First Paula 2:15, now Ritz 12:56 in a few months of track training?????? BAN ALTITUDE TENTS!!!!

Does anyone know if Mottram ever used an altitude tent? Also, the obvious question, before anyone else asks it, is, how much faster would Bob Kennedy have run if he had used an altitude tent? One can only speculate.

Hey "altitude tent cheats out," let's not forget that Ritz ran 13:27 as a true frosh in college and finished third to K. Bekele at junior world cross. I agree with what you are saying in theory, but, don't think for a minute that the tent gave him like a 15-20 second advantage.

Does anyone know if the top Africans do in fact live high/train low or use tents themselves?

Sagarin wrote:

Does anyone know if Mottram ever used an altitude tent? Also, the obvious question, before anyone else asks it, is, how much faster would Bob Kennedy have run if he had used an altitude tent? One can only speculate.

No, that's not Nic's sort of thing.

Maybe Kennedy would have run slower. Cova ran slower while blood doping. You never know.

Another question. Let's say an athlete chose to live/sleep up near the top of Mt. Baldy (14,000'+) and then drive down to Death Valley (not during the summer of course) BELOW sea level to train. Would this confer an unfair advantage that most do not have access to?

nice try, but you are being silly and you know it.lets see if you can all follow this line of thinking:BREATHING IN SYNTHETIC, MAN-MADE AIR IN ORDER TO BOOST YOUR EPO IS NOT MUCH DIFFERENT THAN INJECTING A DRUG TO BOOST YOUR EPO.

AtheistRunner wrote:

Anything that could give someone a competitive boost should be banned. I'll start a list and others can help add to it.

- Altitude tents (we can't all train this way)

- Indoor tracks (climate controlled)

- Hill repeats (builds muscles faster than normal)

- Mediterranean climates (a form of climate control)

- Caffine (PED: Stimulates yoiur system)

- Asprin (PED: Keeps you from feeling natural pain)

- Treadmills (we don't all have then)

....

I guess airplane flights offer an unfair advantage?

You keep saying that but you have yet to prove that "synthetic air" does anything more for you then regular air at high altitude. So according to this logic you would be perfectly fine if I invented a new tent in which I mimicked the air at high altitude by reducing the pressure?

altitude tent cheats out! wrote:

nice try, but you are being silly and you know it.

lets see if you can all follow this line of thinking:

BREATHING IN SYNTHETIC, MAN-MADE AIR IN ORDER TO BOOST YOUR EPO IS NOT MUCH DIFFERENT THAN INJECTING A DRUG TO BOOST YOUR EPO.

AtheistRunner wrote:

Anything that could give someone a competitive boost should be banned. I'll start a list and others can help add to it.

- Altitude tents (we can't all train this way)

- Indoor tracks (climate controlled)

- Hill repeats (builds muscles faster than normal)

- Mediterranean climates (a form of climate control)

- Caffine (PED: Stimulates yoiur system)

- Asprin (PED: Keeps you from feeling natural pain)

- Treadmills (we don't all have then)

....

Sagarin wrote:

Hey "altitude tent cheats out," let's not forget that Ritz ran 13:27 as a true frosh in college and finished third to K. Bekele at junior world cross. I agree with what you are saying in theory, but, don't think for a minute that the tent gave him like a 15-20 second advantage.

Does anyone know if the top Africans do in fact live high/train low or use tents themselves?

I agree with you. I think Ritz and Paula are brilliantly talented athletes. I just think they are 2:19/20 & 13:03-:05 athletes without this gray area aid, just as Ramzi was probably still medalist without EPO, but just not a double-gold winner.

I don't think africans use the tents (maybe a few that have moved west). And this concept that people could routinely use live high/train low is bunk. It would be way too time consuming and not practical at all. There are no 12,000 feet spots right near easily accessible sea level spots. And the tent can be brought anywhere.

You're the one being silly. There are thousands of people living and training at altitude and they have a large advantage over sea level people. A tent may slightly reduce that advantage for some people.

Unless you're prepared to call for the banning of all altitude based training and living, don't call for the ban of one.

Bolt Fan wrote:

You keep saying that but you have yet to prove that "synthetic air" does anything more for you then regular air at high altitude. So according to this logic you would be perfectly fine if I invented a new tent in which I mimicked the air at high altitude by reducing the pressure?

I am not saying it does anything profoundly differently, just as EPO doesn't do anything profoundly differently than natural EPO. So if I took natural EPO extracted from humans, would you be ok with that?

How about I take synthetic EPO, and figure out a way to put it in a mist, then I breathe it in while I sleep at night? You'd be cool with THAT, correct? Sounds pretty similar to breathing in synthetic air to me.

Since you like synthetic air, but not synthetic EPO, is it the needles you don't like??

You and I are pretty much on the same page. Logistically, it's not feasible to simulate this naturally. However, as I said before, maybe it merely serves to level the playing field for those not born/raised at altitude and born devoid of "African physiology."

Dumbass: Iquique is less than an hour by plane from La Paz.

may i ask you this wrote:

You're the one being silly. There are thousands of people living and training at altitude and they have a large advantage over sea level people. A tent may slightly reduce that advantage for some people.

Unless you're prepared to call for the banning of all altitude based training and living, don't call for the ban of one.

Ok, NOW you are just trolling, right??

Your logic seems to be: if some people have a naturally occurring advantage over others (like living at altitude), then we can use technology to close that gap, no matter what?? Some people are born with more testosterone, correct? Why not allow people with less testosterone to inject some then? no, you'd want to hang someone if they did that. Again, if I breathe in those steroids via a mist, are you cool with that?

Breathing synthetic air in a tent is not the same as breathing naturally "thinner" air at altitude. They are similar, but not the same.

If there were places in the world in which EPO was in the air and could be breathed in, and those people who lived there were allowed that advantage, then, yes, one would have to say that if a similar situation could be created in a tent then it would be about the same as we're discussing with an altitude tent.

You see, people are using altitude and it does advantage them.

Yes, but it's near the equator and it's hot and humid as hell itself. You don't see Bolivian Olympic distance runners, even though they have cultural similarities with the Africans living in destitute conditions. Of course, they may lack the African physiology too.

Your missing the point. The problem with EPO is not that is synthetic. The problem with EPO is that is allows you to boost your blood count to beyond physiological levels and to do it nearly instantly and without any effects on recovery. This is NOT the case with tents. You can only raise your blood count to the limits of your genetic predisposition. It takes weeks to months to get a large effect. And using altitude tents impairs recovery rates.

the OP has an opinion. and that's great. but until he has a degree in biochem or physiology and creates a his own argument, or produces research by which to suggest that altitude tents are congruous with banned substances/mechanical performance enhancers, he is the equivalent of dude MSNBC had on to talk about how Semenya is being wronged. he also believes an altitude tent is equivalent to EPO use. then produce an argument for that beyond, asking "how can you not understand that" in CAPS LOCK. if the OPs posts were an argument paper, i'd give the strength of the argument about C- to a C. dios mio, man.

Sagarin wrote:

Does anyone know if Mottram ever used an altitude tent? Also, the obvious question, before anyone else asks it, is, how much faster would Bob Kennedy have run if he had used an altitude tent? One can only speculate.

Bob trained in Boulder under Dieter "The Cheater" Hogan. Mottram has trained extensively around the world at high altitude.

This thread is really silly. Are you guys really just now opening your eyes to the use of high altitude/tents? The best in the world are doing it. Anyone who tries to do it all at sea-level (cough cough, the Hansons) is kidding themselves.

Iquique is in Chile. And it isn't that hot. Average high and low are 24.4 and 14 Celcius.