RE: If you believe in the concept of Performance Enhancing Drugs......

Taking substances absolutely do work to change and improve human performance.

Jon's argument begins with a logical fallacy and goes downhill from there. The fallacy is that the human body will simply produce exactly what it needs to optimize performance. So he says, for example, that every person's body will just produce the optimal amount of red blood cells for performance. This is just not true. I don't usually bother arguing against a fallacy, it's enough to point out the statement is simply not true, but, I'll just point out, for example - sickle cell anemia.

In general, the human body requires the intake of numerous vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essentially fatty acids, etc. (and calories in general) to survive - and to increase performance. We are not a perpetual motion machine. Take one runner and starve them for a month and another runner who eats a normal 2,500 calorie a day diet for a month. Will they perform the same at the end of the month? No. And the changes are not just from a lack of calories. Food isn't just calories. What you eat etc. will cause a cascade of hormonal responses that can and will change the human body and how it subsequently performs through a number of different avenues.

To pretend that food can do this, but "drugs" cannot, is just inane.

I won't even begin on the ability to alter gene expression - as it's unnecessary. The simple truth is that human's can, beyond any shadow of a doubt, increase/enhance/improve their athletic performance with the use of drugs.

the problem wrote:

To pretend that food can do this, but "drugs" cannot, is just inane.

Yeah I could just sleep by rocks, and it would do the same thing as food.

Jon Orange wrote:

Thanks Aragon. The problem with these theads is that I'm arguing with a lot of silly old farts who have almost no knowledge of basic physiology, but somehow think they are experts on running. The danger is that they pass on this misinformation to younger runners. They must be stopped, for the good of the sport..

I don't think that many of the posters consider themselves to be experts on running. I think that they are just pointing out that there are problems in what you claim. I understand that some have insulted you on this thread and others but just insulting them back will not help your cause too much.

From what I see you have a few interesting ideas on training and like Lydiard you are against athletes killing themselves in hard track workouts week in week out. So many distance runners, myself included, have made these sorts of mistakes so what you preach here is a fairly good starting point.

I also agree that being obsessed with PEDs is not a good way to start the sport for young athletes. However, I disagree that at the top levels of the sport that PEDs are not an issue just because what has been revealed to be going on at the IAAF over the last 18 months. I also think you are too dogmatic/simplistic about tying everything down to neuromuscular coordination and claiming that improvement of oxygen delivery is of relatively minor importance in distance running. After a few years of training improvements in all aspects of physiology, not just oxygen consumption/delivery become more refined and any gains made will be in smaller increments. This oversimplification is the same sort of error that other coaches/scientists made in the past when they tied everything down to VO2max and suggested that training needed to be focused on improving this - 3000m pace workouts are golden etc ....

Out of interest have you had any success coaching/developing younger runners/cyclists?

J.R./jon orange is a mindless troll

Athletics is rife with PEDS and they work,the clue is in the name

"PERFORMANCE ENHANCING"

This is the best troll thread since the flat earth one.

"If EPO is performance enhancing, then how is it possible to run west to east when the earth should be turning at 1000mph under your feet? Wake up sheeple!"

J.R. wrote:

the problem wrote:

To pretend that food can do this, but "drugs" cannot, is just inane.

Yeah I could just sleep by rocks, and it would do the same thing as food.

You call that brain food.

Jon,

Slightly off topic, but what sort of training were you doing when you were running well in your mid forties?

Genuinely interested.

Efficiency is an important long term factor for running improvement. I'm not saying anything about cycling or Lance, because the role of efficiency and PEDs in 3 week cycling grand tours have almost nothing in common with running.

Lance 7x wrote:

Lance used PED's for all 7 wins, and had been training for many years before that. He would not have won without them. Are you saying Lance was an unusual or rare athlete in that he was simply unable to become efficient so he required PED's for so many years? Including EPO and blood doping. What prevented him from becoming efficient do you think?

40.5 wrote:

Jon,

Slightly off topic, but what sort of training were you doing when you were running well in your mid forties?

Genuinely interested.

EPO.

Mental illness central.

Because you're a pompous a$$ windbag of air with no knowledge of anything but your last date with your playboy magazine...does your boyfriend know?

Jon Orange wrote:

Part one was deleted. Why censor me? it's an important question, someone has to ask it.

Johnny boy was a jogger, don't let his huge ego fool ya.

40.5 wrote:

Jon,

Slightly off topic, but what sort of training were you doing when you were running well in your mid forties?

Genuinely interested.

Jon Boy was a hobby jogger sub 3 hour wanna be who still lives in the doghouse. He sucked.

Racerator wrote:

Mental illness central.

Racerator wrote:

Mental illness central.

Candorman wrote:

Jon Boy was a hobby jogger sub 3 hour wanna be who still lives in the doghouse. He sucked.

Aha, some rebuttals from scientific journals.

Your imaginary runners are unrealistic. Keep in mind you claimed that by studying Daniel's "percent utilization" graph, and doing simple arithmetic, this would clearly show that faster runners use less oxygen.The VO2 numbers, and weights you give, correctly multiply out to 5 liters/min, bravo, but the oxygen value you should use is VO2, not VO2max.Overlooking that error, assuming those VO2max values are correct, I would expect your 2 hour runner to race 39.8km in 2:00:00 and your 3 hour runner to race 39.8km in 2:18:00. No doubt if he is only able to race 39.8km in 3:00:00, while possessing a measured VO2max of 68 ml/kg/min, he is extremely inefficient.But I can't help but feel that the outcome is biased too much by your imagination to be able to draw any kind of general or universal conclusion about faster runners using less oxygen. For the purpose of realism, can't you give me a reference to real data with real people?

Jon Orange wrote:

It's a generic curve, so the absolute VO2 max I gave was generic too. As is their height and build. I made the body fat different in my example for the purpose of realism.

I didn't use Vdot. My imaginary 2 hour marathon runner weighs 62.5 kilos 138 pounds and has a VO2 max of 80ml/kg/min.

My 3 hour runner weighs 73.5 kilos 162 pounds with a VO2 max of 68 ml/kg/min.

I thought you were supposed to be good at math rekrunner? I'm very average, but I can apply what I know when I need to. You seem utterly perplexed by fairly simple computations of metabolism?

Has a runner ever actually raced a marathon wearing all the gas collection apparatus?

No, it's called reality, not scientific journals. YOU might need scientific journals, a lot of us don't.

J.R. wrote:

Racerator wrote:

Mental illness central.

Candorman wrote:

Jon Boy was a hobby jogger sub 3 hour wanna be who still lives in the doghouse. He sucked.

Aha, some rebuttals from scientific journals.

J.R. wrote:

Racerator wrote:

Mental illness central.

Candorman wrote:

Jon Boy was a hobby jogger sub 3 hour wanna be who still lives in the doghouse. He sucked.

Aha, some rebuttals from scientific journals.

There is nothing to rebut. All that has been posted, wellnow, is general platitudes and conclusive statements. When people are pressed for evidence they are told it is obvious, they don't understand physiology, etc.

There is tons of scientific journal articles about whether performance enhancing drugs work.

Right, well this goes back to the point. It is an absolutely unwarranted example to use two runners who are covering the same distance in such vastly disparate times (2hrs vs. 3 hrs) and assign them randomly the same VO2. Of course if you do that, you find the more efficient runner is faster.

Fast runners tend to have both larger engines and more efficiency compared to slower runners. That is not to suggest that there are not difference in different runners. To get to your real life example, one of the classic ones would be to compare Frank Shorter and Steve Prefontaine. Both fast, both elite runners, fairly similar in their times in the 10000. Shorter was known for having a smaller engine and being very efficient. Prefontaine for having a huge engine. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but I believe Shorters measured VO2 was just about 70 and Prefontaine's was around 93? Not sure what pace those were measured at or all the details. Anyway, both of them had very high VO2 compared to the general population of runners but profiles kind of at the opposite extremes within the community of elite world class runners. You could calculate what Prefontaine could have done if he could have achieved Shorter's efficiency numbers (and then marvel what he could have done had he been so fortunate to have JonO/J.R. as his coach).