I was prescribed this in the spring in the form of an inhaler due to bronchitis. I still have some left and was going to throw it away but I wondered if I would run a faster mile if I took a few hits of the inhaler before the early bird meet tomorrow?
Any thoughts?
It won't hurt. If you have asthma it will help you more than if you do not. But it can help nominally even if you don't have asthma. It is a bronchodilator which means better O2 and CO2 exchange in your lungs. Of course most of the time, the rate at which you pump blood matters more because even at max HR most people fully saturate their blood with O2. But it will definitely help your body get rid of CO2 which contributes to the acid build up you experience in a mile race. Please post back with the results.
Early Birder wrote:
I was prescribed this in the spring in the form of an inhaler due to bronchitis. I still have some left and was going to throw it away but I wondered if I would run a faster mile if I took a few hits of the inhaler before the early bird meet tomorrow?
Any thoughts?
It wouldn't hurt, but I doubt you'd see much of an improvement by just using it once. It needs some consistency to get it's desired effect. Not as much as Advair and some other steroids. Albuteral works to optimize your bronchoiles and alveolis to the greatest efficiency. It's worth a shot, but I doub't you'd notice anything.
It didn't help me any.
asthmatic wrote:
Early Birder wrote:I was prescribed this in the spring in the form of an inhaler due to bronchitis. I still have some left and was going to throw it away but I wondered if I would run a faster mile if I took a few hits of the inhaler before the early bird meet tomorrow?
Any thoughts?
It wouldn't hurt, but I doubt you'd see much of an improvement by just using it once. It needs some consistency to get it's desired effect. Not as much as Advair and some other steroids. Albuteral works to optimize your bronchoiles and alveolis to the greatest efficiency. It's worth a shot, but I doub't you'd notice anything.
Advair is a glucocorticoid, not an anabolic steriod. It reduces inflamation in your lungs. You're not going to get a performance benefit from it unless you have asthma or bronchitis.
No, beta antagonists should not be taken regularly without an inhaled corticosteroid. Otherwise you can die. Using it as a rescue inhaler is fine. This is why they are pulling the non-combo (with steroid) long lasting beta antagonists.Incidentally, it will improve your time if you are having enough breathing difficulty to inhibit O2 uptake, otherwise it might actually hurt your performance just a bit (it will either way, but the o2 uptake would counter act it in the case of the restricted airway).
asthmatic wrote:
Early Birder wrote:I was prescribed this in the spring in the form of an inhaler due to bronchitis. I still have some left and was going to throw it away but I wondered if I would run a faster mile if I took a few hits of the inhaler before the early bird meet tomorrow?
Any thoughts?
It wouldn't hurt, but I doubt you'd see much of an improvement by just using it once. It needs some consistency to get it's desired effect. Not as much as Advair and some other steroids. Albuteral works to optimize your bronchoiles and alveolis to the greatest efficiency. It's worth a shot, but I doub't you'd notice anything.
Nope, advair is BOTH a corticosteroid and a beta antagonist. He's right that advair has to be taken regularly to have an effect. The steroid is just to keep you from dying from a severe asthma attack.
Advair is a glucocorticoid, not an anabolic steriod. It reduces inflamation in your lungs. You're not going to get a performance benefit from it unless you have asthma or bronchitis.
I'm not 100%, more like 98%, but the fact that its a beta blocker is a bad thing when it comes to running.
Yeah, I used (albuterol) to have to take it occasionally. I swear it lowered my vo2max. Definitely affected performance.
No way wrote:
I'm not 100%, more like 98%, but the fact that its a beta blocker is a bad thing when it comes to running.
Ugh, please don't post stuff about medical information without looking it up first. Very little of that information was anywhere near correct.
1. You do not have to use albuterol consistently to see the benefits. You are thinking of a glucocorticoid inhaler.
2. You will NOT die from using albuterol without a glucocorticoid. Albuterol is the first line drug for asthma and only if the asthma is uncontrolled with albuterol alone do they prescribe other drugs.
3. Albuterol is a beta-2 adrenergic agonist, not a beta blocker (which block either beta 1 alone or beta 1 and 2). But you are correct in your thinking that a beta blocker would be bad for running, it decreases your heart rate as the primary effect.
Albuterol stimulates the beta-2 receptors in the bronchi and bronchioles to dilate. I happens within a few minutes of inhaling the medication and lasts 4-6 hours. It has very few if any side effects.
Wheaton, you're becoming one of my favorite posters on here.
is this not doping?
Without a TUE, it's doping. But based on the contradictory replies in this thread, it's not clear as to whether or not it should be!
Does anyone out there know for sure if it's a performance enhancer for a non-asthmatic?
It probably won't make yuo run any faster. Running on concrete, on the other hand, will make yuo much faster in the mile and every other distance.
Did you mean to reply to an earlier post or are you too illiterate to read. The long lasting beta agonists i referred to were the advair class, two of the four that are out there do not have steroids to prevent reactions and two do. The ones that do not are in the process of being pulled from the market. I said that the albuterol was fine as a rescue inhaler but was not something that should be taken except as that. For regular non rescue use you want a long acting product plus the corticosteroid (inhaled). Yes it last 4-6 hrs.
Yes, MANY athletes have reported reduced performance after taking it. But, given that you take it or die or can't perform at all, its a good idea. The OP wanted to take it just to improve performance, which would not work and MAY reduce his performance by a bit.
wheaton wrote:
Please post back with the results.
I took 3 puffs after my warm-up. Last year I ran a 4:22 and this year I went 4:17. However, I am in much better shape this year after a higher mileage CC season so I really don't think it improved or hurt things.
This article reports that for non-asthmatics it may not make a difference.
Elite-level athletes with documented proof that they have asthma are allowed to take certain inhaled corticosteroids, which prevent inflammation of airways and can hold asthma symptoms at bay.
And they are allowed to take other inhaled drugs, beta-2 agonists, which relax the smooth muscle cells of airways, relieving symptoms. A few of the beta-2 agonists can increase muscle and decrease body fat if they are injected or taken orally.
But when they are inhaled, in doses used to control asthma, beta-2 agonists do not improve performance, asthma and doping experts say. And neither do corticosteroids.
“A lot of people believe they are performance enhancers,” Dr. Gary I. Wadler said about inhaled asthma drugs. But, added Wadler, who is chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list and methods subcommittee, “there is no evidence for that at all.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/sports/olympics/22asthma.html?scp=1&sq=asthma%20doping&st=cse
hard to say wrote:
Without a TUE, it's doping. But based on the contradictory replies in this thread, it's not clear as to whether or not it should be!
Does anyone out there know for sure if it's a performance enhancer for a non-asthmatic?
Do a PubMed search and you will see the vast majority of studies of albuterol (or its cousins) do not enhance performance in otherwise healthy folks.
The WADA/USADA rules on beta-2 agonists are changing. It will require a standard TUE including evidence showing that it is needed. In the past one just needed a doctor to sign off on its use; I predict a major reduction in beta-2 agonist usage.
if your going to cheat, why not cheat big ? everything is peanuts compared to a high crit. how you get a high crit is up to your discretion...
Obviously a higher crit will help you run a faster mile, but its dangerous as hell. I'm an ICU nurse and we had a patient die last year from taking EPO for LOTOJA. You're life certainly isn't worth a few seconds on your mile.