Respected commentator Tim Hutchings calls out times from past drug era, says more natural levels now.

pretend science wrote:

All you need to do is go to high altitude where partial pressure limits oxygen uptake to understand that oxygen delivery is a limiting factor in running performance.

Correct. Now go and take EPO for six weeks and we'll have a race.

proof? wrote:

At no point in that article do I find support for this claim: "Normal oxygen delivery and improved energy efficiency is where your improvement comes from. "

Can you be more specific?

As posted above, with improved biomechancial effiency your stride gets longer and a little bit quicker.

You are basically using familiar stride patterns for longer periods.

1. Wrong. Aerobic respiration produces more ATP molecules from a single glucose molecule than anaerobic respiration. As your energy demands increase, they outstrip your body's ability to delivery adequate oxygen to your muscles to continue on aerobic respiration alone, forcing an increased reliance on anaerobic respiration, followed by the increased production of harmful byproducts (such as a decrease in pH).

2. Wrong. Efficiency is event-specific, both on a biomechanical and a cellular level. Performance improvements in distance events can be garnered by increased mitochondrial density. Are you unaware of this?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4555089/

wrote:

proof? wrote:

At no point in that article do I find support for this claim: "Normal oxygen delivery and improved energy efficiency is where your improvement comes from. "

Can you be more specific?

As posted above, with improved biomechancial effiency your stride gets longer and a little bit quicker.

You are basically using familiar stride patterns for longer periods.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4555089/

This is not proof for that statement. There is no mention that performance improvements are the results of normal oxygen delivery and improved energy efficiency. There is only proof for the statement that performance improvements can result from improved energy efficiency.

it's 2018 not 1998 wrote:

proof? wrote:

Show evidence for this claim.

Here's a start:

https://www.scienceofrunning.com/2009/12/fallacy-of-vo2max-and-vo2max.html?v=79cba1185463

You will find variation in VO2 max tests. Steve Magness tries to explain some of these anomalies. Basically the test has to be done to your requirements not the lab technicians. If you overheat, you won't reach VO2 max because lots of blood gets redirected to the skin for sweating. And if your arousal level (adrenaline level) is not optimal, neither will your oxygen uptake level be. And neither will your oxygen economy be optimal, which makes you work harder and fatigue too early.

All of this stuff you know by feel. It's best to demonstrate it with a good workout, where you get faster through the session without unnecessary fatigue.

I think you've read that article and misunderstood drastically what it is saying.

I invite everyone to read the article properly and those who are used to reading scientific journals will quickly understand that it does not say what this guy is saying it says.

The presence of a central limiter which governs how hard you can push at any one time in exercise does not even slightly disprove the oxygen uptake model of exercise. The author doesn't even hint at that suggestion.

It even says that the availability of oxygen is one factor that your body takes into account when predicting and controlling fatigue. It points to a study where a 20km cycle in a hyper oxygenated environment lead to higher power output because the body knew it had more oxygen to use and so allowed the athlete to push harder.

To anyone who understands VO2max nothing in this article should come as a surprise. This article is far more about disproving the accuracy and validity of current VO2 max testing or training 'at VO2max'.

Regardless, as pointed out in the article, VO2max is NOT the same as 'endurance' as many (including you it seems) use it. Inaccuracies in VO2max are totally irrelevant to cardio-respiratory endurance and the fatigue systems of the body.

I'm actually shocked you misunderstood that article so badly.

I didn't misunderstand the article. It does contain some informantion relevant to what I'm saying. You have to slow down and read carefully and absorb. It takes a long time. These back and forth debates/arguments are only useful if you spend long periods of time considering things carefully.

I've been saying these things here for 15 years. People have ingrained ideas about supposed 'aerobic development' and have little knowledge of neural development. Neuroscience has been set aside for endless nonsense about increasing oxygen uptake. Daniels showed 45 years ago that this is misinformation.

You can train all you want, but your absolute VO2 max won't go up one jot. Your heart will not grow beyond what it already has. Your vascular system will keep developing even if you don't run. Your mitochondrial density will be maintained for normal cell functionality.

Send Steve Magness an email. He'll explain it to you. Keep us posted with his reply.

I don't know his position on the drugs debate. Mine is clear. These manipulations have been around for 50 years. Why do you and everyone else have this idea that you can attribute times in the period 1992-2008 or whenever to whatever drug or manipulation.

You keep bandying around accusations of craziness. Look at your own beliefs. You have a very jaded view of the human body and a billion years of evolution. It's not surprising to me, I know very well how the drug culture has pushed these weird beliefs into your consciousness. They are not sane and rational beliefs. So when challenged on the sanity of these beliefs your natural reaction is to be aghast that someone could suggest such a thing.

Ask yourself. Do you really believe that a 17 year old running a world class time must be doping?

Is that a sane and rational viewpoint? Can you not see how such a mindset is very corrosive to the sport and makes the problem worse?

Answer the question to yourself if not to me. You have asked me enough questions. Come back in a few months time with a more considered viewpoint.

proof? wrote:

This is not proof for that statement. There is no mention that performance improvements are the results of normal oxygen delivery and improved energy efficiency. There is only proof for the statement that performance improvements can result from improved energy efficiency.

Read the Steve Magness article. It's well written and well researched. Read it carefully and take time to consider it. This stuff is obviously new to you and many other here and it should be common knowledge.

Some of us have been having this discussion here since around 2006. You're a bit late to the party.

There is an ongoing, multi-center, international study as to whether PED's have a positive effect. For decades, top level athletes have been trying PED's in workouts and competition and have seen and felt improvements that have led them to risk everything to keep using them. The results speak for themselves.

There is not one shred of evidence in that article that states that increased oxygen consumption IS NOT associated with increased performance.

It simply says that what we measure as 'VO2max' using the standard treadmill method might not actually be VO2max. Something which anyone who has performed VO2max testing in real life would know anyway. Many factors affect the numbers you get. But this has nothing to do with heat being an absolute limiter.

EPO increases the headroom an athlete has. Only loons think it 'gives you endurance'. Of course by running you are training many systems to get improved performance. Learning to push yourself more is one, increased biomechanical efficiency is another, increased strength if you do strength training, better CNS response and motor recruitment is a big one, and improved cardiac output is another.

I asked you for some evidence that heat is the absolute limiting factor in endurance or middle distance running and you can't even find one lousy even badly written article. If you had some research of your own I'd like to read it. But I doubt you do.

I can have a quick fire discussion with you because I'm used to reading masses of scientific journals and also know what I'm talking about. I don't need to 'take time' to consider something which you haven't actually outlined in any detail whatsoever.

Might you even suggest how training increases this heat restriction on the body? Or suggest why running in cold weather does not lead to increased 1500m performance?

Also I don't see how Jakob comes into this at all. I don't care if it's 'corrosive to the sport' to suggest he's on drugs or how it's relevant to your statements about heat loss being an absolute limiter.

I don't think he's on drugs but think he has a well developed aerobic system and a well practiced, efficient running technique, both of which he has developed since he was 10 years old training like a professional athlete with two other professionals.

Can you please actually state how thermoregulation fits in with training principles or the fact that Jakob has run 3:31?

How does training increase the thermal headroom of an athlete? As far as I'm aware heat loss is about sweating, vasodilation and surface area to volume ratio. I don't see how running around a park improves any of those to such an extent that one can run significantly faster after training.

Never thought I'd say this, but I miss Coevett and M!ndweak, so come back all is forgiven.

it's 2018 not 1998 wrote:

proof? wrote:

This is not proof for that statement. There is no mention that performance improvements are the results of normal oxygen delivery and improved energy efficiency. There is only proof for the statement that performance improvements can result from improved energy efficiency.

Read the Steve Magness article. It's well written and well researched. Read it carefully and take time to consider it. This stuff is obviously new to you and many other here and it should be common knowledge.

Some of us have been having this discussion here since around 2006. You're a bit late to the party.

I've read the article. Why don't you go ahead and quote the portion that states that improvement is the result of NORMAL oxygen delivery AND improved energy efficiency?

Hint: It's not there and you have no idea what you're talking about.

Jon, you still haven't explained how elites get the job done at twice the rate of the plodders. Clearly they don't overheat.

Your argument was always that an elite uses a fraction less total energy to run a Marathon but you've always dodged how they can possibly do so without somehow doing so at a far higher rate.

I can't believe I read this whole thread and you still haven't moved beyond that silly statement coupled with the endless linking to those same two articles which you feel support your theory.

All is forgiven as Jon Orange is driving me crazy. wrote:

Never thought I'd say this, but I miss Coevett and M!ndweak, so come back all is forgiven.

Well...this is what you guys get! You drove M!ndweak out of here because you kept harrassing & mocking him. Now you have Jon Orange...have fun! LMAO.

This Is Getting Ridiculous wrote:

Well...this is what you guys get! You drove M!ndweak out of here because you kept harrassing & mocking him.

Yeah, sorry Mrs M!ndweak. :(

I'm off to the naughty boys room. wrote:

This Is Getting Ridiculous wrote:

Well...this is what you guys get! You drove M!ndweak out of here because you kept harrassing & mocking him.

Yeah, sorry Mrs M!ndweak. :(

Whatever you say Mrs. Orange.?

pretend science wrote:

All you need to do is go to high altitude where partial pressure limits oxygen uptake to understand that oxygen delivery is a limiting factor in running performance.

+1

Big Ass cohort wrote:

There is an ongoing, multi-center, international study as to whether PED's have a positive effect. For decades, top level athletes have been trying PED's in workouts and competition and have seen and felt improvements that have led them to risk everything to keep using them. The results speak for themselves.

Exactly

it's 2018 not 1998 wrote: The blood boosting/ped dogma is really saying that cell respiration can be enhanced with more red blood cells, implying that the human body doesn't produce enough for endurance races.

the bit I've set in italics is not correct, or at least misinterprets the facts.

the "PED dogma" as you call it, does not imply that the body does not produce enough red blood cells for endurance races. it implies that more oxygen is not a bad thing in an aerobic sport. the point is, that with literally every stride that you take while running you are destroying red blood cells. here is a quote from a paper describing the phenomenon...

"exercise can decrease the red blood cell mass by intravascular hemolysis mainly of senescent red blood cells, which is caused by mechanical rupture when red blood cells pass through capillaries in contracting muscles, and by compression of red cells e.g., in foot soles during running or in hand palms in weightlifters. Together, these adjustments cause a decrease in the average age of the population of circulating red blood cells in trained athletes."

there is also a phenomenon known as "sports anaemia," whereby highly-trained athletes have enhanced blood plasma volume which gives them, proportionately, a lower haematocrit. although it is called sports anaemia these folk are not anaemic in the classic sense, but they do have low haematocrit. additionally, since red blood cells are constantly exposed to high levels of oxygen and high concentrations of polyunsaturated fatty acids and haem iron, red blood cells also suffer from oxidative stress. since oxidative stress is proportional to oxygen uptake, it is also found that antioxidants in muscle, liver and red blood cells can also be depleted during exercise.

so, the reason blood doping works is that boosting red blood cell count increases the haemoglobin level, and this in turn improves the oxygen gradient at the blood lung barrier (because each haemoglobin carries four oxygen) which increases the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, which improves the oxygen gradient at the blood cell barrier which increases the amount of oxygen available to a higher proportion of individual cells. this in turn also increases the CO2 gradient at the cell blood barrier increasing the level of CO2 removed from cells and carrying it back to the lung for expiration to the atmosphere. blood doping also reduces the average age of red blood cells and younger cells have improved oxygen release and deformability characteristics, both of which also improve tissue oxygen supply. and, by reducing the average age of red blood cells it also offsets the effects of oxidative stress, which normalises levels of antioxidants.

it's really just a matter of improving oxygen supply to tissues, improving CO2 exhaust, and correcting exercise induced antioxidant depletion. this is the exact opposite of your claim, "This is beyond bad science, it's weird cult belief." it is in fact very simple science easily understood by anyone sufficiently interested to read it with an open mind.

cheers.