Physiologically, how does dipping tobacco effect running?

Yeah last season I used to dip like twice a day and never felt any effects from it. From the research I have done on it, which was a lot, shows that it thins your blood out and also dehydrates you which can cause some effect in your running but if you only dip during the week, non-race days and than stop a couple days prior to your race, than you should be fine. But thats basically it for the effects on your running. I also have a teammate that literally dips a whole can a day, everyday and gets by pretty well but I wouldn't recommend that.

I hope your joking... otherwise you're frickin retarded.

How can you compare the effects of tobacco on running 90 feet to distance running?

the carbon monoxide in smoking ties up your hemoglobin

wdiudaw wrote:

Last time I checked, effect was a noun.

Actually, effect, used apprporiately (which Duncan K. does not) can be either a noun or a verb.

"He tried to effect (bring about) sweeping changes, but his efforts had little effect."

I saw an episode of the new Sherlock Holmes seies by the BBC, set in contemporary London. Trying to concentrate on a problem, Holmes has three nicotine patches on his arm at once. Presumably, all of the putative performance-enhancing effects of chew without the cancer, etc.

Ethical question: if indeed it has substantial performance-enhancing properties, and you use nicotine to benefit from them, are you a drug cheat, or does that only come when WADA gets up to speed and bans it?

For the last 28 years, I have been conducting a yet to be published experiment on the physiological effects of dipping on running performance in non-elite male runners. I should probably mention that this is an "experiment of one."

I have concluded that dipping tobacco has neither a positive or negative effect on running PERFORMANCE in the long term.

Dipping tobacco has shown however to increase the mean HR in my experiment subject during the first 10 minutes of running for a given pace. This however has no impact on either perceived effort or time to fatigue (ttf).

All kidding aside, I do believe that nicotine can be used to elicit a performance enhancing effect on running if used in a certain way.

I have been dipping longer than I have been a runner, During 22 years of running, I have made countless attempts to quit. What I have discovered is that my pace and perceived effort at say 145 BPM within one hour of dipping is the same as at around 135-137 BPM when I have not dipped for several weeks. You would think that running the same pace at the same perceived effort would be a big advantage but it does not seem to be. In a 5K, My HR still maxes out at the same level at about the same pace. The only conclusion that I can make is that the vaso constricting effects of nicotine perhaps cause the heart to have to work harder (beat faster) to deliver the same amount of oxygen.

I also suspect that this may result in some enlargement of the hear in much the same way that untreated High BP can and this I believe is where the performance enhancing effect comes into play. There appears to be a period of time of about 7-10 days after stopping dipping where all of my runs are faster, at a lower average HR and the perceived effort for that pace is much easier. This effect diminishes over the 7-10 days and beyond the 10 days, my HR will be lower during the first 10 minutes of running but my pace will no longer be faster and at a lower perceived effort.

I am thinking that during the week after quitting dip the Heart is still slightly enlarged and possibly is able to pump a higher volume per beat while at the same time the arteries are no longer suffering the vaso constricting effect of the nicotine. Bigger pump is able to push more volume through bigger pipes.

Unfortunately I have only raced one time where I think this may have improved my performance. I have run the Pikes Peak Ascent somewhere between 3-12 times. All the times were closely grouped within a range of 3:06 to 3:16 with the exception of one outlier of 2:51. The year I ran the 2:51, I did not have a dip for about 12 hours before the race. I am not sure of the half life for Nicotine or how long before the vaso constricting effects would disappear but I do know that on that day, I felt like someone had given me a third lung. I got to Barr Camp and felt like I was just warming up. In all fairness, I should also mention that I had Sashimi the night before that race and have never done that before either. This is pretty sad but I have never had the will power to abstain from a Dip for that long before a race again. Pre-Race jitters cause me to say ah, what the F and I take a dip.

As far as I know Tobacco is not on the Banned Substance list and I have long thought this would be a neat thing to do a controlled study on with a large enough sample of runners who dip to make the data reliable.

I'll tell you what, if I was a Ritz or a Hall or Wheeting, I would seriously think about experimenting with it. I wonder though if an elite or bubble athlete were to start using nicotine, if their training WOULD suffer because their same size pump is now pushing through narrower pipes? Obviously over time, the Heart would adapt and if my theory is correct, enlarge. I don't know how long it would take for those adaptations to take place and the runners performance might decrease until it does.

After typing that out, and reading back over it, it seems pretty stupid and dangerous to have been doing something that may have enlarged my heart.

Any Cardiologists/Physiologists think there might be something to my theory?

Sorry for the long rambling post but I am suffering some insomnia at day 15 of my umpteenth quit attempt.

I wonder if I can get BreatheRite and Phillip Morris to partner up to make a nic nose strip.

Nicorette (tm) and Commit (tm)

But only for races!

And free samples abound.

Just sayin'

Affect is the verb. Effect is the noun. Another fun way to tell them apart is from what part you stress when you speak.

Almost a decade later and someone finally said it. Thank you for your service.

The physiological affect is a reddening around the neck area.