First Paula 2:15, now Ritz 12:56 in a few months of track training?????? BAN ALTITUDE TENTS!!!!

I agree 100%.

How can you be cheating if it isn't against the rules?

Wait I must have missed something. How do we know that Ritz wasn't ever using these tents prior to the coaching change? Also should we ban sleeping at altitude and driving to lower altitudes to train? Let's say you lived near Eldoret at 7000 ft and then took a car down into the rift valley to train at closer to 2000 feet. Should this be banned?

are weightrooms cheating too? treadmills? track spikes? unless there is any kind of concern that altitude tents pose a health risk such that feeling compelled to use them to stay competitive would be potentially detrimental to the health of the athletes, why would they be banned? do you want caffeine back on the banned substance list? not saying you're right or wrong about the benefits, but why are should they be banned?

Ritz must be a monster adapter to altitude tents. Time to put the rest of america's best into altitude tents. I'm convinced with rupp and ritz now. I didn't even know paula was doing it.

Bolt Fan wrote:

Wait I must have missed something. How do we know that Ritz wasn't ever using these tents prior to the coaching change? Also should we ban sleeping at altitude and driving to lower altitudes to train? Let's say you lived near Eldoret at 7000 ft and then took a car down into the rift valley to train at closer to 2000 feet. Should this be banned?

Are you always this stupid?

I may not agree with this person's point, but it's certainly a valid issue. Altitude tents ARE an artifical stimulus. They aren't illegal, but then neither was blood-doping. It is a simple perspective. Nevertheless, the records (Radcliffe's WR and now Ritenhein's AR) will stand regardless of anyone's "moral" perspective.

watching VS right now wrote:

are weightrooms cheating too? treadmills? track spikes? unless there is any kind of concern that altitude tents pose a health risk such that feeling compelled to use them to stay competitive would be potentially detrimental to the health of the athletes, why would they be banned? do you want caffeine back on the banned substance list? not saying you're right or wrong about the benefits, but why are should they be banned?

Bad examples.

a) weightrooms and track spikes are not like altitude tents. Injecting EPO is a LOT more like breathing in synthetic air to boost EPO than using weights or a treadmill. You know this, but chose to try and make a bad analogy anyway

b) yes, of course altitude tents could be dangerous if you used them too long, or put them too high setting. Certainly you could cause health problems

altitude tents are not very dissimilar to epo. Each is unnatural, a big advantage, and potentially dangerous.

So? If WADA does that, Salazar will just move his operation to Flagstaff (or one of the other hi/lo locations in the US) and get basically the same effect. And how is WADA going to enforce it? Put a security camera on every athlete to make sure they sleep where they're supposed to? Heck if WADA banned them, Nike would probably just buy a private jet to fly its athletes from high altitude back down just so they can train.

Altitude tents are like caffeine. If altitude (read: coffee) wasn't a part of the world we live in, certainly, it would be banned. But because you can just move to altitude if you wanted to, they don't present an unfair advantage and they aren't doping.

You can't go by the "natural" excuse. Ephedra is just a plain old plant that grows in China. When ingested, it happens to increase athletic performance (as well as the risk of sudden cardiac arrest). It is (rightly) banned by WADA. Ibuprofen, on the other hand, is completely synthetic, not found in nature, and certainly can "enhance performance." It's (rightly) not banned.

The biggest thing is that there is still no conclusive evidence that altitude tents work. We assume they do, and there certainly are studies that would lead us to think that they work, but there are also studies that show the opposite. Until there is a clear verdict on how useful they are, they will never be banned. Also, unlike EPO, which you can trace, there is no way to prove that someone was using an altitude tent. Will WADA really go searching everyone's houses for a tent? Doubtful.

12345 wrote:

So? If WADA does that, Salazar will just move his operation to Flagstaff (or one of the other hi/lo locations in the US) and get basically the same effect. And how is WADA going to enforce it? Put a security camera on every athlete to make sure they sleep where they're supposed to? Heck if WADA banned them, Nike would probably just buy a private jet to fly its athletes from high altitude back down just so they can train..

See, there is where you are wrong. There is NOWHERE on earth where one can reasonably sleep at 12-13,000 feet and the in a blink of an eye be at sea level to train. Your jet idea is silly, and would never occur, and again, you know it, but chose to be silly. And guess what, IF someone did indeed do that, then bravo, they are not breathing in man-made synthetic air, they are breathing in air real air ("thinner" when they sleep).

Why is it hard to see that breathing in synthetic air that boosts EPO while you sleep is hardly any different than injecting a little synthetic substance that boosts EPO??? At the very, very least, you should see that the tents are a dark gray area.

undisclosed canadian wrote:

The biggest thing is that there is still no conclusive evidence that altitude tents work. We assume they do, and there certainly are studies that would lead us to think that they work, but there are also studies that show the opposite. Until there is a clear verdict on how useful they are, they will never be banned. Also, unlike EPO, which you can trace, there is no way to prove that someone was using an altitude tent. Will WADA really go searching everyone's houses for a tent? Doubtful.

I think most studies show they work. And WADA doesn't mind surprising people at their houses for piss tests, do they?

But you're right, they are hard to stop, and that is why they have not taken that step. That doesn't mean the should not be stopped.

Charles Atlas Shrugs wrote:

See, there is where you are wrong. There is NOWHERE on earth where one can reasonably sleep at 12-13,000 feet and the in a blink of an eye be at sea level to train. Your jet idea is silly, and would never occur, and again, you know it, but chose to be silly. And guess what, IF someone did indeed do that, then bravo, they are not breathing in man-made synthetic air, they are breathing in air real air ("thinner" when they sleep).

Why is it hard to see that breathing in synthetic air that boosts EPO while you sleep is hardly any different than injecting a little synthetic substance that boosts EPO??? At the very, very least, you should see that the tents are a dark gray area.

Well first of all, how is "synthetic" air different from actual high altitude air? And 2nd of all, doesn't the body have control mechanisms to keep the blood from become too thick due to too much red blood cell production? I would think Synthetic Epo would bypass these mechanisms whereas sleeping in an altitude tent would not

Look at it this way. Most East Africans (and several good Americans including Ryan Hall) were born at high altitude. They can train at altitude and reap the benefits of altitude training when they come down to sea level. However, unlike those of us born at sea level, they are able to train almost as hard at altitude as they are at sea level because they are used to the altitude. For example, Hugo (Hilda Kibet's Dutch husband) told me that he can be in 63 minute half marathon shape, but if Lornah is in 66/67 minute shape she will kick his ass when they get to Iten because she is used to the altitude/terrain, etc. This is clearly an advantage they have that those born at sea level aren't given, even though these athletes have obviously done nothing wrong. I am not trying to use this to justify the use of altitude tents (they seem over the top to me), but I think that they are just trying to give athletes born at sea level the same advantages that those born at altitude have. If you started to ban something like an altitude tent you open up a whole new can of worms and the line between right/wrong and moral/immoral becomes very blurry.

Altitude tents have trade offs that EPO doesn't. If you sleep in altitude you necessarily compromise recovery rates because you have forced your body into a hypoxia. EPO on the other hand doesn't need a hypoxic stimulus to trigger red cell blood cell proliferation.

Bolt Fan wrote: ...should we ban sleeping at altitude and driving to lower altitudes to train?...

Anything that could give someone a competitive boost should be banned. I'll start a list and others can help add to it.

- Altitude tents (we can't all train this way)

- Indoor tracks (climate controlled)

- Hill repeats (builds muscles faster than normal)

- Mediterranean climates (a form of climate control)

- Caffine (PED: Stimulates yoiur system)

- Asprin (PED: Keeps you from feeling natural pain)

- Treadmills (we don't all have then)

....

AtheistRunner wrote:

Bolt Fan wrote: ...should we ban sleeping at altitude and driving to lower altitudes to train?...

Anything that could give someone a competitive boost should be banned. I'll start a list and others can help add to it.

- Altitude tents (we can't all train this way)

- Indoor tracks (climate controlled)

- Hill repeats (builds muscles faster than normal)

- Mediterranean climates (a form of climate control)

- Caffine (PED: Stimulates yoiur system)

- Asprin (PED: Keeps you from feeling natural pain)

- Treadmills (we don't all have then)

....

Those Africans sure love them treadmills, indoor tracks, and caffine (sic).

I fail to see the difference between using an altitude tent in Oregon and using a treadmill with incline settings in Chicago.

Does Ritz's wife sleep in the tent too?

Also, look: how many East Africans did you see in that race? If Ritz had not been using an altitude tent, how exactly was he supposed to be competitive?

What we are seeing, my friends, is the point where American running science has finally started to become the equal of the African 'natural' approach. The Africans have always had a bunch of advantages which have been scientifically documented (type 'Saltin, Kenyan runners' into pubmed, or try 'Pitsiladis, Kenyan runners' or 'Pitsiladis, Ethiopian runners'). Those guys just happened to be born into the perfect environment. Americans were not.

However, we are starting to get the science right. There was a whole 'get out of the lab' sentiment after disappointing performances by Americans in Beijing. Well now it seems like the lab may be the only answer. Sorry but these bare bones approaches like those of the Hansons, Zap Fitness, etc. just won't ever do it. Yes, those groups also have less talented athletes to begin with, but that's only part of the problem.

I think it's great to have groups like the Hansons, because for guys who are born in regular sea-level American cities and don't have access to laboratory resources, 2:15 is a damn impressive marathon time. But those guys are never gonna be the 2:05 guys, and we all know it. To run 13:00/27:00/60:00/2:05:00 you need to have:

a) genes

b) place of birth in East Africa OR Nike's slew of scientific resources

Those of us chasing 14:00/29:00/64:00/2:15:00, we don't need either one.