'We Can Now Estimate the Effect of Blood Doping'

Renato Canova wrote:

At the same time, I know personally some athlete of good level who improved using EPO, but also in this case I find the main reason of the improvement in a very big increase of training, starting with the increase of volume, and at the same time producing the increase in intensity.

In this case, the final improvement depends on the improved training. The question is : was EPO the reason of improved training because of physiological reasons, or because, taking EPO, the athlete finally decided possible to train more, while before supposed that training impossible ?

Isn't that exactly what you would expect to see happen when an elite athelte takes EPO? The athlete takes EPO during training and therefore they are able to train harder and recover better because EPO use is increasing their endurance in addition to the training. I would be very surprised if an elite athlete took EPO (or most other PEDs such as steroids etc) and then just carried on training at the same intensity expecting to see improved performance in competition. The only exception could be the use of stimulants such as amphetamines which would be taken just before a competition (I suppose they would test the effects before a few training sessions first to be safe).

I don't agree. For my experience, in several cases athletes recuse both volume and intensity of training, thinking not to be able to recovery. BUT NEVER THEY TRIED.

With blood manipulation, finally they move to more training, BECAUSE NOW THINK POSSIBLE TO RECOVERY.

The main question is : HOW MUCH TRAINING THE SAME ATHLETES COULD DO, ALSO WITHOUT TRAINING, IF NOT PSYCHOLOGICALLY LIMITED ?

Don't make confusion between cyclists racing in big tours for 20 following days (Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta de Espana) and runners. In the first case, the ability to recover is at the base of the final result. Cyclists can't decide when to have an easy day, because this doesn't depend on their choice, but on the evolution of the competition, so need to be ready every day for racing at their best.

Athletes, instead, have 350 days of training in one year, about 600 - 700 training sessions, and normally no more than 10-12 competitions (if track runners), or 2 top marathons (if Marathon runners).

In this situation, every athlete can decide his individual training modulation.

Remember that the main task of training is to give athletes the opportunity to support SPECIFIC TRAINING at max intensity. When an athlete has to look at his top shape for running 10000m in 26'30", for example, if I put in his program some KEY WORKOUTS (for example, 12 km Tempo at 2'45" < 2'48" pace, or 3 x 2000m + 1 x 1000m with recovery 4 min in 5'20" > 5'15" and 2'30", or 1 hr of Fartlek including 20 times 1' fast / 1' moderate + 20 times 30" fast / 30" moderate running between 19,5 and 20 km, all this training in altitude), I give also an INDIVIDUAL RECOVERY, because for some athlete we can have 3 easy days in the middle, for some other 4 easy days, for another 5 easy days, BUT WAS IS IMPORTANT IS THE POSSIBILITY TO DO THE WORKOUT AT THE TARGETED SPEED AND WITH THE TARGETED VOLUME.

Dietrologia.

Buon lavoro, Canova!

Recovery is not in your head. The people training harder and faster on EPO are doing so because they really are aided, not because they think they should be.

This recovery hypothesis is more speculation without any basis.

Usually studies look at short term increases from a brief campaign of EPO, and very few (are there any?) have looked at training load and recovery, and concluded EPO allowed a higher training load with faster recovery.

Except all the athletes on it who will tell you the opposite.

Could you refer to athletes who kept their hematocrits at 50-60 % all around the year to do some extra training every single day?

Aragon wrote:

Could you refer to athletes who kept their hematocrits at 50-60 % all around the year to do some extra training every single day?

Ronald Kwemoi?

Renato Canova wrote:

I don't agree. For my experience, in several cases athletes recuse both volume and intensity of training, thinking not to be able to recovery. BUT NEVER THEY TRIED.

With blood manipulation, finally they move to more training, BECAUSE NOW THINK POSSIBLE TO RECOVERY.

The main question is : HOW MUCH TRAINING THE SAME ATHLETES COULD DO, ALSO WITHOUT TRAINING, IF NOT PSYCHOLOGICALLY LIMITED ?

You don't agree but you don't have any evidence to support your position more than the other. The question could just as justifiably be "how much training could the same athletes do if their physiological limitations were pushed back by using EPO over the long term to support their training."

You argue that the changes (we shall say improved performance for the sake of the argument) in the athlete due to EPO use or blood doping are psychological whereas someone else could argue that they are physiological. And at least the person arguing that they are due to physiological changes could point towards the physiological parameters that have changed - it would be harder to argue which psychological parameters have changed and that they have not been influenced by the changes in the physiological parameters.

Some folks have high measures particularly at altitude, the plasma shift difference is like 4-5 percentage points in some papers. Here is an even better one -- Eero Mäntyranta, Hct of 60-70 % around 76 years.

How about any of the cyclists of the 1990s when there was no blood doping testing whatsoever and of whom many have confessed? How many were "Mr. 60 %" in December, but only "Mr. 49.9 %" in July?.

Again, maybe I'm not able to explain my thought.

I never said the DIRECT advantage for athletes taking EPO is psychological.

The DIRECT advantage is, ALWAYS, because they increased their training, SO THEIR PERFORMANCES DEPEND ON THEIR TRAINING.

What I say, is that the athletes taking EPO, because believe in its effect, FINALLY DECIDE TO INCREASE THEIR TRAINING IN ALL THE DIRECTIONS, reaching levels (of volume and intensity IN TRAINING) that before SUPPOSED not possible to reach, and for that reason NEVER tried to do similar training.

But, when you have athletes with big self-confidence (and also some arrogance, because they think to be number one in the world and take enormous mental strength from that conviction) who don't put limits to their motivation to do fatigue and their threshold of pain and sufference, they ALREADY are able to reach the same level of training WITHOUT DOPING, and for that reason the final results are or the same, or better than athletes using blood manipulation.

If this was not possible, there is no reason because so many clean athletes can run faster than doped athletes.

You can do all the speculations you want, but I knoe FOR SURE athletes at the top of the world who NEVER took anything, and this simple fact contradicts the idea that blood doping can give advantages TO EVERYBODY. Like for training in altitude, there are RESPONDERS and not responders, and responders at altitude maybe are not responders at EPO, because, also if the final goal is the same (to increase the transportation of Oxygen), according to physiological individual differences, reaching the goal because of training or because of doping is not exactly the same thing, under physiological point of view.

Ronald is the typical example of a person whose fluctuation of Hct practically doesn't exist.

His level never goes under 52, and never goes over 53.5 (max level in 16 blood tests, not depending on his shape : he had 52.8 during the period of stop following the stress fracture in Monaco 2017).

Several times I pointed out the big individual difference between Gelindo Bordin, Olympic Marathon Champion 1988, and Gennaro Di Napoli, Italian record holder of 1500m.

Gelindo won in Seoul '88 with Hct of 39.7 and Hb of 12.9.

Genny Di Napoli had normal Hct of 51-52, and Hb between 18.5 and 19. When had 17.5, his feeling was to be in anemia.

This clearly shows that these parameters, alone, don't mean anything, and that the way of working of our body is very much more complicated than what people think.

physics defiant wrote:

Except all the athletes on it who will tell you the opposite.

Even including these athletes, it remains speculation without basis.

EPO long term wrote:

The question could just as justifiably be "how much training could the same athletes do if their physiological limitations were pushed back by using EPO over the long term to support their training."

Interestingly, this thread on a study of Russian women whose performance dropped when you take away EPO could be used to determine the existence of any lingering long term effects.

rekrunner wrote:

EPO long term wrote:

The question could just as justifiably be "how much training could the same athletes do if their physiological limitations were pushed back by using EPO over the long term to support their training."

Interestingly, this thread on a study of Russian women whose performance dropped when you take away EPO could be used to determine the existence of any lingering long term effects.

The real question isn't even whether blood dopers can do more or harder training, but whether there is some additional benefit with this extra training, because training adaptation is very much body reacting to training stimulus, and blood doping can make the stimulus lower/unchanged by making the effort easier.

If a cyclist gets 5 % more watts per kilogram at FTP with blood doping, it is reasonable to think that he/she can increase the watts at almost every given heart zone by close to 5 % or do some extra training at a given fixed W/kg because heart rate and very likely RPE are lower because 75 % of Vo2Max is now 70 % of Vo2Max.

The question is this -- Does training with the 5 % boost give some extra adaptation vs. training with only 0 % boost and taking the 5 % boost only during the competitive season? Or is there some other mechanism via which rHuEPO/blood doping enhances recovery?

None of this matters.

EPO is banned other than pursuant to a TUE. No non-TUE runner “needs” EPO, and there is therefore no legitimate excuse for taking it, regardless of if or how it produces any benefit.

I get that some of you are interested in pure performance rather than rule compliance. That’s different, of course.

Perhaps you don't realize you are in a thread called "We Can Now Estimate the Effect of Blood Doping".

If effect didn't matter, why are there so many studies trying to show it?

rekrunner wrote:

physics defiant wrote:

Except all the athletes on it who will tell you the opposite.

Even including these athletes, it remains speculation without basis.

Nope, there's plenty of basis.

Agreed. That is one reason why looking at fastest performances seems more relevant than changes in VO2max, or LT, or peak power, or time to exhaustion.