Really? NYTimes: "Even Tylenol has been shown to boost endurance performance by 2 percent."

know this stuff... wrote:

No.

So I did misread the sample sizes, however 13 is no better than 6. As far as times go, I think you're misreading me. I think its great to use the mean times for all the rides. But include the positive and negative standard deviations for each point on every graph. Not the negative SD on the lower line of best fit, and the positive SD on the higher line of best fit. There is a significant amount of overlap between tylenol and no-tylenol group as reported, but not shown, in the figures.

The stats were written up awfully, but I think you're still misinterpreting their stats. A paired t-test looks at the difference for each subject between tylenol and control and then test whether that is significantly different from zero. The 95% CI for this difference was 4.3-55.8 seconds which is significant, albeit imprecise. This is an appropriate test as there is heterogeneity in the inherent ability of each subject. If you look at the mean times you're purposely reducing your power by introducing variation in ability as error in the effect. The biggest foul in the paper was to use figure one. They should have just plotted each individual's performance with and without tylenol with a line connecting them and it would have been so much clearer what the variation in ability and effect was.

I do agree that this one study is nowhere near being authoritative, but in a field that has so much heterogeneity in outcomes and so little funding, there is no way that you will get precise measures of outcomes.

OTC pain relievers can help lower ratings of perceived exertion (RPE). I'm surprised most of you letsrun guys aren't already experts on RPE, perhaps one of the simplest and most useful metrics in endurance sports. Don't you think something that could take away your nagging aches and pains before a race could boost your performance? Even if the actual physiological gains are minute, the psychological toll of dealing with the ache of a nagging injury minutes before a race can completely derail a race for a lot of people. OTCs can help lower inflammation in problem areas and give peace of mind (though Tylenol is acetaminophen, which has little anti-inflammatory influence - ibuprofen is the good stuff). Factor in a placebo effect and you're in business. The mind has a strong influence on performance, and anything that can help a competitor chase off his doubts can help improve performance.Side Note: I would bet that if you went to a college xc race and asked everyone on the line if they had taken an OTC pain reliever in the past 24 hours you would get 40% or higher answering yes.

rojo wrote:

I'm catching up on last week's news as I write the Week That Was.

I was reading a NY Times article on doping which casually had this line in there, "Even Tylenol has been shown to boost endurance performance by 2 percent."

Is that true? Anyone know of the study? I've never heard of that and if it was true, you'd think I'd have heard of other athletes, college coaches using it, but I've never heard of it.

Article is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/opinion/sunday/when-doping-isnt-cheating.html?_r=1

space master wrote:

Side Note: I would bet that if you went to a college xc race and asked everyone on the line if they had taken an OTC pain reliever in the past 24 hours you would get 40% or higher answering yes.

Do they just take it on race day (or the day before), or do they use it often in training? I'm going to start asking around every runner I meet. I thought the idea of a runner having bottles of "OTC pain relievers" around their bedroom was an old wives tale meant to scare us junior runners. Or impress us. Somehow. How much is a common amount to take throughout the season? Off-season?

Thanks

rojo, the real 'performance enhancer' is completely natural and legal. It's called adrenalin, or adrenaline, or epinephrine. Look it up.

[quote]space master wrote:

OTC pain relievers can help lower ratings of perceived exertion (RPE). I'm surprised most of you letsrun guys aren't already experts on RPE, perhaps one of the simplest and most useful metrics in endurance sports. Don't you think something that could take away your nagging aches and pains before a race could boost your performance?

Even if the actual physiological gains are minute, the psychological toll of dealing with the ache of a nagging injury minutes before a race can completely derail a race for a lot of people. OTCs can help lower inflammation in problem areas and give peace of mind (though Tylenol is acetaminophen, which has little anti-inflammatory influence - ibuprofen is the good stuff). Factor in a placebo effect and you're in business. The mind has a strong influence on performance, and anything that can help a competitor chase off his doubts can help improve performance.

Side Note: I would bet that if you went to a college xc race and asked everyone on the line if they had taken an OTC pain reliever in the past 24 hours you would get 40% or higher answering yes.

[quote]

40%?! Come on, dude. Try 5%, if that.

Tylenol works in part by reducing fever and perceived heat. Was the Time Trial done indoors on trainer, or outdoors? If indoors, test would drive up body temps much more than outdoors due to lack of wind cooling, so Tylenol would have a large impact in this case, and be less translatable to real world performance outdoors. I can only access abstract, not full study methodologies, so can't tell what the test subjects rode.

know this stuff... wrote:

sample size of 13, 6 per group when you break it into controls.

HA HA HA HA!!!!

That's even worse than Jack Daniels' stuff.

Serious experiments for testing drugs require at the minimum 2-3000 subjects, preferably several tens of thousands. A sample of 13 persons tells you absolutely nothing.

Ex phys is CRAP.

Definitely...that sample size is way to small.

Are Daniels studies that small as well?

statistician wrote:

Serious experiments for testing drugs require at the minimum 2-3000 subjects,

This experiment was well within that range of participants.

I tried beet juice before a workout. If it had any endurance-boosting effects, I couldn't tell because I was so sick to my stomach I could hardly run.

Anything other than running itself is cheating, because you are trying to get faster in the wrong way. Why do you modify your diet to keep your weight down? You can keep your weight down by running more mileage.