Curious logic. The mere existence of comments from a small band of anonymous nobodies is sufficient to draw a verdict that the coach of elite athletes with real experience is wrong.
Flat-earth and moon landing threads rack up many pages of comments too. I guess if science was right, there would also be no debate.
I learned it was better to draw verdicts based on robust facts and evidence, instead of declaring yourself the winner without any real debate based on faith.
6 pages from runners saying Canova is full of it is nothing compared to countless athletes who use or have used the drug over the decades. "What were they thinking! Didn't they know it isn't performance enhancing?" (that is, if they are a top Kenyan training at altitude). Yet there isn't a single study of any of these top athletes using EPO to prove the drug doesn't work for them. You, too, are completely full of it. You could start your own flat-earth thread.
You didn't address your curious logic that permits you to reach a verdict without facts and evidence proving or disproving anything.
6 pages from anonymous nobodies is nothing, after you apply the factor accounting for the lack of facts and evidence and experience.
I suppose some athletes who used EPO were thinking it would help them run faster. Did they double-blind their usage to rule out placebo effect?
When there are no applicable studies, we can always assume the null hypothesis.
I believe EPO works -- as you must already know, I am a big believer in the performance benefits from altitude training, which includes increased EPO and RBC. And it's WADA legal!
6 pages from runners saying Canova is full of it is nothing compared to countless athletes who use or have used the drug over the decades. "What were they thinking! Didn't they know it isn't performance enhancing?" (that is, if they are a top Kenyan training at altitude). Yet there isn't a single study of any of these top athletes using EPO to prove the drug doesn't work for them. You, too, are completely full of it. You could start your own flat-earth thread.
You didn't address your curious logic that permits you to reach a verdict without facts and evidence proving or disproving anything.
6 pages from anonymous nobodies is nothing, after you apply the factor accounting for the lack of facts and evidence and experience.
I suppose some athletes who used EPO were thinking it would help them run faster. Did they double-blind their usage to rule out placebo effect?
When there are no applicable studies, we can always assume the null hypothesis.
I believe EPO works -- as you must already know, I am a big believer in the performance benefits from altitude training, which includes increased EPO and RBC. And it's WADA legal!
How stupid were those athletes, to not conduct double-blind studies while they used EPO! But then the results must have reassured them because countless athletes have been using the drug for 3 decades. Silly old placebo - it's had everyone fooled for so long. And then there's stupid old WADA, listing it as a performance enhancing drug when we know that it isn't as effective as legal altitude training - even though really dumb altitude-trained athletes use it. The only smart people it seems are those like you who have never been a top athlete - never been altitude-trained, either - and have never used EPO and have never known anyone who has. But you know better than all those coaches and athletes who swear by it. So what is life like on the dark side of the moon?
Anyone the least bit familiar with the hematological effects of endurance training knows that increases in total blood volume (entailing lower concentrations of hematocrit) is a key adaptation. But this is quite likely because intense endurance training (stress) puts downward pressure on hematocrit levels for which increases in total blood volume are an evolutionary adaptation. Increases in total blood volume will overcompensate for the effects of blood cell destruction/loss through foot strike hemolysis and sweating in healthy people, which is why endurance training generally increases performance. But there is no reason to conclude that measures to counteract downward pressure on hematocrit levels from endurance training would not benefit ALL athletes. All other things being equal, maintaining the highest possible hematocrit levels will be of benefit to performance.
Showing that performance does not correlate directly with changes in relative hematocrit levels doesn't change this fact one iota. Ideally, an athlete would want to have both high levels of plasma AND the highest total levels of hematocrit consistent with good general health. This is why endurance athletes would want to take EPO-- to counteract the deleterious effects of hard endurance training on hematocrit levels, so that they can do more hard endurance training. As such, someone could be benefitting from EPO use without ever showing an increase in hematocrit, or even showing a small decrease in these levels. To understand the benefit they were receiving, we would need to know what their hematocrit levels would have looked like after sustained hard training without EPO. In most cases, we can't know this with any degree of certainty, because athletes tend to lie about their histories of drug use even after having been caught.
Your conviction that it is possible to reach the highest levels in endurance sport without blood vector doping is a complete non sequitur when it comes to the question of whether EPO is a performance aid for ALL athletes. (It's also a completely unfalsifiable statement, since it depends on the circular claim about "top talent", the only measure of which is performance, which can be affected by drug use). It's as simple as this: If endurance training tends to depress hematocrit levels in ALL athletes, then any medical intervention that will help maintain hematocrit levels (net of deleterious side effects) will improve performance in ALL athletes. In the real world of the sport, athletes and coaches know this, which is why a good percentage of them will risk everything in order to use EPO. I get that your selling point as a coach is that you can get top results without blood vector doping (but only if you're already working with "top organic talent"), but you can't expect that to change anyone's mind about the potential benefits of blood vector doping. The only reason EVERY athlete is not doing this is that it is against the rules, and the sanctions against it are devastating. If it were suddenly legal, any coach who claimed it didn't work, and who would not use it-- on "top talent" or otherwise-- would be out of business pretty quickly.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
How stupid were those athletes, to not conduct double-blind studies while they used EPO! But then the results must have reassured them because countless athletes have been using the drug for 3 decades. Silly old placebo - it's had everyone fooled for so long. And then there's stupid old WADA, listing it as a performance enhancing drug when we know that it isn't as effective as legal altitude training - even though really dumb altitude-trained athletes use it. The only smart people it seems are those like you who have never been a top athlete - never been altitude-trained, either - and have never used EPO and have never known anyone who has. But you know better than all those coaches and athletes who swear by it. So what is life like on the dark side of the moon?
You still haven't addressed your curious logic.
Neither these athletes nor WADA have provided the necessary performance data to support the verdict that you drew that would prove Renato wrong. Without these results, it's hard to say whether athletes were reassured, or dissapointed, or just fooling themselves.
I do not presume to know better than Renato, unlike 6 pages of anonymous nobodies.
The smart people are the ones who make informed conclusions based on relevant data, not the ones who invent a new kind of logic to draw verdicts with no relevant facts or evidence.
Wow, so what Renato Canova says is that increases in blood volume supersedes increasing red blood cell numbers. QUALITY > QUANTITY!
It does make lots of sense so now we must all shift our attention only to the factors affecting the ability to manufacture huge volume red blood cells. I'm sure a top level athlete at some point reaches the peak of the bell curve and stops manufacturing huge volume red blood cells due to oxidative stress, inflammation, epigenetic and genetic issues. No athlete is infallible or forever manufacturing huge volume red blood cells so given this assumption has to be true then understanding the sequential temporality factors that tends to suppress red blood cell volume could help top level athletes decline slower and maintain a high-performance level for longer.
As I'm very well- versed with all the factors on earth that that suppress human health, hence suppress the volume of red blood cell, I shall list them off of the back of my mind effortlessly and surely with no hesitancy. This is my area of specialty:
1) COVID vaccine on the human physiology. In fact all vaccines.
2) Anthropogenic low frequency EMF and high frequency RF cumulative 24/7 exposure on the human physiology from all digital and electronic devices.
3) Polluted food/water chains and food products. (Think dioxins, PCBs, plastics, pesticides, GMOs, gosh the list is endless!)
4) Poor air quality (Think smog/smoke/petrochemicals and so many uncountable microscopic air particulate matter especially in cities and increasingly in mountain training bases as well)
5) Pharmaceutical Products
Renato Canova, if you bother to tell us about red blood cell volume but fail to tell us all the anthropogenic polluting factors on earth that distorts such volume how do you expect us to have any sense of complete-ness or closure of your generous insights?
All these 5 factors of pollution from the environment precisely DE-oxygenates the blood hence DE-generates the human mind and body and its health and natural vitality not only for high-performance running but for every other endeavor and employment under the sun.
Maybe it is possible that someone has the maxed out benefits higher rbc and the like without EPO. We all like to think is possible. But it is just as likely that you need EPO to get that last 10% that is possible.
For the blatant examples of drugs letting you do things that can't be done naturally, Look at body builders and see how much more mass is there when you dope. Heck look at how much more mass modern guys have than known dopers like Arnold.
I think this is the case.
Reasoning is based on the Tour de France when epo use was rampant. Use was organized and under doctors help and there was no testing, so presumably they were hitting on the optimum dosage for cycling.
What was a problem at that time? Guys dropping dead.
It is unlikely evolution would allow enough epo to be produced naturally to maximize endurance performance if a side effect from that would be that you are likely to be dead in a year.
It is interesting that horses use their spleens to adjust their red blood cells. When exercising the spleen will dope their blood and dedope it when finished. Presumable this allows them to have ideal blood for endurance while exercising and yet avoid the bad health effects the rest of the time. Humans can't do this, so have to balance athletics and health.
So part of distance running talent is probably how much 'risk' your body is willing to take in epo production.
It depends on how close the max the number is to what is fatal. Imagine we have some variable where 100 is the max (something else becomes the rate limiting factor). Maybe humans normally go from 80->105 with training. And they die when you hit 120. All the people sub 100 would get a nice boost. And if you don't over do it, you don't die.
The alternative is it is like muscle mass where basically the more roids you take, the bigger you get. Well until you overload the body and die.
.I expect that distance running is a bit closer to the first case in terms of blood chemistry. They are more limited by muscles ability to produce energy than the ability to provide oxygen. But if that means sub 13:00 guy gets 0s, 10s or 20s is an unknown. Any it could be very individualistic. We have relatively few guys who got busted and where we have somewhat meaningful before and after times. I.e. the guy that went from running 30;00 10ks to 27:30 in 2 years..
We have the same basic issue with all sports and especially the people that keep going into their 40s. We want to believe Brady could play into his 40s because of his exercise routine. But how confident are you that the key to being able to recover and exercise wasn't a shot of test and High on a regular basis?
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