Will Altitude Tents be banned?

If the IOC does this, they also must outlaw any individual born at altitude, anyone who lives at altitude, and any training done at altitude...OR...

Leagalize EPO and similar drugs for sea level dwellers.

So, suppose they actually BAN altitude tents or chambers. How the hell do they test for use of them?

That is not the case at all, it has been proven that using a Hypoxic tent is very different from going to altitude. Firstly it can be very rigidly controlled, secondly the athlete suffers none of the detraining they do at altitude whilstt their bodies adapt. And thirdly and most importantly its been proven that intermitent hypoxia has a bigger EPO response than just spending long periods at altitude. Someting which you could not do naturally, even with a helicopter and a mountain. One hour in followed by one hour out stimulates teh kidneys to produce more EPO than spending days aor weeks at a time at altitude. It makes sense, ban it.

Black clad IOC / WADA troops led by Frank Shorter arrive in their silent stealth helicopters and kick down the door to your house. If they find a tent, you are SO busted!

Let's Run message board* circa '08:

(Posted by Waz): What kind of tent training intervals do you do?

Hodgie-San: back in the day we did 150+ hrs/week, only one mile recovery between sets

Malmo: what Hodgie-san said, 'cept some guys like Lindgren did 168 hrs/week no sets. It all went downhill in the 90's when pathetic coaches started preaching 50-70 hpw was all you really needed

Al Sal: at NOP we re-kindled the flame and new bearers of the torch were doing 120hpw, with only 30 min X-Bot recovery sessions in between

PR: I've been doing 140hpw in the Alps, so my 5 min recovery sessions are at altitude

Jason: I'm up to 156hpw in China, at altitude like PR...

*Apologies to those whose name I've used (in vain)

Waz,

While we disagree on the usage of tents, Irritated brings up a good point, just how do you enforce a ban? We can't bust into people's houses and go searching for the things.

Is there anyway to turn my house/room into an altitude-like environment? What's the cost?

Nice post, Waz. I hadn't known any of that about the tents and had reckoned that even though I dislike them, they really were no different than a move to high altitude. Still, I don't know how such a ban would be enforced.

Portland Runner wrote:

If the IOC does this, they also must outlaw any individual born at altitude, anyone who lives at altitude, and any training done at altitude...OR...Leagalize EPO and similar drugs for sea level dwellers.

Another ban by logical extension could be an analogous item -- i.e., mechanical equipment that simulates an exogenous real-life experience -- treadmills. Both tents and treadmills are inferior to the real thing. And both can be overwhelmed by someone who just plain old is better trained.

Then again, just for my peace of mind, I'd love the fact that Michael Jackson would be DQ'ed from sports for life. Not that he's an athletic type guy, but it's safer that way.

Credit card transactions: flag the credit cards of world class athletes, their coaches, and their sponsors, so that their purchases can be tracked looking for any from the manufacturers. Caveat: just like some fine "gentleman's club's", the manufacturers will learn to change the name of their CC transactions as reported through the banking system.

Cash transactions: the Feds already track cash movements in excess of $5k (or $10k, now I have forgotten) to wage the war on drugs, simply apply it to war on tents. Caveat: installment cash payments to fly under the radar.

Sponsored (non-monetary) transactions: apply the use of fabric "tracers" (as proposed with drug tracers) within the tent material to ensure they can only be used at approved medical facilities. If the trace material ships otherwise, expect a visit from Shorter and the IOC Gestapo. Caveat: black market tents without tracer material.

Alas, the cheats will always be one step ahead...

I call BS. Waz apparently gets his technical data from smoking bad crack and staring at the ceiling. There are no studies supporting his statements, and to the contrary, there are studies showing data for the live high-train low regimen, and athletes in Mammoth, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, and parts of the world outside the US, who are doing live high-train low training without altitude tents.

is there any benefit to sleeping with a pillow over your face so you can't breathe? Now THAT should be illegal

Personally I think some of the people that post on this forum should sleep with a plastic bag over their face. If we say they where trying to mimic an altitude tent they just might win a darwin award.

NO! Involving government can only worsen problems. I can see it now, the ACLU brings suits to protect the constitutional rights of tent users. Meanwhile, a doctor (like Dr. Rosa?) claims that his athlete / patient has benefitted from using the tent to control their asthma, by taking the tent away or prohibiting the athlete from earning a living, now we've violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Now, I'm off to get a home equity loan for $10,000 to turn my bedroom into an altitude chamber. You can't beat the interest rates right now!

Ask for $10,500 so you can include X-Bots and magnets in your quest...

James Stray-Gunderson wrote:

I call BS. Waz apparently gets his technical data from smoking bad crack and staring at the ceiling.

Now THAT is funny.

I don't know how they can actually monitor the use of altitude tents, but to all those who use them or want to use them, I say, "Nut up!" If you live at sea level, train harder. If you want the effects that come with living at altitude, move!

I made a huge sacrifice two years ago and moved to Colorado. Yes, the altitude is somewhat of a benefit, but an even greater benefit is the community in which I live in. You wake up in the morning, you feel like ass, you would rather just keep sleeping or drink a pot of coffee. You put on your hat and gloves and go out thinking you'll just run 30 minutes, but then you see guys like Silvio Guerra, Culpepper, Larson, Kenyans, and the Japanese. Suddenly, you remember what the greater goal is and that 30 minute run turns into 90 minutes.

Altitude can be a great benefit, but so can your community. That's probably greater.

Can altitude tents improve your sexual stamina? I always thought it would be fun to try having sex in a tent. Set that thing at 15k and just start going.

And what about drinking. Some Friday night, I'd like to get in an altitude tent with a case of Hamm's and start playing "Moose." What would be the repercussions of that?

You guys don't get it.

Firstly, man-manipulated air that causes your body to produce more EPO is more similar to a drug that that causes your body to produce more EPO (which are the current drugs of choice over synthetic EPO. rEPO is old-school now!!) than to training at altitude. Breathing man-made "AIR" is not natural! Testosterone is "natural"..EPO is natural..drugs that get your body to produce these substances?? Tents that get your body to produce these substances??? NOT natural and NOT the same as training hard, or in the heat or at altitude. NOT the same.

2nd-ly(please read):

?Anabolic steroids weren't banned by the International Olympic Committee until 1975, almost a decade after the East Germans started using them. In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, five athletes tested positive for what we now know to be the drug Bromantan, but they weren't suspended, because no one knew at the time what Bromantan was. (It turned out to be a Russian-made psycho-stimulant.) Human growth hormone, meanwhile, has been around for twenty years, and testers still haven't figured out how to detect it.?

So, tents maybe banned someday soon, and maybe PR?s/KK's/LA's records will deserve asterisks ??

3RD-LY

?Perhaps the best example of the difficulties of drug testing is testosterone. It has been used by athletes to enhance performance since the fifties, and the International Olympic Committee announced that it would crack down on testosterone supplements in the early nineteen-eighties. This didn't mean that the I.O.C. was going to test for testosterone directly, though, because the testosterone that athletes were getting from a needle or a pill was largely indistinguishable from the testosterone they produce naturally. What was proposed, instead, was to compare the level of testosterone in urine with the level of another hormone, epitestosterone, to determine what's called the T/E ratio. For most people, under normal circumstances, that ratio is 1:1, and so the theory was that if testers found a lot more testosterone than epitestosterone it would be a sign that the athlete was cheating. Since a small number of people have naturally high levels of testosterone, the I.O.C. avoided the risk of falsely accusing anyone by setting the legal limit at 6:1. One approach( to test for EPO) which was used in the late nineties by the International Cycling Union, is a test much like the T/E ratio for testosterone. The percentage of your total blood volume which is taken up by red blood cells is known as your hematocrit. The average adult male has a hematocrit of between thirty-eight and forty-four per cent. Since 1995, the cycling authorities have declared that any rider who had a hematocrit above fifty per cent would be suspended--a deliberately generous standard (like the T/E ratio) meant to avoid falsely accusing someone with a naturally high hematocrit. The hematocrit rule also had the benefit of protecting athletes' health. If you take too much EPO, the profusion of red blood cells makes the blood sluggish and heavy, placing enormous stress on the heart. In the late eighties, at least fifteen professional cyclists died from suspected EPO overdoses. A fifty-per-cent hematocrit limit is below the point at which EPO becomes dangerous.?

These test have changed a bit, but the point? At the time of this article(2000/2001), ANY METHOD that raised your T/E ratio above 6:1 or your Hematocrit above 50% was considered cheating!!! So, if the Tent got you there, guess what?? YOU WERE BUSTED!

Final conclusion: tent users are not cheaters(because they are not legal...right now) in my book, but the TENT IS a gray area of what SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT BE considered legal/illegal....AT BEST. I bet it will be banned soon, and the Hematocrit test could be used.