According do Mr Canova, Kenyan top athletes avoid any supplements - SO WHAT ARE THEY EATING, MR CANOVA?

Don't worry about trollism he is a racist and zenohpobe from the UK, who is jealous of the success of anyone who excels beyond his self-imposed limitations, so he plays the drug card whenever he can.

muse media wrote:

Don't worry about trollism he is a racist and zenohpobe from the UK, who is jealous of the success of anyone who excels beyond his self-imposed limitations, so he plays the drug card whenever he can.

How am I racist? I don't limit my criticisms to any one race.

I appreciate criticism of that Italian opportunist makes a lot of people cry though, so I'll forgive you.

Doctor House wrote:

The biggest crock I have ever heard is that there is a group of professional athletes thats completely clean. If anyone is spreading rumors that there is a group that is completely clean, they're a liar and a thief.

Some kids still believe in Santa Claus. Would you be so rough and tell them that Santa Claus doesn't exist? Would you be so rough and tell the kids here on this forum that no top sprinter and long distance runner is clean?

Don't you want to make living as a fantasy writer? The career of Mrs Rowling would be destroyed.

They do not surround themselves with this group , the group surrounds them.

Opportunists , gold diggers whatever you want to call them.

They want to to be seen as a important part of the formula and make some money off the deal. Sure they get some shoes deals and the athletes to a few events but never with the athletes best interest in mind. Drugs come into play as the money grows. Most of the athletes want nothing to do with it.

There are though a few sincere good individuals that really support and complement what the athletes are doing.

"Why do you think there are so many Italian coaches of football (Capello, Ancelotti, Mancini, Di Matteo in UK, Spalletti winning Russian league in Russia, Zenga in UAE), of volley (there are 4 top Countries with Italian Coaches), now also of walking (Sandro Damilano is, from the beginning of October, the new responsible for China) ?"

I'd say because of the cultural/epigenetic advantage the concept of "furbo" has given Italians.

It is well documented that Italians have a different concept of honesty than UK/American culture.

Two of the top three most winning college football coaches--

Gagliardi Carroll College/St. John's

Paterno Penn State

Baseball Managers--

Torre

Scioscia

Lasorda

BTW-- Truth serum doesn't work on Italians.

J.O. wrote:

Common wrote:

You're going to have to explain this. Are you saying that blood doping won't work for a very good athlete? I disagree. Physiology is physiology. It doesn't matter how fast or slow, blood doping works.

Komen didn't seem to have any problem with it.

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If our bodies needed more blood cells to run faster, then they would produce more.

But they don't, because you don't need more blood cells to run faster, you need better training.

That actually doesn't explain anything.

That's like saying that someone with HIV has enough white blood cells to fight infection because, well, the body needs enough and therefore produces it.

Anything that increases the production of healthy rbc's will increase aerobic potential to an extent.

To say that EPO doesn't work on someone like your athletes is only being biased and is completely ignoring the facts that science gives you.

And whoever said something about medicine not working, and people only thinking it works, and that it only makes them worse......well, you are a f***ing retard, too.

In the future some us long-time letsrun posters will say, "Do you remember the days when Renato Canova used to post on here?" The newbies will be amazed. "Really! That's amazing! Why did he stop?" We will simply refer them to threads like this.

Renato has given us, on countless occasions, his views on drugs in running. Don't believe him? Fine. That's your choice. But don't attack the guy for stating it. Respectfully disagreeing is one thing, but this stuff is childish, primarily ad hominen and "he said, she said", and bordeline abusive at times.

If I were him I'd not bother coming back and offering further advice and assistance. Regardless of whether he's right or wrong on this issue, the guy is a saint in my book for continuing to come back and help.

110% agree, perfect post

continue posting , Mr Canva!

So if these 80-15-5 figures are a contributing factor to injures then I recon your runners uses another formula?

Perhaps 50-30-20 or 40-30-30?

Renato Canova wrote:

So, when we move for very hard training, the LIMITING FACTOR for a Kenyan is not his ORGANIC SYSTEM (that is where you can have some intervention with blood doping), but the FRAGILITY of his body.

So, the new frontier for some improvement is to find the way to make the structure of Kenyans more strong, in order to avoid (till when is possible) the risk of injuries.

The outstand physiology i ever read on this letsrun.com forum.

If one top Kenyan runner changes his nutrition pattern he can train more volume and intensity, less injury risk, and that fact able him to run fast and enhance his performance consequently.

But drugs don’t !

By drugs i don´t mean just EPO or blood doping but every kind of drugs.

No, I don't use any other formula, because there is no way to modify in substantial way the type of food they eat, if you don't want to use any supplement.

I only try to better control their health, changing training when I see the body doesn't answer in the right way, and modulating volume, intensity and exercises for rebuilding what previously they destroyed. This doesn't avoid the possibility of injuries, but in any case can reduce it. That's the reason because the athletes I coach sometimes are injured when I'm not in Kenya (more often than when I'm there) : because when I see directly some first sign of problem, I try to change and to reduce training, instead, when they follow my programs only, but I'm not there, because their motivation, they continue (may be only once too much) falling in injuries requiring long time for being solved.

Training, nutrition, motivation : are a combination of factors for producing a Champion, his level of performances and his continuity. And, if you look for the max results, you are walking on a very thin blade, between the advantages and the risks of injury or sickness that tough training can produce.

But it's the only way to reach top results.

First of all, thank you for your response! I appreciate it.

My answer to your question is, if you are able to start with the best athletes, it is possible to achieve the best results. When you start with sub-par athletes does doping make them as good as the best. In sprinting, the best athletes have also been shown to use drugs over and over again. In distance, the best athletes do not take drugs, and those few who do (Ma's Army, Rashid Ramzi, etc.) show us very clearly what can happen when a world-class distance runner adds doping to their natural high talent.

I believe you and your athletes are clean, Renato. I wish I could speak and write Italian properly to make that clear! I do not believe you use doping. I just want to understand why you believe that because an athlete has a world-class physiology, that athlete cannot benefit even more from doping. Daniel Komen's 3000m record, or Wang Junxia's 10000m record, in my belief, tell me that they can.

It is not possible to do a placebo controlled study, for two reasons: 1) it is unethical, and 2) it is illegal. However, there are several examples above where the result can be understood.

I have seen one small study from the 1970s that showed very clearly that blood doping worked for average runners. I am familiar with double-blind methodology and research, as my wife is a neuroscience researcher.

I believe #2, however I disagree that an athlete, even at the highest level would not benefit from doping. We have seen many examples, some of which have not been proven, but which cannot be explained by natural physiology alone.

Rispetto e grazie, signor Canova.

Renato, not that I think you need any help with your athletes (because when one's success is so great, one shouldn't change much), I do offer you a few thoughts-

1) If Kenyans do indeed drink "a lot of milk" as you state, I would suppose that their macronutrient %'s could be a little different than you list. Whole Milk does not only have a good deal of fat, but of course protein.

2) If the %'s you list are correct for your athletes, and you are wondering about ways to help your athletes stay more injury free as you suggest, here are two possible, simple ways to achieve that-

a) have them drink MORE milk than they already do. Increasing their milk and thus protein intake could:

* help with repairing damaged muscle after hard workouts

* help them develop stronger/ more resilient muscles when used in conjunction strength training for their legs (have them consume right before and after gym workouts)

* even help with hydration, since milk is an excellent hydration product (due to high water content, and electrolytes in milk help with water abrorption/retention)

b) in conjunction with the above, implement more strength training elements (especially for legs) such as you've commented on in the past, exercises you've personally witnessed the great Seb Coe do.

A little more protein, and more pre-season (and some in-season) strength training (for the legs), could help your athletes stay injury free longer.

Would you agree?

Thanks for the response Renato. So the 80-15-5 is a problem that can't be solved in your opinion. Is that because of kenyan "tradition"? I do realize food is expensive in a poor country but the top kenyans should have no problems with that if nutrition was an important factor to success. Im not talking about supplements Im talking about real food.

Thank you for your suggestions. I already had the idea to work a little more in that direction, but any other support to the same idea can make me more tranquil.

The problem with Africans, generally, is that is difficult to make real a project, because they have an "anarchic mentality", and, when you cant follow and organise them directly, their trend is to move alone, following the felling of the moment, without any real plan.

If is not so difficult to teach them the importance to follow a training plan (and they can understand, and follow it always when without the presence of the coach), it's very much more difficult to teach them a right behavior "outside" training, involving how eating, how resting, how recovering.

For example, when I'm in Iten, normally the athletes stay in training from Monday morning till Saturday, and go home (who doesn't have his house there, has the family house in a ray of 80 km, about) after the Saturday morning session. But, when I'm not there, I know that they go home 3-4 times per week, sometimes driving on bad road immediately after some tough training, and this can be source of injuries (expecially back problems). They know that this is wrong, but they do, modifying this behavior only when they start to have some problem (often, already it's too late).

So, I appreciate your suggestion, but my problem is how to have some action in that direction.

I want also to answer to an older post of Sprint Geezer, when he speaks about the involvment of managers, federations, sponsors, etc... in the "temptations" of the athletes.

This is true, but Kenya is very different from US or Europe.

I stay in Kenya for many months per year, and I know the families of the athletes very much better than how I knew the families of my Italian athletes, years ago.

In Kenya, I normally go in the houses of my best athletes, I play with their children (all very young), I know their wives of their husbands. So, I have occasion to stay with them many hours every day, and I'm (as for example Claudio Berardelli in another place) a continue referement for their normal life. A manager (with little differences, the time that a Kenyan athlete spend with his manager is almost the same for every management) never can have with his athletes the same strict relations.

I have athletes working (as management) with Gianni Demadonna (Italy), Jos Hermens (Nederland), Ricky Simms (UK), Marc Corstjens (Belgium) and some other small manager, and all the athletes never spend long time with them.

So, of course I cant put my hands on the fire for anybody, but in the case of my athletes, knowing how long we stay together, how much I'm involved in their families, and the type of questions they ask me, I can say that I'm sure 99% that my impression is correct, and I don't fear any temptation coming from these managers, that I respect not only professionally, but also as person loving our sport.

idiot wrote:

J.O. wrote:

****************************************

If our bodies needed more blood cells to run faster, then they would produce more.

But they don't, because you don't need more blood cells to run faster, you need better training.

That actually doesn't explain anything.

That's like saying that someone with HIV has enough white blood cells to fight infection because, well, the body needs enough and therefore produces it.

Anything that increases the production of healthy rbc's will increase aerobic potential to an extent.

To say that EPO doesn't work on someone like your athletes is only being biased and is completely ignoring the facts that science gives you.

And whoever said something about medicine not working, and people only thinking it works, and that it only makes them worse......well, you are a f***ing retard, too.

*********************************************

You're missing the point. You don't need more oxygen transport than your body naturally provides to run faster, you need better training.

J.O. wrote:

You're missing the point. You don't need more oxygen transport than your body naturally provides to run faster, you need better training.

The point of training *is* to improve oxygen transport (among other factors). What do you think training does? For any event above 800m, the energy production is largely aerobic. The aerobic energy system is dependent on oxygen transport and utilization to provide power. There is no debate about this fact.

Oh boy you are ill informed. Don't you know about the skills of neuro muscular coordination?