I have understood it better than you have. So you think he is saying doping will make them better?
No you haven't.
Like rekrunner wrote, "Renato already said "Maybe my athletes could improve with doping" and "I don't have any proof that my athletes couldn't run faster with doping, this is a theory only.""
Armstronglivs, you continue not to understand my point.
I'm open to think that some doping (specially steroids) can help 80% of the athletes to achieve better performances, but it seems you, and all the other fighter against doping (not on the ground, but from the keyboard) are not ready to accept that inside the 20% not using any doping we can find the top in the world.
You have reason when say I'm not a doctor, so I can't decide if doping can work or not. But the final application of doping looks at the level of athletic performance, and doctors are not able to know what there is to do for increasing a performance. Doctor are doctor, and coaches/methodologists are the one who prepare training programs and follow the athletes, building the performances of the athletes.
Medicine is not an exact science. When one important person is sick (for example the President of US or the Pope) the staff calls several doctors chosen among the best specialist in the world, for a global consultation, and the proposal for solving the problem (some time the diagnosis itself) frequently are very different from each of them. So, what does it mean "to be a doctor" when we speak about what athletes have to do for improving their performance ? Which type of knowledge doctors have about training ?
The reality is that you make confusion about the roles of doctors/ coaches / managers without knowing exactly which is the type of work everybody has to do, and for that reason you live in a strong convinction that doesn't admit the possibility to give merit to other factors everytime there is a top performance.
What is your reason for saying doping may help the 80% but not the top 20%? What are you basing that on, if you have no experience of either using drugs in the top 20% or observing its use? You are merely speculating, without empirical evidence of any kind.
The experts on drugs are not - and may not claim to be - experts on elite sporting performance. (Some will be.) What they are expert on is how the drugs affect human physiology. They see that some drugs can have a significant effect on factors that can affect sporting performance - on increasing strength, for example, or enhancing stamina and reducing fatigue. Elite athletes have the same physiology as other human beings, so they will also be affected by those drugs. The only question is to what extent. It will vary from individual to individual but a steroid is a steroid - its effects will not be neutral, whoever you are. That applies to most of the drugs that are banned.
You and others here claim that drugs deemed potentially performance enhancing will not have those effects on highly trained elites yet you have nothing - no experience or data - upon which to make that claim. Top athletes have muscles, lungs, hearts and blood - like all of us. If I can be made stronger so can they, and if my capacity to resist fatigue is enhanced so will theirs. It doesn't have to be to the same extent but there will be some effect. Your argument rests on saying that superior training with top athletes - but only the top 20%, for some reason - can replace the effects of drugs, or even be superior to drugs, but you have never tried to test these banned drugs on those athletes to see if that is true. Obviously, there are ethical reasons for that but it means you are making a claim you cannot support, that you have never tested.
Yet we see elite athletes continue to dope. They apparently have more confidence in their drugs than in your assurances they don't need them.
I'm open to think that some doping (specially steroids) can help 80% of the athletes to achieve better performances, but it seems you, and all the other fighter against doping (not on the ground, but from the keyboard) are not ready to accept that inside the 20% not using any doping we can find the top in the world.
What is your reason for saying doping may help the 80% but not the top 20%?
I have understood it better than you have. So you think he is saying doping will make them better?
No you haven't.
Like rekrunner wrote, "Renato already said "Maybe my athletes could improve with doping" and "I don't have any proof that my athletes couldn't run faster with doping, this is a theory only.""
He admits he doesn't have proof of what he is saying yet he also insists that elite training will produce better results than doping. If he isn't saying the latter then he has no argument based on fact that doping doesn't produce superior results with elite athletes - and he thereby concedes the argument about doping to me. He doesn't.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Like rekrunner wrote, "Renato already said "Maybe my athletes could improve with doping" and "I don't have any proof that my athletes couldn't run faster with doping, this is a theory only.""
He admits he doesn't have proof yet he also insists that elite training will produce better results than doping. If he isn't saying the latter then he has no argument based on fact that doping can produce superior results with elite athletes - and he thereby concedes the argument about doping to me. He doesn't.
How can you say "he also insists that elite training will produce better results than doping" when he just wrote "Maybe my athletes could improve with doping"?
He admits he doesn't have proof yet he also insists that elite training will produce better results than doping. If he isn't saying the latter then he has no argument based on fact that doping can produce superior results with elite athletes - and he thereby concedes the argument about doping to me. He doesn't.
How can you say "he also insists that elite training will produce better results than doping" when he just wrote "Maybe my athletes could improve with doping"?
Because he continues to say he believes training achieves better results than doping amongst top athletes. If he isn't saying that then he isn't actually disputing my argument, which is that every level of athlete can improve with doping - and that is why they dope.
How can you say "he also insists that elite training will produce better results than doping" when he just wrote "Maybe my athletes could improve with doping"?
Because he continues to say he believes training achieves better results than doping amongst top athletes. If he isn't saying that then he isn't actually disputing my argument, which is that every level of athlete can improve with doping - and that is why they dope.
No he does not. If he concedes that "maybe" his clean athletes could have been faster if doping, then he does not. What he says is that he believes the best results can be achieved by clean athletes. Like you believe they can't, he believes they can. It's a matter of belief. The difference is that he has coached hundreds or thousands of athletes. Some of them achieved incredible performances. His belief is based on his extensive experience.
I think it is better to discuss it with him as you clearly can't follow what he is saying - about anything.
Make your own arguments - don't try to make his for him.
Why are you insulting me instead of discussing things like a reasonable person? I have just shown you you didn't understand what he wrote.
I am making my argument that you didn't understand whet he wrote.
Then you aren't making an argument of any kind.
If you think Renato is saying "maybe' doping would help top athletes and that he is only "speculating" about what it would do then he has no argument against the point that top athletes - his athletes - could gain from doping. If he is saying that then he is effectively in agreement with me. I don't think he has written screeds here to come to that.
Because he continues to say he believes training achieves better results than doping amongst top athletes. If he isn't saying that then he isn't actually disputing my argument, which is that every level of athlete can improve with doping - and that is why they dope.
No he does not. If he concedes that "maybe" his clean athletes could have been faster if doping, then he does not. What he says is that he believes the best results can be achieved by clean athletes. Like you believe they can't, he believes they can. It's a matter of belief. The difference is that he has coached hundreds or thousands of athletes. Some of them achieved incredible performances. His belief is based on his extensive experience.
He does have considerable experience of training top athletes. I don't dispute that. But he doesn't have experience of what doping might achieve for them. That means he cannot make a definitive claim that doping wouldn't improve their performances (or hadn't played a role). If he says "maybe" it would help them he isn't disputing what I and others would say.
I am not making an argument based on my experiences - they aren't relevant. My arguments are based on the known facts that considerable numbers of elite athletes dope, that the drugs they use are expertly deemed to have performance enhancing properties, and we see performances that suggest drugs have played a part. All of that - and more - is why doping is seen as a serious issue for the sport and why it is a particular problem in Kenya.
This post was edited 32 seconds after it was posted.
Armstronglivs, you have to understand that doctors and pharmacists expert of drugs are not expert of training, so don't know the physiiological variations athletes can have with proper training. I want to explain you some fact :
A) A hard training in altitude, lasting 4-5 months, oriented to increase the AEROBIC POWER, with adequate recovery between the most important training session, in order to use in the best way the principle of "overcompensation", produce an increase of the total volume of blood of 25% in the most talented athletes (specific talent for endurance). This is one of the points doctor/pharmacists don't know, and the official physiology doesn't think possible.
B) The above increase in the total volume is possible NOT for everybody, but for an estimated percentage (maybe 20% or less) of PARTICULARLY TALENTED ATHLETES, who have the level of elasticity of their circulatory system able to host 1 an half liter of blood MORE than the total volume before that type of training. I spoke of 80% (hypothetical) responder to blood doping, and of 20% (hypothetical) NOT responder, because that 20% includes all the athletes with the physiological situation I explained above.
C) If the physiological principle are the same for every human, the LEVELS of different physiological apparatus are INDIVIDUAL. For example, it's common belief that increasing the Hematocryt can automatically brings advantages in the transport of Oxygen, but this is not true. Every athletes has a NATURAL RANGE of Hct (for example, 42-45), and to enhance the level over that limit DOESN'T PRODUCE ANY EFFECT ON THE PERFORMANCE. Of course, it's true that more Hemoglobin can facilitate the transport of Oxygen, and any athlete can have advantage when the Hct is at HIS HIGHER INDIDUAL LEVEL, but if with every system we try to make Hct higher, in the body there is some compensation (I never read any study in that direction) that doesn't allow the body itself to perform better.
D) The assumption of EPO doesn't allow the body of the talented athletes (I above explained WHICH KIND OF TALENT) to increase the total volume to the same quantity achievable with proper training. We are therefore in a situation of balance between the increase of Hct taking EPO with the maintenance of the same total blood volume, and the big increase of the total volume of blood with lower Hct. We have to remember that the Hct is a number : the multiplication of the MCV (Mean Corpuscolar Volume) with RBC (Red Blood Cells, or erythrocytes). This means, for example, that a MCV of 85 with RBC of 5,650 (Hct 45) seems the same data of a MCV of 95 with RBC of 4,938 (Hct 45), BUT THESE TWO HCT WORK IN DIFFERENT WAY.
E) The difference of ANSWERS of the athlete's body to the same type of stimuli, in connection with the duration of the stimuli themselves and the current situation of the athlete. For example, training in a situation of hypossia creates, at the beginning, a situation of stress in the athlete, who reacts (again in 80% of the case, not 100%) increasing the production of new erythrocytes from the medulla, with obvious increase of the number of RBC. This is the typical situation of athletes normally training at sea level, going in altitude. But after some time (normally 5-7 weeks) the altitude doesn't continue to stimulate the athlete, because there is ADAPTATION. Adaptation means that the medulla is no longer stressed for producing new erythrocytes, the number of RBC starts to decrease a little, but at the same time the volume of every RBC becomes bigger because there is the increase of the plasmatic part. This is the typical situation of people living and training in altitude (including athletes born at sea level but with stays in altitude for long time, so it's not a genetic factor). Their blood, with the same level of Hct, is more fluid, and the periferal resistance is minor than when the Hct (with the same value) comes from the multiplication of more RBC with smaller MCV.
I don't say doping is useless for bettering personal performances, but we need to distinguish the final action of the illegal drug. Don't forget I always spoke of BLOOD DOPING or BLOOD MANIPULATION : in those events, the top athletes have a type of talent that can be exhalted in natural way with training, while taking EPO goes to limit the natural level reachable with training (the big increase n the total blood volume).
Also, if the physiological principles are the same for every body, the INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS are at the base for different performances. If this is not the case, while the performances are not the same for everybody, in the same conditions (everybody with or without doping) ?
At the end, I confirm again what I explained a thousand time to people who refuse to understand the reality, giving credit to studies that don't consider all the parameters I explained in the above points : STRONGER ATHLETES ARE, WEAKER IS THE ACTION OF DOPING. This doesn't means many strong athletes prefer to try some shortcut, but also doesn't mean they and who advice them are aware of what it's possible to reach with training only.
Renato has argued that he believes athletes could perform better clean than doped. That is one of his main arguments against doping. It isn't necessary, he says, to achieving the highest level of performance. Yet he has no experience with doping or doped athletes. He is thus an "amateur" on this subject.
The pharmacological experts are not amateurs in terms of their understanding the effects of the drugs on the human body. They don't have to be experts on sporting performance to know what the drugs are capable of doing. If the drugs have a significant effect on human physiology they will affect human performance because the latter cannot be separated from the former. That is why their advice is heeded by WADA.
The athletes that use the drugs aren't speculative "amateurs_ - as you are and indeed Renato is - they have direct experience of that which you and he have none. Thousands of them do. I'll take their experience over your academic - yet baseless - musings any day.
He said twice that he cannot be sure, and you still followed up with "how can you be so sure?"
Do you even read the posts, or just fail to understand them?
Do doctors/pharmacists say elite performance can be improved? They usually deny such conclusions in disclaimers and limitations. Changing human physiology doesn't mean performance will improve.
You keep taking the athlete experience, but you don't really know what their experience is, and whether they got faster, or slower, or stayed the same.
Your stream of consciousness again. Because you can't find data that establishes the performance gains from doping you infer - wrongly - there won't be performance gains. It is an illicit practice and athletes don't agree to being subjects in doping studies. So we don't have data on how it affected their performances. What we do have is knowledge that the drugs they use are deemed potentially performance enhancing - there is no doubt about that with most, like steroids, blood doping and EPO - and that athletes use these drugs in considerable numbers. If they didn't get results from their doping the practice would largely disappear. It hasn't. We can infer athletes experience gains from doping and anecdotal accounts have confirmed this.
It was a yes/no question, with a third option possible -- you don't really know.
Without data, it remains pure uninformed speculation propped up by faulty rationalizations and faulty comprehension that have always failed to compel.
Which athlete experience and anecdotal accounts are you relying on? Jose Canseco? Barry Bonds? Hulk Hogan? Lewis Hamilton? Phil Taylor? Ronnie O'Sullivan?
Renato has argued that he believes athletes could perform better clean than doped. That is one of his main arguments against doping. It isn't necessary, he says, to achieving the highest level of performance. Yet he has no experience with doping or doped athletes. He is thus an "amateur" on this subject.
The pharmacological experts are not amateurs in terms of their understanding the effects of the drugs on the human body. They don't have to be experts on sporting performance to know what the drugs are capable of doing. If the drugs have a significant effect on human physiology they will affect human performance because the latter cannot be separated from the former. That is why their advice is heeded by WADA.
The athletes that use the drugs aren't speculative "amateurs_ - as you are and indeed Renato is - they have direct experience of that which you and he have none. Thousands of them do. I'll take their experience over your academic - yet baseless - musings any day.
He said twice that he cannot be sure, and you still followed up with "how can you be so sure?"
Do you even read the posts, or just fail to understand them?
Do doctors/pharmacists say elite performance can be improved? They usually deny such conclusions in disclaimers and limitations. Changing human physiology doesn't mean performance will improve.
You keep taking the athlete experience, but you don't really know what their experience is, and whether they got faster, or slower, or stayed the same.
Renato isn't a slithering casuist as you are so he doesn't try to say he is arguing the opposite of what one would understand him to be saying. That's what you do.
But he doesn't write posts as long as he has simply to say he is effectively agreeing with me, that drugs might enhance the performances of highly-trained athletes.
"Without data, it remains pure uninformed speculation propped up by faulty rationalizations and faulty comprehension that have always failed to compel."(quote)
Renato has argued that he believes athletes could perform better clean than doped. That is one of his main arguments against doping. It isn't necessary, he says, to achieving the highest level of performance. Yet he has no experience with doping or doped athletes. He is thus an "amateur" on this subject.
The pharmacological experts are not amateurs in terms of their understanding the effects of the drugs on the human body. They don't have to be experts on sporting performance to know what the drugs are capable of doing. If the drugs have a significant effect on human physiology they will affect human performance because the latter cannot be separated from the former. That is why their advice is heeded by WADA.
The athletes that use the drugs aren't speculative "amateurs_ - as you are and indeed Renato is - they have direct experience of that which you and he have none. Thousands of them do. I'll take their experience over your academic - yet baseless - musings any day.
He said twice that he cannot be sure, and you still followed up with "how can you be so sure?"
Do you even read the posts, or just fail to understand them?
Do doctors/pharmacists say elite performance can be improved? They usually deny such conclusions in disclaimers and limitations. Changing human physiology doesn't mean performance will improve.
You keep taking the athlete experience, but you don't really know what their experience is, and whether they got faster, or slower, or stayed the same.
The drugs are typically put on the banned list because pharmacists and doctors say they could be used to enhance performance, having ascertained their effect on human physiology - and they are being used by athletes for that purpose.
When a significant number of athletes have used drugs and continue to do so - 99% of athletes apparently in Russia - it is a safe bet they gained from it. That is unless you think Russian athletes and officials - who have doping experience going back to the 50's - are the stupidest people on the planet. With your denial, I think you continue to show where true stupidity lies.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Armstronglivs, you have to understand that doctors and pharmacists expert of drugs are not expert of training, so don't know the physiiological variations athletes can have with proper training. I want to explain you some fact :
A) A hard training in altitude, lasting 4-5 months, oriented to increase the AEROBIC POWER, with adequate recovery between the most important training session, in order to use in the best way the principle of "overcompensation", produce an increase of the total volume of blood of 25% in the most talented athletes (specific talent for endurance). This is one of the points doctor/pharmacists don't know, and the official physiology doesn't think possible.
B) The above increase in the total volume is possible NOT for everybody, but for an estimated percentage (maybe 20% or less) of PARTICULARLY TALENTED ATHLETES, who have the level of elasticity of their circulatory system able to host 1 an half liter of blood MORE than the total volume before that type of training. I spoke of 80% (hypothetical) responder to blood doping, and of 20% (hypothetical) NOT responder, because that 20% includes all the athletes with the physiological situation I explained above.
C) If the physiological principle are the same for every human, the LEVELS of different physiological apparatus are INDIVIDUAL. For example, it's common belief that increasing the Hematocryt can automatically brings advantages in the transport of Oxygen, but this is not true. Every athletes has a NATURAL RANGE of Hct (for example, 42-45), and to enhance the level over that limit DOESN'T PRODUCE ANY EFFECT ON THE PERFORMANCE. Of course, it's true that more Hemoglobin can facilitate the transport of Oxygen, and any athlete can have advantage when the Hct is at HIS HIGHER INDIDUAL LEVEL, but if with every system we try to make Hct higher, in the body there is some compensation (I never read any study in that direction) that doesn't allow the body itself to perform better.
D) The assumption of EPO doesn't allow the body of the talented athletes (I above explained WHICH KIND OF TALENT) to increase the total volume to the same quantity achievable with proper training. We are therefore in a situation of balance between the increase of Hct taking EPO with the maintenance of the same total blood volume, and the big increase of the total volume of blood with lower Hct. We have to remember that the Hct is a number : the multiplication of the MCV (Mean Corpuscolar Volume) with RBC (Red Blood Cells, or erythrocytes). This means, for example, that a MCV of 85 with RBC of 5,650 (Hct 45) seems the same data of a MCV of 95 with RBC of 4,938 (Hct 45), BUT THESE TWO HCT WORK IN DIFFERENT WAY.
E) The difference of ANSWERS of the athlete's body to the same type of stimuli, in connection with the duration of the stimuli themselves and the current situation of the athlete. For example, training in a situation of hypossia creates, at the beginning, a situation of stress in the athlete, who reacts (again in 80% of the case, not 100%) increasing the production of new erythrocytes from the medulla, with obvious increase of the number of RBC. This is the typical situation of athletes normally training at sea level, going in altitude. But after some time (normally 5-7 weeks) the altitude doesn't continue to stimulate the athlete, because there is ADAPTATION. Adaptation means that the medulla is no longer stressed for producing new erythrocytes, the number of RBC starts to decrease a little, but at the same time the volume of every RBC becomes bigger because there is the increase of the plasmatic part. This is the typical situation of people living and training in altitude (including athletes born at sea level but with stays in altitude for long time, so it's not a genetic factor). Their blood, with the same level of Hct, is more fluid, and the periferal resistance is minor than when the Hct (with the same value) comes from the multiplication of more RBC with smaller MCV.
I don't say doping is useless for bettering personal performances, but we need to distinguish the final action of the illegal drug. Don't forget I always spoke of BLOOD DOPING or BLOOD MANIPULATION : in those events, the top athletes have a type of talent that can be exhalted in natural way with training, while taking EPO goes to limit the natural level reachable with training (the big increase n the total blood volume).
Also, if the physiological principles are the same for every body, the INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS are at the base for different performances. If this is not the case, while the performances are not the same for everybody, in the same conditions (everybody with or without doping) ?
At the end, I confirm again what I explained a thousand time to people who refuse to understand the reality, giving credit to studies that don't consider all the parameters I explained in the above points : STRONGER ATHLETES ARE, WEAKER IS THE ACTION OF DOPING. This doesn't means many strong athletes prefer to try some shortcut, but also doesn't mean they and who advice them are aware of what it's possible to reach with training only.
Renato, you keep trying to make an argument that a certain proportion of top athletes will not respond to drugs or are poor responders, or that drugs will not necessarily give them the improvements that the best training will. However, the essential part of that argument is that you will have studied the effects of drugs on those athletes. But you haven't. Without that research your views on the effects of drugs on performance vis a vis training can only remain speculation unsupported by evidence.
I wouldn't dispute what you say about training and how it increases capacity - I am in no way qualified to comment on that. But I am sure what you have explained will be known to the experts who advise WADA - it isn't secret information, so they will know of the increase in total blood volume through training - if that is what happens. It is expert information - and that is what WADA and antidoping experts rely on. Where do any of them say elite highly trained athletes - your hypothetical "20%" - will not gain from drugs? Bear in mind, doping is as diverse as any other area of pharmacology and medicine, and so no single drug or form of doping will be used exclusively by athletes.
I have seen no literature that concludes doping doesn't work for the best, only that we can't be sure how much it affects them. The reason for that is that none participate in any doping studies. But what I find persuasive is that even the very best athletes dope - as we have seen - including in distance running. I have little doubt they gain from it, and at that level the gain would not have to be of a significant order for them to attain an edge over their fellow competitors.
No he does not. If he concedes that "maybe" his clean athletes could have been faster if doping, then he does not. What he says is that he believes the best results can be achieved by clean athletes. Like you believe they can't, he believes they can. It's a matter of belief. The difference is that he has coached hundreds or thousands of athletes. Some of them achieved incredible performances. His belief is based on his extensive experience.
His belief is based on his extensive experience with (allegedly) clean athletes. Plus the clean part is here hearsay of hearsay (Canova told us that Mosop told him he was clean).
As for them not improvable? Who knows. Canova said he never tried. He mentioned:
- steeple WR holder Shaheen; but EPO-user Boulami was faster (his better time got disqualified);
- WR holder Mosop, 30k on track WR; but his best record-eligible marathon PR was 2:05:03 (3rd place in Rotterdam 2012, when the WR was 2:03:38).
I'd add Jeptoo, who improved while blood-doping with EPO after leaving Canova, despite then being 33 years old and using a less experienced coach, to put it mildly.