianenko, everything seems to tell us that the ugly and somewhat goofy-looking competitor has the humble gumption to persevere and win. When the going gets rough, pretty boys crumble, right? Unfortunately, science is on the side of the pretty boys. Justin Park asked women to rate the looks of NFL quarterbacks, and as it turns out, those rated the hottest were also the best players. Park qualified his research by saying good looks didn't influence sportsmanship, but superior looks may be a sign of strong physical attributes. That said, it's just another reason to hate the beautiful people.

Pop-Ups Are Tough to Catch
There are few gimmes in baseball, except pop-ups. When the hitter slices a pitch at a near-90 degree angle it's supposed to be an easy out that just lands in the web of a fielder's glove. But as the Mets' Luis Castillo can assure you -- he lost a game on a ball that dropped in and out of his glove -- pop-ups are much more squirrelly than most people realize. The trajectory of a pop-up is heavily influenced by backspin. As New Scientist explains, "In the worst case for the fielder, a backspinning ball begins by flying forwards at a steep angle, before the backspin forces its path to vertical, and then eventually sends it looping back on itself." Let's just say there may be a good reason why a second baseman would drop a seemingly easy catch and outfielders tumble into each other in the pursuit of a pop-up. Perhaps the oft-maligned squirt-shot should get a little more respect.

Sports Leagues Aren't Fair or Efficient
Plenty of college football fans malign the BCS's approach to rating a number one team, but MLB and NFL playoffs are also rife with problems. Eli Ben-Naim and Nick Hengartner have written about how over the last 100 years, lower-seeded teams in baseball have an "astounding" 44 percent chance of beating better-ranked teams. To be fairer, the duo postulates, leagues should eliminate teams from the bottom up. In order for the current Major League Baseball system to be 70 percent efficient (the best team wins 70 percent of the time), the 20 teams would have to play 8,000 games. However, what fun would it be to watch games when the outcome was nearly assured? Perhaps Ben-Naim and Hengartner should read the study on what makes sports exciting: unpredictability.

Athletes Are More Susceptible to Brain Disease
If aliens landed on Earth in search of the finest specimens of the human race, chances are you'd point to professional athletes. Yet doctors have found that Italian soccer players are seven times more likely than the average person to be stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Why? Experts disagree because studies outside of Italy yield different results. Tracking in Spain and France hasn't found notable increases in ALS among soccer players, while in the U.K. it has. Neurologists are looking more carefully at the pesticides used on the fields and how frequent collisions might affect a player's brain. (Recently the NFL pointed out that concussions greatly increase a football player's chance for dementia later in life.) Pam Shaw, director of the Sheffield Care and Research Centre for Motor Neuron Disorders, says it isn't just Italian soccer players who have increased susceptibility for ALS, but all athletes: "In my clinic I've seen many patients that were very active cyclists, swimmers and tennis players, too." She figures more rigorous study will underscore the link.

Cheaper Running Shoes May Be Better for Your Feet
Beveled crash pad. Reinforced post. Support cradle. Who knows exactly what these terms mean other than people who design or sell sneakers for a living? The engineers at the Institute of Motion Analysis and Research wanted to see if there was a more reliable way to test a training shoe's support than checking where your big toe fits and sliding your heel from side to side while stomping around Foot Locker. Forty-three men were asked to try out three different brands of sneakers that cost around $85, $125 and $150. (Granted, these weren't exactly Costco skips they were testing.) Using an insole with 99 sensors to measure pressure distribution as well as the respondents' preferences, it turns out the lower and mid-level shoes rated higher than the top-shelf options. High-priced shoes may be better cushioned, but it's possible to have too much cushioning, since heavy-impact exercise can help to develop strong bones. That doesn't mean you should start running around in Chuck Taylor All-Stars. Cheap sneakers can also deteriorate quickly.