Discussing the effects of proper training : why athletes are able to improve ?

Let's see here Lance, a pretty good bike racer, but not great,get's cancer. He then uses epo and wins 7 Tour De France's.

Lol lol lol, why instead to write fried air you don't try to answer the questions I put an the table in the previous post ?

Hello if you would like the answer to optimum mitichondiral function please read this blog I will answer these questions. this will be a massive learning expreience though!

Renato:

What about drugs aiding with recovery? Sure everyone can improve their recovery with the use of PED and in that way train:

- Harder and improve more

- Stay more healthy and recover faster from injury

- Be in shape more often

Even though you you are Kenyan or not?

Panetta was a doper. ask Todd Williams.

Just because you're not sure exactly how EPO works apart from increasing rbc count does not mean it doesn't work.

ps just in case anyone does not know, a lorry is a large shipping truck.

Renato Canova wrote:

Lol lol lol, why instead to write fried air you don't try to answer the questions I put an the table in the previous post ?

You want answers to questions that presume things that are not true, Renato?

Do you really believe the average person on Youtube is going to fall for that (some will, but...)?

lol lol lol lol wrote:

Renato Canova wrote:

Lol lol lol, why instead to write fried air you don't try to answer the questions I put an the table in the previous post ?

You want answers to questions that presume things that are not true, Renato?

Do you really believe the average person on Youtube is going to fall for that (some will, but...)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question

Er, letsrun...

You seem to have moved from claiming that EPO doesn't work on the absolute best runners (for reasons that remain unclear) to claiming that it doesn't really work on anyone.

I believe in the placebo effect. In some settings, anyway. I have a hard time, however, believing that the placebo effect is the main reason, or even a significant reason, that athletes who use EPO, with or without other performance enhancers, start performing better. This is because, among other reasons, I have known of people who have used EPO and subsequently changed nothing at all about their training, yet enjoyed better performances.

On top of that, as you and I agree, while there is no data concerning the efficacy EPO and elite athletes, there is data concerning the efficacy of EPO in "normal" runners. In these experiment, at least the ones I have seen, the volume of training and other relevant parameters was held fixed, and the EPO was the only independent variable in play.

So again, we perhaps agree that EPO does work on some people. You yourself admit that you await the results of data about EPO on faster people because it will confirm what you believe about the subject, based on your experience with fast athletes you know are 100% clean (whom we now know are unusually mentally tough, unlike everyday pack runners, whose "io" could use a swift kick in the ass). Unfortunately, as I have iterated, such data are probably not going to be in the pipeline anytime soon.

Interesting. What do you know about Alberto Cova?

So you think that the doctors who peddle EPO are also aware that it has no real utility, and are shady characters not only for peddling the stuff in the first place, but also for doing so secure in the knowledge that they are for all intents and purposes handing forking over Tylenol?

The conspiracy continues to expand. Well, that sucks. And I think that people who approach doctors looking for training advice are probably looking in the wrong place.

I will add that the people here who enjoy reading your exhaustive posts about the training of some of your elites -- and I am among them -- and want you to stick around and continue posting are, in many cases, some of the same people who are extraordinarily skeptical of what you say about PEDs. It's not necessarily a case of "Renato, thank you so very much for taking the time to share your wisdom, and please ignore the haters" in one corner, and "Renato, that's a load of bollocks" in the other. You have put yourself in the unusual position of being deeply admired and regarded as an untrammeled apologist at the same time. That's not easy!

Anyway, I guess we'll see.

Lorry Driver wrote:

Panetta was a doper. ask Todd Williams.

Just because you're not sure exactly how EPO works apart from increasing rbc count does not mean it doesn't work.

That's what causes the overwhelming degree of improvement regardless of Renato's silliness.

The nefarious reason Salazar allegedly would have wanted IV hydration for Rupp would be lower his hematocrit; by diluting blood with water and saline directly one can temporarily fool blood profile tests to some extent by lowering hematocrit. There are also drugs which do this very very quickly, Ex:

Does anaerobic training lower hematocrit numbers?

lol lol lol lol wrote:

The nefarious reason Salazar allegedly would have wanted IV hydration for Rupp would be lower his hematocrit; by diluting blood with water and saline directly one can temporarily fool blood profile tests to some extent by lowering hematocrit. There are also drugs which do this very very quickly, Ex:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/sevilla-tests-positive-for-blood-expander

I would assume that the testers look for this by checking to see if other parameters of note are well below what you'd expect of a typical blood sample. For example, if someone's 'crit drops from, say 50% to 40% as a result of plasma-volume expansion, you'd expect a fall in platelets, bilirubin, BUN, etc. to factitiously drop by about 20 percent as well. Unfortunately, most of these parameters can vary so widely and remain in the normal range that these indirect indicators may be of little use in determining if volume expansion has recently occurred.

Do you know anything about this?

Explanations wrote:

Does anaerobic training lower hematocrit numbers?

Presumably a high volume of such training could, but it doesn't appear that this is going to be the case for the average gym rat. For example, see

lol lol lol lol wrote:

Explanations wrote:

Does anaerobic training lower hematocrit numbers?

Presumably a high volume of such training could, but it doesn't appear that this is going to be the case for the average gym rat. For example, see

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/cggr/2009/156820/

It seems likely that the anaerobic training during the sharpening and peaking phase is probably driving those numbers down and being offset by the other benefits of that phase of training and racing.

Logically being able to keep those numbers up with EPO gives the best of both worlds.

Let's say a coach gets a beginning runner who is overweight. The first any coach would do is to get the beginner to run several times a week, that is increase his mileage. Also, the coach would get him on a healthy diet.

After a year or his weight has dropped into ideal range for this specific runner. Further weight drop will not improve his running.

Spool another 5-10 years forward. At this point in time he runs 100+ mpw. More mileage will not improve his running. The specific mileage will depend on the runners genetics.

It's not impossible that similar mechanics apply to blood composition. When you train for many years at a high level (i.e. you have the genetics that's necessary to become an elite runner), it may be that the limiting factors have changed from earlier in your career. In Renato's example, the limiting factor may once have been "number of lorries" but after years of high level training it has become "number of porters", which EPO doesn't improve.

I'm not saying that it is like this or even that I believe it is like this. But I don't think Renato's ideas are far-fetched. Scientific experiments with beginners or those eternal "10 well-trained individuals" may be completely irrelevant when it comes to elite runners.

But surely training increases the number of porters?

Just a little bit. If you google _Lance Armstrong biological passport blood doping_ or something like that you will encounter some interesting articles on the evidence that he blood doped in his first comeback Tour, in which he finished 3rd. IIRC, the variables--or principle ones--are hematocrit, hemoglobin and reticulocytes. Essentially, when you use EPO alone you get too many reticulocytes, when you use blood doping, EPO or a number of other methods you send hematocrit too high--either in an absolute sense or higher than it should be given your passport history (which is where saline solutions and plasma expanders come in) and if you use your own blood and don't use two much, and if need be dilute your blood--it's much tricker to detect--not sure what techniques are currently being used that work well...I was under the impression that combos or autologous blood doping and EPO microdosing are still being used and work very well, although one needs to be very careful timing and doses...

Renato,

If I am understanding you.... You are saying that EPO does not really work. It helps people mentally. Do you believe that it should be legal then? Should all "preformance enhancers" be legal? Would you be okay with the idea that Mo Farah is on drugs when he is competing against you athletes....since there is no real value?

Thank you very much for contributing. This have been a great read.

The above idea is reasonable and correct, but all the anecdotal evidence I've encountered, and the studies that have been done on low-dose EPO use and blood doping suggest that the "optimal" blood composition WRT RBC (red blood cells) is far, far above physiological levels--those found in non-drug or blood-doping aided people. An analogy might be testosterone and bodybuilders. In the 1970s, identical arguments were made about testosterone: no additional amount would benefit healthy bodybuilders; they already had all the testosterone they could use. Of course, in a world where pro bodybuilders now inject grams of test weekly this notion now seems absurd, but...