Do ex-dopers retain a significant unfair advantage?

[Undinist]

If you take the full set of PEDs for a number of years and then ride clean, do you retain a big unfair advantage over riders who have never doped? I suspect you do - because you have been able to train harder for a big chunk of your career. Is there any data on this? I'm sure JV has some.

This suspicion is why I can't share the bizarre outbreak of joy at Contador's old-school attacking. Why do so many Armstrong critics admire Alberto? You have to assume Bertie was doping to the max for almost a decade. That's how long he rode for Saiz, Bruyneel and Riis before he was busted. His many connections to Fuentes can't be explained away. He tested positive for a steroid but is still sticking to an absurdly implausible excuse. If you give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's now clean, would he have been able to attack for 55km the other day if he had never doped?

 

[D-Queued]

Sigh, yes.

Sigh because this has been discussed multiple times in multiple threads, most recently in one of the other active threads here.

Dave.

 

[Undinist]

Thanks. I did try a search but obviously not very well.

 

[Master50]

First post?
There probably are studies and it would depend on the drug.
You seem to claim Bert tested positive for steroids ?
That would be 2 positive tests and he would be out or did you think Clenbuteral is a steroid?
Maybe you need to do a bit of research before your second post.

 

[Undinist]

Clenbuterol is listed as a steroid on various sites e.g. this one http://www.steroidabuse.com/Profiles/clenbuterol-clen.html But thanks for pointing out that it's not. I'm very lucky to benefit from your wisdom and experience.

 

[FitSsikS]

There are lots of steroids out there which aren't of any sporting concern.

Cholesterol for example.

Anabolic steroids are a different matter all together. There is still some debate on whether clen falls into the latter category. That said it does seem to have certain benefits when used in conjunction with other substances. Simply put it may help to preserve if not increase muscle mass while increasing the use of fat as a fuel, although not to the same degree as anabolics.

 

[The Hitch]

If you take the full set of PEDs for a number of years and then ride clean, do you retain a big unfair advantage over riders who have never doped? I suspect you do - because you have been able to train harder for a big chunk of your career. Is there any data on this? I'm sure JV has some.

This suspicion is why I can't share the bizarre outbreak of joy at Contador's old-school attacking. Why do so many Armstrong critics admire Alberto? You have to assume Bertie was doping to the max for almost a decade. That's how long he rode for Saiz, Bruyneel and Riis before he was busted. His many connections to Fuentes can't be explained away. He tested positive for a steroid but is still sticking to an absurdly implausible excuse. If you give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's now clean, would he have been able to attack for 55km the other day if he had never doped?

Your whole idea is based on some premise that Contador and Valverde once doped, no.one else.did and.they don't even dope now nor does anyone else.

If.contador was on an la.programme for.a decade and only got.flagged up one time due to a fluke clen catch, why would he suddenly stop? Why would valverde not dope now if he was doping at any point after 2006?

Anyway to see that your theory probably doesn't hold up go to cq rankings and type.in " andrey kashechkin".

 

[hiero2]

No. And, DQ, if you know of another thread, please link it - if you can find it - thanks.

Why no? Any PED training benefit may be good for a few months, not longer. Any muscle gain that is maintained is muscle gain you could have gotten without the PED, although it might have taken longer.

The only way a change could be "permanent" thru PED would be if your habits and personality prevented you from training hard enough to achieve the goal without. For instance - if you simply could never go without going on a 2 month food bender out of every 6 months - so you could never get your weight down to where you needed it to be competitive. But a PED could enable you to lose the needed weight in the 4 months, even tho your personality didn't change. This is not the PED having the impact - it is your personality - get it?

Anabolic steroids can aid muscle mass and energy. But the benefit goes away. Any muscle gained that is not supported by your normal steroid levels also goes away. Sometimes rather dramatically in months. Read some body-builder autobiographical stories.

EPO and O2 vector can be helpful for up to a few months, but I think most of the impact is gone within 2 weeks to a month. More accurate than that and you need to talk to an expert.

Even if you grow up at altitude, then move to the seaside, most of your altitude bennies, if not all, eventually fade. Ditto any heat adaptation.

I'll say this as a cya - this is from my understanding and experience, and what I've read and learned. If we get somebody who is expert in these things say otherwise, I'll listen.

 

[D-Queued]

No. And, DQ, if you know of another thread, please link it - if you can find it - thanks.

...

mastersracing (pretty sure it was mastersracing) and I just completed a pretty good assessment of the long and short term impacts of most common peloton PEDs.

While I didn't post links in that particular dialog, I have plenty that confirm medium to long term benefits of many substances other than HGH and T.

Prior to that, there was an entire thread devoted to this subject.

But, like searching for 'doping cycling' on the Intarwebs, it is pretty hard to find anything other than Lance stuff at this point. Finding the right thread is worse than a needle in a haystack.

You also have to filter out anything related to T that Arnie Baker might have influenced, as T has proven benefits for endurance athletes as well as ergogenic benefits.

Dave.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Any muscle gain that is maintained is muscle gain you could have gotten without the PED, although it might have taken longer.

The only way a change could be "permanent" thru PED would be if your habits and personality prevented you from training hard enough to achieve the goal without.

Hold on.

If an athlete uses WADA-negative levels of testosterone/HGH combo to improve recovery over months/years, there is definitely a permanent benefit over time. Another rider without the T/HGH combo could not have the same level of adaptation over the same time period.

If the doped rider gets off the T/HGH combo and still trains, he's not going to get slower. The adaptation/recovery cycle simply becomes similar to the clean rider, but there is a permanent gap between the clean and formerly doped riders power output.

IMHO, there are two problems with "habits and personality" factors:
1. utterly non-scientific, but that's not that important.
2. The habits and personality factor is practically negated at the elite level. In order for 99% of athletes to get to any kind of national elite level requires very non-scientific habits and personality factors anyway.

The rest agrees with the conclusions I reached reading lots of stuff.

 

[Turner29]

The real discussion, at least for aerobic performance, should be around muscle fiber type plasticity, its occurrence and whether doping can enhance such. Certainly, at least one common drug has as a side effect the conversion of Type II to Type I muscle fiber and if you read Horowitz, J.F., et al., High Efficiency of Type I Muscle Fibers Improves Performance, you will understand why.

Armstrong showed some evidence of such.

 

[eporesis]

It can go both ways or be a zero.

To my knowledge, all 02 vectors clear out of the system without lasting effect, even PFCs, although slowly.
Some anabolics can increase the number of nuclei in muscle fibers permanently.
Long term 'benefits' of HGH accrue to physiognomy. To each his own.
Insulin and thyroid abuse leads to diabetes and hypothyroidism, kind of a detriment.
Judging from those connected to Vansevenant, looks like thyomsin burns you up, at least for the following year.

Finally gaining that extra time in the saddle is a benefit until the wear and tear catches up. So all that's going to depend on where a rider is in the arc of their career.

 

[D-Queued]

Hold on.

If an athlete uses WADA-negative levels of testosterone/HGH combo to improve recovery over months/years, there is definitely a permanent benefit over time. Another rider without the T/HGH combo could not have the same level of adaptation over the same time period.

...

Point very well taken.

Here is an extract from the Vaughters thread about sustained benefits (which included input from DirtyWorks as opposed to masterscycling as I suggested above):

It depends on the protocol.

-EPO and related blood boosting: temporary gains.
-Not mentioned very frequently is the use of psychiatry medicine to alter mood to improve aggression and risk taking. Temporary with serious problems getting off the drugs.
-HGH/Testosterone: permanent gains simply because recovery is faster. Go to an anti-aging clinic and get it done professionally.
-Clenbuterol is fundamentally different because it is a true/false test, but the general idea is it improves muscle building in large quantities.
-Some modern WADA regulated steroid uses are different too. Most use now is as an anti-inflamatory under TUE. It keeps riders going on their bike with minor injuries.

As a general overview, that's right. But, this is primitive. We won't know what's beating the system right now for a couple of years.

Thanks DirtyWorks, here is further insight which may muddy the waters with the above:

Testosterone: also impacts bone marrow and can/will increase Hemoglobin and Hematocrit for temporary/medium term gain.

Clenbuterol: Used to 'cut' and offset 'bloating' type impacts from steroids/testosterone. Therefore, also some temporary/medium term gain

HCG (not listed above): Used to transition off of Testosterone, therefore medium impact that enables longer-term retention of Testosterone gains

Cocaine: Used to avoid steroid crash when weaning off (short term impact to preserve longer-term gains of 'roids)

EPO and other oxygen vector agents (also VEGF): Utilization for both capillarization and anti-capillarization effects in skeletal (some scientific debate) and heart (myocardium) muscle, for purposes including increased cardiac output, for example, therefore also providing for long term gains

Bottom line - ex-dopers still benefit from artificially enhanced gains after they stop doping.

Dave.

In terms of other threads that have discussed this, please consider:

Returning Dopers racing at their doped level..

The use of gene doping should be rather obvious with respect to long term changes.

This document from WADA outlines "Side Effects" of "Doping Drugs". While many/most/all are negative, there are both short and long term effects.

http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/MACAU_Effects_of_Doping.pdf

NOTE: Just realized/learned that 'asthma' is a side-effect of Clenbuterol. Maybe that explains the high incidence in the pro peloton.

Finally, we have lots of documented evidence of permanent change from PED use:

East German program, Tammy Thomas, Barry Bonds...

Dave.

 

[Paco_P]

Even were it the case that there were demonstrably no long term physiological performance benefits to having drugged/doped, there would be a long term benefit - for example, if the drugging/doping facilitated a career where none would have been otherwise possible - or, more realistically, if it facilitated a step up in category, or access to resources and people otherwise not available. Those sorts of benefits are irreversible. An extreme illustrative example would be Armstrong - he's still making money off having been a doper even without racing.