rekrunner wrote:
T gels are the buzzword wrote:
Fair enough - just soliciting your opinion. Curious though - it may possible to recover without drugs but in the cases where demanding coaches are putting athletes through torturous workouts, you wonder if that's a situation that encourages the athletes to go on some kind of recovery drugs? (e.g., low-dose T or steroids, prednisone, peptides, etc.).
And athletes themselves may feel the pressure from a sponsor to crank it up and perform better or the sponsor will drop them (it's a vicious sport - here today...gone tomorrow). It also seems like elite runners are injured a lot from non-contact injuries (unlike football where the vast majority of injuries are contact related), which I would think is simply from overtraining. So, if they don't want to tone it down (either the coach won't let them or they feel they can't because of pressure from a sponsor), I would think they would be vulnerable to using PEDs for recovery.
It probably happens quite frequently that athletes turn to drugs, as Lance rationalized, to "take care of their bodies" and get back to a "normal" level, or that impatient or frustrated athletes decide take drugs hoping to get themselves to the "next level", or due to pressure from their sponsors.
Ryan Hall retired from the sport, because of low testosterone. I'm sure other athletes will not always make the same choice.
Regarding demanding coaches, one of the things that makes a good coach is getting the most out of your athletes, physically and mentally, while avoiding premature burnout or injury. A good coach will ensure adequate recovery -- recovery is the phase where you body gets stronger -- and will alter your training plan based on feedback how the athlete feels, versus how they are supposed to feel.
"Ryan Hall retired from the sport, because of low testosterone. I'm sure other athletes will not always make the same choice."
Yes, this is why Salazar stocked up T cream for his group . Or maybe it was for other relatives or maybe he used it on his pets . There are some people who believe coaches buy PED's and just keep them on the shelves .