Alex Hutchinson calls out CANOVA over study confirming EPO works on Kenyan runners

Your burden. Good luck.

RFM wrote:

rekrunner wrote:

I'm going to say "Post hoc ergo propter hoc".

"Sine qua non."

FTFY

Aragon wrote:

Morrocan Magic wrote:

... Yeah...right, the same can be said for you with one key addition...

Technically speaking everything can be said about anyone and it is upto the readers to judge for themselves our level of knowledge and sincerity.

To close my case about you knowing next to nothing about my knowledge of source material or even the positions I have, you are simply wrong when you claim that there are zero studies on blood doping with elite level athletes, because in the past I have referred to these studies where this have been done and Vo2MAX and performance have been increased with athletes with baseline relative Vo2Max values in the 80's and as high as 87 ml/kg/min.

On the other hand, who cares to look further into supporting your case, if the material is provided by someone with "Delusions of Grandeur"... ;)

Are any of these studies involving elite runners where time is the benchmark? ?

There is some time trial test material from the 1970's from Soviet Union with presumably at least national level athletes (swimmers) where performance increased after blood reinfusion by a few percents. And one West German swimmer broke national record after blood tranfusion in the early 1970's when blood doping was tested.

There is also elite level (average Vo2max 79.5 ml/kg/min) material published in scientific journals from the early-mid 1980's in which one double blind test Vo2Max (+5 %) as well as time-to-exhaustion (+35 %) increased after reinfusion of 900 ml of blood compared to sham infusion where no improvement was seen. One of the authors of the study also stated in another context that (most or all) the athletes broke their PB's when competing during the study period that lasted several months.

There is also one Norwegian reinfusion study from 1980 involving (among other people) world champion in orienteering in which the same parameters were elevated.

To answer your question about their area of speciality, my reading and recollection is that all or most of the 5 %/35 % research paper subjects were runners.

Aragon wrote:

There is also elite level (average Vo2max 79.5 ml/kg/min) material published in scientific journals from the early-mid 1980's in which one double blind test Vo2Max (+5 %) as well as time-to-exhaustion (+35 %) increased after reinfusion of 900 ml of blood compared to sham infusion where no improvement was seen. One of the authors of the study also stated in another context that (most or all) the athletes broke their PB's when competing during the study period that lasted several months.

35% is enormous, this is why it is banned.

Aragon, so how long would 900ml enhance performance 2,3, 4 or 6 weeks?

I have no idea when the PB's were broken because it was mentioned only in passing in another context and not in the study, but only that it took 16 weeks before Hb returned to the baseline. TTE performance fell back to control relatively quickly after reinfusion whereas Vo2Max was still 5 % higher at 16 weeks even when Hb was back to normal, which is strange to say the least.

And 35 % isn't super enormous, because TTE is quite clumsy method to measure "real" performance and it is somewhat day-to-day variable. If one uses the 10-15 coefficient proposed somewhere, the highest estimate could be up to 3.5 %.

Aragon wrote:

I have no idea when the PB's were broken because it was mentioned only in passing in another context and not in the study, but only that it took 16 weeks before Hb returned to the baseline. TTE performance fell back to control relatively quickly after reinfusion whereas Vo2Max was still 5 % higher at 16 weeks even when Hb was back to normal, which is strange to say the least.

And 35 % isn't super enormous, because TTE is quite clumsy method to measure "real" performance and it is somewhat day-to-day variable. If one uses the 10-15 coefficient proposed somewhere, the highest estimate could be up to 3.5 %.

Have you seen some of Chad's (mindweak) calculations & estimations? He's showing improvement around ~5% with some of these marathoners/HMs testing positive for EPO (Jepchumba thread). He's got a BA in human performance and PE - so he just might know a little something about this.

Seen? Yes. Changed my opinion to one way or another? Perhaps, bur not particularly much because there are numerous issues with relying on these improvements which can be significant now-and-then.

Aragon wrote:

I have no idea when the PB's were broken because it was mentioned only in passing in another context and not in the study, but only that it took 16 weeks before Hb returned to the baseline. TTE performance fell back to control relatively quickly after reinfusion whereas Vo2Max was still 5 % higher at 16 weeks even when Hb was back to normal, which is strange to say the least.

And 35 % isn't super enormous, because TTE is quite clumsy method to measure "real" performance and it is somewhat day-to-day variable. If one uses the 10-15 coefficient proposed somewhere, the highest estimate could be up to 3.5 %.

It's almost like the body increases something at the site where the extra oxygen is unloaded. to make use of the increased potential.

Aragon wrote:

I have no idea when the PB's were broken because it was mentioned only in passing in another context and not in the study, but only that it took 16 weeks before Hb returned to the baseline. TTE performance fell back to control relatively quickly after reinfusion whereas Vo2Max was still 5 % higher at 16 weeks even when Hb was back to normal, which is strange to say the least.

And 35 % isn't super enormous, because TTE is quite clumsy method to measure "real" performance and it is somewhat day-to-day variable. If one uses the 10-15 coefficient proposed somewhere, the highest estimate could be up to 3.5 %.

But was Hb measured as a weight/mass or as a %? It sounds like the muscle memory (or long term residual) findings with steroids. I wouldn't dismiss TTE so quickly though.

Aragon wrote:

Seen? Yes. Changed my opinion to one way or another? Perhaps, bur not particularly much because there are numerous issues with relying on these improvements which can be significant now-and-then.

Are you saying that it is possible for a marathoner to improve ~5% with EPO/blood doping?

rEP0 & Submaximal Performance wrote:

Have you seen some of Chad's (mindweak) calculations & estimations? He's showing improvement around ~5% with some of these marathoners/HMs testing positive for EPO (Jepchumba thread). He's got a BA in human performance and PE - so he just might know a little something about this.

Something like that. Normally, when someone improves so spectacularly around age 26 (see doper Baumann, likely doper Radcliffe, likely doper Farah, and now our new local hero), doping is involved, but that does not mean that doping was the only factor. So the 5% improvement could just as well have been 2% from EPO and 2% from 'roids and 1% from box jumps/sit-ups/bench press/form drills/fast long runs etc., or whatever numbers one wants to estimate.

rEP0 & Submaximal Performance wrote:

Are you saying that it is possible for a marathoner to improve ~5% with EPO/blood doping?

Let's hope it's not... then literally every winner would have to be doing that.

For example, there are (were) about 80 runners under 2:06. Any clean one of them - if there are any* - could then get the world record, and break 2:00!, by doping, and become a multi-millionaire.

2:06 - 5% = 1:59:42

* If there are no clean sub-2:06 runners, well then even I would become cynical or sarcastic like rekrunner.

Subway Surfers wrote:

But was Hb measured as a weight/mass or as a %? It sounds like the muscle memory (or long term residual) findings with steroids. I wouldn't dismiss TTE so quickly though.

I think they measured only Hb level and not total Hb, which still could be calculated from blood volume even when the authors are of the opinion that the volume measurement method is unreliable. About TTE, I am not dismissing the TTE test results, but only questioning what it actually tells about performance, clearly something because sham group saw no improvement. When one compares the placebo vs. reinfusion groups, it is also crucial that nobody knows in which group they are, and I can recall the following concerns being voiced:

- The sham protocol has been questioned as the control group received 50 ml of saline and a subject could notice the difference to 900 ml of blood because the "feel" of being infused 850 ml might've been significantly different even when they were blinded and listening to music.

- Athletes training up to a 10000 km annually could have a good sense about their capabilities and noticed even a small difference in performance quickly. In either case, just knowing being "blood doped" raises questions about placebo effect.

In addition, there is no clear reason for the Vo2max not returning to the control level in 16 when Hb had returned to baseline. The authors speculate some sort of training adaptation, but it is equally plausible that the baseline figure (79.5) is measured too low to begin with when the subjects hadn't accustomed to threadmill running in which case the measured Vo2Max improvement is dubious, which is line with the observation that TTE performance wasn't better after 16 weeks when Vo2Max was.

From the 1972 Swedish reinfusion paper (Ekblom et al) to the 2018 Kenyan study (Haile et al), Vo2max pretty much returns to baseline in weeks and months after the treatment, so the observation here is a strange anomaly.

rEP0 & Submaximal Performance wrote:

Are you saying that it is possible for a marathoner to improve ~5% with EPO/blood doping?

I guess everything is possible, but I wouldn't draw a 5 % conclusion from that material, because there are several issues when comparing the seasonal bests of different years, problemd which I've discussed in other threads a year or two ago.

SlowFatMaster wrote:

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_1/the-anatomy-of-a-medal.shtml

It says that Deena's VO2 max went from 70.2 to 77.5 to 81.3 but you wrote, in part, "Forget about VO2 max. Your oxygen uptake is exactly what it is supposed to be if you are healthy."

What would account for her test results other than her VO2 max going up?

Weight loss and a more accurate test i.e. not overheating during the test.

Aragon wrote:

rEP0 & Submaximal Performance wrote:

Are you saying that it is possible for a marathoner to improve ~5% with EPO/blood doping?

I guess everything is possible, but I wouldn't draw a 5 % conclusion from that material, because there are several issues when comparing the seasonal bests of different years, problemd which I've discussed in other threads a year or two ago.

Everything is possible Aragon? Like circumventing the laws of physics?

Whoopeeee exercise physiologists who don't know any physics have found a way to prove Newton was wrong.

And the earth is fukcing flat ain't it?

JonO. wrote:

SlowFatMaster wrote:

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_1/the-anatomy-of-a-medal.shtml

It says that Deena's VO2 max went from 70.2 to 77.5 to 81.3 but you wrote, in part, "Forget about VO2 max. Your oxygen uptake is exactly what it is supposed to be if you are healthy."

What would account for her test results other than her VO2 max going up?

Weight loss and a more accurate test i.e. not overheating during the test.

prove it.

JonO is a moran wrote:

JonO. wrote:

Still waiting for you to show how injecting rEPO can circumvent thermodynamics?

Strawman argument you cry.

Cop out. It can't circumvent thermodynamics. Thermoregulation can't be altered with more red blood cells than normal.

But keep telling yourself that you're right and the drugs really work and that others who ask these awkward questions are delusional.

There are no "others who ask these awkward questions." You are only a lonely 17 years (and counting) crusade against reality.

Of course you only recently came to learn the word thermoregulation, as it does not appear in any of your earlier posts.

You're not very good at using the search function are you?