Nadal shows doping at the top of tennis

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

Dont knock it till you've tried it.

I've tried nailing it. It's great!

I don't believe you. Show us your "work".

Mrs Rekrunner wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

I've tried nailing it. It's great!

I can vouch for that!

Not without drugs.

toozy wrote:

The only thing funnier than ‘they’re all doping’ claims is the circle jerk about an athletic man still being athletic at the shockingly high age of... 34.

Physiological decline in your early to mid 30s is comically overstated. Wear and tear can’t really be avoided for pro athletes, but Rafa hasn’t avoided it. He now takes months off at a time.

He doesn't take months off to rest. He claims injury. Injury doesn't make you a better or stronger player. Unless it isn't really injury and has more to do with your doping cycle.

What is "comically overstated" is the uninformed belief that physiological decline does not begin when the medical experts say it does - because of doping.

toozy wrote:

The only thing funnier than ‘they’re all doping’ claims is the circle jerk about an athletic man still being athletic at the shockingly high age of... 34.

Physiological decline in your early to mid 30s is comically overstated. Wear and tear can’t really be avoided for pro athletes, but Rafa hasn’t avoided it. He now takes months off at a time.

He also had a lot of pioneering stem cell therapy. I'm not saying it's cheating, but in a literal sense Nadal has partly the body of a 20 year old.

There must be a reason for the fact that so many elite sportsmen can now continue to dominate into their mid thirties, when only a couple of decades ago it was a given that you were over the hill by 28 in just about any sport.

If you watch the YouTube video of the LA Olympic 800m final with the American commentary, one of them describes Steve Ovett as 'getting a bit long in the tooth'.

He was 28.

Dope Hardstrong wrote:

Quite the strawman he, uh, erected.

As I said, you can't stay away. Your obsession in following me around has no limits. Quite an illness.

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

If the argument has been reduced to saying performance enhancing drugs don't work then it is an argument that has been lost. It is also lost when the best some of you can come up with is that an accusation of doping is simply an expression of envy.

Of course performance enhancing drugs work -- or we couldn't call them that.

This is not the gap in your logic that I pointed out.

You have pointed nothing out. You're full of air. You are also quite the liar - as you have repeatedly denied that performance enhancing drugs work, and that athletes take them on "faith" because there is no proof they work.

I’m quite literally qualified to make that comment - are you? I doubt it. To reiterate: it’s overstated, it didn’t say it ‘doesn’t begin’.

He claims injury because he has patellar tendonitis - he’s had it for years.

I only dropped in to confirm that you were projecting when you said that.

Get it, projecting?

I did laugh when you used viagra to illustrate your ipse dixit argument.

Yes, there is a reason. Doping. It is increasingly sophisticated. It is used in almost every area of competitive activity, and has moved far beyond simply increasing muscle mass as with the body-builders of old. It now includes improving the capacity of the nervous system to respond to stimuli at greater speed, thus increasing coordination and timing - crucial in so many sports. Prolonging careers is only one of the many gains that it provides. The natural sportsman is becoming a relic of the past.

toozy wrote:

I’m quite literally qualified to make that comment - are you? I doubt it. To reiterate: it’s overstated, it didn’t say it ‘doesn’t begin’.

He claims injury because he has patellar tendonitis - he’s had it for years.

He "claims" injury. He has actually claimed every kind of injury. He began wearing knee bandages for his "patellar tendonitis" since 2005 but now these decorations have proved redundant - despite his complaints year after year of knee issues. In all that time, despite a chronic injury he has never required surgical intervention. Remarkable. I have had patellar tendonitis and it won't go away if you keep playing. You can't even run on it when it becomes severe. Ultimately, it required surgery.

You can’t understate the changes in training methodology and ideology enabling decreased wear and tear. We’re starting to see athletes who trained at lower intensities throughout their careers - and from a far earlier age - vs ‘boot camp’ style training (that I grew up with).

There are plenty of modern day examples of athletes doing the latter and being finished by their late 20s, Andy Murray being probably the most notable in tennis. My friend plays in the Championship (tier 2 of English football) and has had managers who’s idea of preseason training resembled something closer to a special forces ‘hell week’.

Then there’s the professionalism argument. Most the guys we’re seeing continue deep into their 30s are extremely diligent in their training and have had access to teams of people dedicated to keeping them fit throughout their careers.

And then, when the players do get injured, the medical improvements over the past couple of decades have been substantial. Injuries that would severely curtail a career are now surmountable.

Plus, it’s not like these athletes aren’t clearly athletically declining. They’re just fit enough to provide a platform for their skill and experience to provide adaptability.

Dope Hardstrong wrote:

I only dropped in to confirm that you were projecting when you said that.

Get it, projecting?

I did laugh when you used viagra to illustrate your ipse dixit argument.

No, you didn't "drop in". You are obsessed. But I said you can't help yourself - and I was correct.

However careers are now being prolonged, this doesn't change the fact that according to medical experts we reach our biological peak in our late-20's and at that point the decline begins. Doping is changing that. For example, it allows an athlete in their 30's to possess the same level of testosterone they produced in their 20's.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Dope Hardstrong wrote:

I only dropped in to confirm that you were projecting when you said that.

Get it, projecting?

I did laugh when you used viagra to illustrate your ipse dixit argument.

No, you didn't "drop in". You are obsessed. But I said you can't help yourself - and I was correct.

Nah, I just drop in to laugh at you providing a case study of Schopenhauer's work.

It's also amusing watching you do your Don Quixote act.

I mean you've posted about 20 times on this just today. So I would say your obsession comment is also projection. You are obsessed with being right. Even when the thread died you revived it with another desperate appeal to authority.

Hey look, a windmill.

Coevett wrote:

If you watch the YouTube video of the LA Olympic 800m final with the American commentary, one of them describes Steve Ovett as 'getting a bit long in the tooth'.

He was 28.

Ovett had won his first senior medal a full decade earlier. Look at the context of the comment.

He had already been around forever and looked older than he was.

Lopes won the Marathon at the same games at 37.

1) the hormonal profile of a fit man in his early 30s isn’t very different from that of a man in his late 20s.

2) testosterone levels don’t matter much within what should be the normal range - it’s relative to the individual. For whatever reason the criteria of ‘low’ testosterone for younger men, like with everything, is lower than it should be, but I digress.

3) your ‘biological peak’ will vary depending on your sport / what component of physical attribute you’re talking about. Your neuroplasticity, for example, is past its peak before you even hit puberty. Your testosterone peaks around 16-17. Protein elastin in tendons, CNS excitability, recovery etc is all going to be better at 20 than it is at 25-30.

But, like I said above, with all wear and tear removed (which isn’t going to happen in a pro athlete), the physiological decline into your mid 30s or so is overstated. Recovery is probably the biggest difference.

Heck, there were sprinters at the Ancient Olympics who were winning the sprint events and pentathlon into their 30s.

Leonidas of Rhodes won the 200, 400 and 800m (in light armour) at 36 - his 4th Olympics in a row.

Granted, lower levels of competition. But from a populous raised on exercise, where sports science was big business - with state sponsored training programmes - it’s a stretch to imagine these guys would be anything but phenomenal athletes.

Dope Hardstrong wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

No, you didn't "drop in". You are obsessed. But I said you can't help yourself - and I was correct.

Nah, I just drop in to laugh at you providing a case study of Schopenhauer's work.

It's also amusing watching you do your Don Quixote act.

I mean you've posted about 20 times on this just today. So I would say your obsession comment is also projection. You are obsessed with being right. Even when the thread died you revived it with another desperate appeal to authority.

Hey look, a windmill.

Hey look, a stalker.

When the differences at the very top are of the finest margins - hundreds of a second in running - any decline will have a significant effect on outcomes. That is why in the past athletes were typically on their way down by 30. To be even a step slower was to lose.

What I find surprising is that with our awareness about the growing pervasiveness of doping in all sports - and its increasing sophistication- there is a reluctance to see that this would translate into prolonging careers, quite apart from producing higher levels of performance.

(BTW, if you don't think testosterone levels don't matter much it is difficult to see why it is a banned drug, or why it was the central feature in the Semenya case.)