Alex Hutchinson calls out CANOVA over study confirming EPO works on Kenyan runners

Yeah that was just a placebo effect based on his belief.

His feet became springier and he became more coordinated.

Nothing to see here.

In this context, think of "the EPO-era" as an abbreviation for "the amazing performances since the introduction of EPO", and there is no contradiction. EPO+drugs+altitude is a partial explanation.

Do you even listrn to what you're saying? wrote:

LOl. You really covered all your bases there to the point of contradicting yourself.

I must have said a dozen times that all my comments and criticisms were on the previous publications from 2013 and 2014. Regarding the 2018 study, I basically asked "what was new?" and "did they address the previous limitations?" I did not pass any judgement on the new study.

Rekrunner is a liar wrote:

That's a joke, right?

You have post after post after post...

rekrunner wrote:

I didn't dismiss are argue against the 2018 study, for that very reason.

Performance is determined by a combination of other factors, like talent, motivation, coaching, diet, bodyweight, morphology, discipline, etc. Yes, when it comes to doping, many athletes, coaches, doctors, managers are really that stupid, basing their decision to dope on hope. It is not a rational decision.

Just when you think Jon Orange stands alone as the pinnacle of denial another joins him on the head of the pin.

Art this rate full conversion of the masses will take place about 50 000 years from now.

Interesting abstract below. Intuitively, one might think that EPO would be effective in all sub classes of endurance athletes, however that may not be the case, particularly in the types that Mr. Canova is writing about. Truth be told, there's not really a lot of evidence using an iron clad study design that suggests it's effective at all. And if so, likely in the sub, sub elite level athlete. Just because Lance Armstrong used it, and a host of others, some would suggest that there is a cause and effect relation between their use, and their performance. There may well have been, in fact no relationship at that level of athletic achievement. And as such, they flushed their medals and other accolades down the drain for no good reason, when in reality they likely didn't need the supposed athletic boost to begin with. The reason athletes use EPO and other supposed "performance enhancers" and some coaches promote it in the absence of hard data is that they hope that it works. In a few, it may. Or more likely, may not. Way to many variables to control to say one way or another. The data is not compelling. The other obvious issue is the increased HCT on blood viscosity which is typically inversely related to athletic performance. RBC's need to move through capillaries one at a time to unload their 02, with high crits this becomes problematic, as the RBC's morph into rouleaux formation, TPR and BP is increased the heart has to work harder (BP and HR are the major determinates of cardiac 02 consumption). There are also other controllable factors that impact relative blood viscosity. As a result 02 delivery to the working muscle is compromised. A better approach would be to lower the blood viscosity, maintain the RBC count (which maximizes the 02 delivery) and optimize the training so the maximum amount of the available 02 is utilized in the working muscle. So in sum total the data isn't there to show the benefits of EPO in performance, and those using it may actually be better off without it. Just ask Lance if he regrets choices he likely didn't even have to make. Not to mention the potential damaging side effects.

OOPS forgot the abstract:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11950139

I love when people refute things with "I don't believe it works" despite boat loads of data and practical evidence.

OLD SMTC SOB wrote:

. The other obvious issue is the increased HCT on blood viscosity which is typically inversely related to athletic performance. .

Ronald Kwemoi says Hello

Viscosity is overrated as a detriment.

More blood cells means there's less issue even if they are going by slower. If you need a million items delivered to your door then a million delivery guys beats half that amount with only 75% of them actually carrying the item.

Lolz (to quote mindweak) ? kind of dwarfs Aragon's placebo.

Juicing but with Orange Juice wrote:

Yeah that was just a placebo effect based on his belief.

His feet became springier and he became more coordinated.

Nothing to see here.

After I take the plyometrics placebo my body is usually sore, if not broken for days afterwards.

Do we really need one? We know that transfusions significantly enhance endurance and we know that epo is a more perfect substitute of this. Well also know that when it was undetectable we saw massive gains in performances and it was a phenomenon observed across other similar sports.

The study of guys and gals trying it and smashing records is pretty iron clad.

He has....and high-octane Lance has already said many times he couldn't have won the Tour clean. Here he is explaining the benefits of rocket fuel to the college kids a few years ago:

Another great document on just how bad doping was in cycling during the Armstrong era. Lance's identity was supposed to be covered-up but the producers messed up and his cover was blown. ?

Aragon wrote:

casual obsever wrote:

Here we have an observation that a group of altitude-trained Kenyans with an average training experience of 5 years and average personal bests of 1:03/2:12 improved after 4 weeks with EPO doping and unchanged training by 5%.

...And yes, the lack of a control group and the differing RPEs from 15 to 16 are disappointing - maybe next time!

Here is a version that doesn't cherry-pick details from here-and-there

Why do you call the above statements cherry-pick(ed) details?

I repeated the main findings of the article as explicitly spelled out in its abstract - that's a neutral observation;

I added facts about the quality of the runners - that increases the significance of the study results (with respect to elite runners);

and I mentioned two problems with this study - that decreases the significance of the study.

Yes, there are more facts, but I presented some from both sides of the coin.

You on the other hand only found negative observations, i.e. you are the one cherry-picking details.

Speaking of more facts, let's add some before rekrunner scolds the both of us:

1) The test at the end of the study (test 3), four weeks after the last EPO injection, was on average 3% faster than the baseline test (test 1).

2) That test's average RPE was not significantly different from test 1.

3) That test's wind was 75% higher than during test 1, the difference being statistically significant.

4) Test 3 had the lowest temperature, highest humidity, and highest dew point, none of which was a statistically significant difference.

In conclusion, if it weren't for the EPO and placebo effect, the test 3 results should have been rather worse than better than the test 1 results.

Now let's look at potential doping controls for the fun of it. Four weeks after the last EPO injection, the athletes would have returned negative EPO test results. At that point, the haemoglobin concentration was only 6% higher than before the injections, so it would have looked normal in the ABP.

Fun, isn't it? We would have a 3% improvement (plus whatever you want to estimate for the wind, minus the placebo effect which you put yesterday at 1%, so "corrected" to over 2%) while testing clean.

Last but not least, let's put this in relation to last decade's values. These were rather moderate EPO dosages here, resulting in a 10% Hb increase after four weeks. That's on average less than half of what we learned about Paula's three documented Hb increases, which themselves were substantially lower than Ramzi's.

rekrunner wrote:

Performance is determined by a combination of other factors, like talent, motivation, coaching, diet, bodyweight, morphology, discipline, etc.

Yes, when it comes to doping, many athletes, coaches, doctors, managers are really that stupid, basing their decision to dope on hope. It is not a rational decision.

So....it's a pretty good Bett that all athletes dope on hope?

Weld On Johnson wrote:

The study of guys and gals trying it and smashing records is pretty iron clad.

^This. It's also absurd to claim that the managers, coaches and athletes were pro-EPO based on faith alone, for over 25 years! If none of them would have noticed better training and racing results after the EPO injections, they would have stopped by now, because no one wants to risk losing medals, money and reputation for doping without any benefits.

But, that also has been pointed out since years. Ultimately, the EPO-doesn't-work (for properly trained etc...) crowd has to propose that the managers, coaches, and athletes are so dumb that they put their faith over their very own training and racing results, and that the scientists are either corrupted by big pharma or incompetent, while these select few posters outsmart them all.

Canova is a liar wrote:

OLD SMTC SOB wrote:

. The other obvious issue is the increased HCT on blood viscosity which is typically inversely related to athletic performance. .

Ronald Kwemoi says Hello

Marco Pantini and his 65 HCT send greetings as well.