PEDs in climbing....drugz!

Dirt Squirrel wrote:

Anectdotally, I did 32 months of energy systems training, lifting, and hangboarding. I went from grad school senescence to projecting 13a. I’d say there’s something to doing aerobic threshold work. 

Wait, even projecting a route counts now?

Anybody used EPO? I've no experience but at least conceptually makes sense it would help.

EPO allows you to remain at aerobic threshold effort for much longer and to recover from that effort faster. I have not used it, but have raced against people who have, and admitted it. You also do realize that it is quite difficult to get, expensive, and that cyclists were dropping line flies in the early 90s due to lack of medical monitoring, right? Only the introduction of the 50% rule, microdosing, and perfection of blood doping reduced/eliminated the death rates. Cyclists' blood would literally turn to sludge while asleep. 

Anyway, this whole conversation is kind of fucked. Why can't you just accept that there is a given performance decline with age, and that you may just need to be more diligent about diet, training and rest, including sleep. And yes, your performance may still decline, but so what? There are still plenty of fantastic routes a grade or two below my hardest sends 20 years ago. 

the schmuck wrote:

 Why can't you just accept that there is a given performance decline with age,  

How about _you_ accept performance decline?

I'm likely older than you, and I'm busy fighting decline -- rather working to improve and accomplish new things. So far doing pretty well at it. 

There is no scientific reason for a "given" rate of decline due to chronological age. Different drivers of different aspects of performance decline or not for specific reasons for different athletes.

Often it's a result of specific past injuries.

Often it's from losing motivation. Sometimes from believing the myth of a "given" rate.

Ken

Ok Ken, show me examples of top athletes performing at at their peak in their 50s, which is where I'm at. Reality is that you get older, you slowly decline, and then you die. That is just life. I'm willing to be more disciplined to stave that off for a bit, but I'm not going to flood my body with exogenic hormones. I still enjoy climbing and riding my bike, and on a good day I'm almost as good as in my 20s and 30s, but trying to recapture that level of performance delusional. 

5.samadhi wrote:
> Anybody used EPO? I've no experience but at least conceptually makes sense it would help

What helps performance (maybe?) is not EPO, but more hemoglobin available to carry oxygen to a working muscle.

Maybe injecting EPO is the simplest way to achieve the biggest gains in hematocrit, but I think the big majority of high-level athletes use other approaches. Since EPO is manufactured naturally in the human body, the most frequent approach is to stimulate the body to make more of it.

There are various WADA-legal protocols with more or less expensive equipment, and more or less intrusive on other life activities.

Although technical climbing is not VO2max limited, I now have come to think that increased aerobic capacity for climbing-specific muscles will improve redpoint-style performance for routes longer than a boulder problem. The more sustained and more muscular the crux sequences, the bigger the improvement.

But any increase in Red Blood Cell count results in an increased probability of an embolism (other things being equal). There is no specific threshold where higher RBC suddenly becomes "dangerous".

Ken

El Gato wrote:

Supplements are one thing, steroids and other "drugs" that Andy  is advocating is another. There isn't one top climber using that garbage. 

The evidence for that is ... ?

At least with other sports, some fans are smart enough to say that while they acknowledge that perhaps some top competitors are doing illegal or at least questionable stuff, their favorite athlete is surely clean - (he's such a nice wholesome guy).

Which happened like ten years ago or so with a famous American road-bike racer (not Lance Armstrong) whose fans loved him and were devoutly certain he was clean . . . until his clever doping method was detected by a new more sophisticated test.

Since I guess drug testing of top climbers is currently pretty lax, I'd say that merely "not getting caught" doesn't prove much.

But in every other sport which does have some sort of serious drug testing, top competitors have been caught. So why should we guess that climbers are any different?

Anyway even if by some remarkable concidence _every_ top climber during the year 2017 did not use any WADA-prohibited chemicals
. . (? also ones that WADA will not yet declare to be illegal until their study of it concludes some time next year?) . . .
 . . .
Top climbers back in the 1980s and 90s surely were taking old-fashioned actual steroids -- climbers who remain famous and whose names you should recognize.

About three years ago I asked a currently famous climbing coach (who has never in any way advocated steroids or similar) about that privately, and he immediatly volunteered exactly which steroid was the climbers' favorite.

I note that he _could_ have answered me, "Yes Ken I know about that, but you shouldn't be messing with stuff like that, so I'm not talking about the details."

But instead without skipping a tenth of a second, he just told me the chemical. So I'll guess I was not the first one to ask him. I will further guess that while I have never taken that chemical, other climbers who asked him found out how to get it and taught themselves how to inject.

Ken

Christ Ken, it is this type of rationalization that jacked up amateur cycling. Yes, all the pros were/are doping...with the benefit of team support, essentially creating a level playing field. 

But, that led to local Cat 3s with big egos to conclude that as soon as they were shelled out the back at their local office park crit that everyone else was on dope. They weren't. 

But you know what?  Pretty soon these same jackasses with fragile egos and six figure incomes were ingesting everything under the sun to win a bag of cookies and a pair of socks. 

This is an actual quote, in reference to doping, said in front of me at a Cat 3, 35+ road race:  "I'd suck dick just to go a little faster."  

So yeah, let's not let climbing make us feel like we need to suck dick to climb a grade harder. Okay?

the schmuck wrote:

Let's not let climbing make us feel like we need to suck dick to climb a grade harder. Okay?

I'm afraid you're a few years too late to prevent that.

How about try this article:

- - [ Climbing's Little Helper ] - - 

couple of quotes:

- - "High-altitude climbers have long used substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Code -- everything from . . . "

- - "When the Sherpa returned, the doctors gasped: he was carrying a tray full of dexamethasone . . . "

Or from Reddit climbing forum a couple of years ago about amateur-climber PED use:

- - "observations undertaken trekking or mountaineering at the Bafaru Bivouac (4860 meters altitude) on Mt. Kilimanjaro: 47% of those studied took acetazolamide, 40% dexamethasone, 4.5% coca leaves, and only 9% were clean."

Expedition mountaineering don't count.  Those hosers exist on another planet. 

Using steroids and other drugs...the person you're cheating most, is yourself. 

Why fuck around? Just use meth or pcp (sarc). Really, what's the difference?  

What ever happened to hard work and a good diet? Most likely this isn't going to make you rich or famous, so why take the chance. Also, no matter how hard we send, there will be someone a lot better. I remember when 5.13 was something....

I'm a little young to have an opinion on this, but from what I've witnessed, I've seen older climbers (50+), make excuses when they fall or cant send. Even people in their 30s say oh I'm old. Which is bullshit.  I've met people in their 60s breaking into 13s for first time and even a couple still climbing 14s. Just saying. I know I've done it before, use an excuse instead of analyzing what I'm doing wrong or a weakness and trying harder.  Now there is biology backing up muscle loss as we are, but if you build as much as you can by the time you reach 40, you should be able to maintain most of it if you dont get injured,  in which case it's probably a good idea to refine your technique and don t ever skip your PT and antagonist trainijng. 

I take several supplements as a vegetarian. I wouldn't call beta alanine, creatine, taurine, or vitamin b-12, iron, or fish oils PEDs. These are either synthetic or extracted chemicals available in meat.

I do take beta alanine in cycles as a vegetarian, and I feel like I do experience mild performance benefits. I think it's performance enhancing capabilities that day in the gym are mild and corresponds more to 'good days'. Where I find the benefits are after serious regimens that have continued for several weeks. I find myself with less malaise, and general fatigue than before I was supplementing. Very possible I was anemic previously, as well.

If we want to talk about short-term PEDs, the true holy grail is alcohol. I've experienced real benefits of drinking a single (4-5% abv) beer half an hour before both long, pumpy routes, as well as bouldery, finger-intense routes. I think on the former I tend to be more relaxed, don't overgrip as much, and just *maybe* there are some benefits to a slight amount of blood thinning. On the latter, I'm just out of my own head a little less. Alcohol turns down that little voice telling you how you're about to die, how bad you are at climbing, and how everyone is judging you.

I'm climbing in the mid 13 range, so I can't speak to it's benefits if you are truly pushing boundaries.

Tavis Ricksecker wrote:

dirtsquirrel,

After reading the full article, I'd be willing to accept that it does seem to show that, all other things being equal, someone with a superior level of aerobic conditioning may recover somewhat faster than a person with inferior conditioning, even from strength exercise. Which I don't recall ever arguing against, just that the abstract you posted didn't seem to prove that.

I'd even agree that for some climbers, adding aerobic or anaerobic conditioning may result in faster recovery and better results overall. However, remember your initial claim which started this whole discussion, which was:

This statement you cannot possibly know to be true without knowing the individuals involved, their training routines, etc. Which you do not. You know nothing about myself, samadhi, or kyber other than a one sentence summary of what grades we climb. You offer unsolicited advice that you have no way of knowing the validity of. In addition, you make negative assumptions about people that you do not know, and come across as arrogant and smug. I'm not entirely sure why you even came to this thread, but you seem to have a bone to pick and I for one am finished discussing this, or anything, with you.

1) this is a forum post dedicated to drugs, not just supplements, used to perform at a higher “standard” than you would otherwise. With you being supporter of said tomfoolery, I can assuredly say, you belong in a certain group of people.

2) I have offered a time tested, repeatable, and physiologically sound study and proposed principles as a solution to the problem posed by people desiring increased performance. What have you offered? Drugs. Additionally, you pretty much told me that the study didn’t apply and that I’m full of shit. Thanks for giving it a read and being open minded. 

3) The only negative assumption, and maybe undeservedly so, is that there is a lot to try before reaching for the medicine cabinet and maybe some of you are looking for “the shortcut” to climb harder when it’s pretty apparent what needs to be done.

4) lastly, I’m only here for the chicks, how do I get rid of this bacne from the ‘roids? Asking for a friend.

Will you two stop flirting already and kiss and makeup?

5.samadhi wrote:
> Anybody used EPO? I've no experience but at least conceptually makes sense it would help

This morning I visited my new Primary Care Physician (my previous doctor retired), and got two interesting results:

1) my Hematocrit was above normal adult male range. For so long it had been at the low end of normal. Though my RBC and Hemoglobin are well inside normal male range, my new doctor was mildly concerned (tho might be just temporary low hydration) and requested that I schedule follow-up bloodwork.

But I was kind of thrilled, beause seems like for a little while now I have the well-tuned hematocrit of a pro bike racer - (and the insurance company will pay for an intermediate test). No wonder my interval times for my uphill-skiing training prep for winter/spring season seemed so good so early.

?? Anyone know which blood measurements more correlate / predispose to higher risk of embolisms / blood clots?
. . . ? RBC ? Hematocrit ? Hemoglobin ? or what ?

2) Then she said of course she would write another prescription for one of the PEDs I had been getting thru my previous PCP. No need to explain, she said lots of her other patients also use it for the same purpose. And she's fully on-board with another PED I take regularly, prescribed by a specialist -- she had already included appropriate monitoring for it in my first bloodwork before seeing her. Neither one of those is EPO.

Nice to see that something is having a measurable impact on both my chemistry and my performance.

. . . I was already doing a procedure to prevent embolisms sometimes when needed, especially on long airline flights home after climbing or skiing at altitude, or long car rides. Now I guess I better be doing it on the airline flight _to_ the upcoming ski mountaineering trip.

Ken

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypochondriasis

Ken, nice post man! What was you HCT? I regularly come back 51-52% which is outside the normal range in the USA but various doctors do not seem to be concerned about it. In Europe that value is still considered normal. 

Also what are the drugs youre getting from your doc to help your climbing? Don't hold out on us bro!!! :)

Ken, I'm curious too. Are you prescribed T? 

And dirt, all you really know about me is that I'm a crappy boulderer. And all I know about you is that you are a mediocre sport climber with strong opinions and poor reading and writing skills. Good day.