...As for testosterone, I had a friend who was prescribed that for a genuine medical condition before 2006. He said it made him much stronger climbing. And this disregards the recovery boost. My friend immediately called BS when Floyd claimed testosterone doesn’t help endurance sport performance.
I never read of Flandis claiming Test "doesn't help endurance sport performance," I read him claiming he didn't like it because it made his legs feel "wooden." All I ever recall hearing him remark was that it wasn't effective for him, and Lance Pharmstrong is living proof that not everyone responds the same way to every medication.
RE: effectiveness of steroids in performance sport, first of all, testosterone doesn't magically make existing muscles stronger, it makes you stronger by promoting the growth of bigger muscles. Take steroids, put in the work, muscles get bigger, bigger muscles make you stronger. If you take steroids tonight and you feel
much stronger tomorrow, it isn't the 'Roids, it's placebo effect.
Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids do, by the way, stimulate bone marrow into making more RBCs. So if you take AASs long enough, it will raise your HCT level, and the resulting increased oxygenation of the blood will have an effect that could be mistaken for better power.
Second, Michele Ferrari himself preached that it's better to lose weight than to gain strength (because enhanced strength comes with larger, heavier muscles). Steroids also tend to cause water retention, which is dead weight.
Third, taking steroids alone only can cause performance improvement in the short term because the male body's natural testosterone level is regulated by the HPG axis. If the hypothalamus detects that the testosterone level is below whatever it considers optimal, it directs the pituitary gland to send instructions to the Testes to make more. So if you're taking exogenous Test in sufficient quantities to raise your testosterone levels to above this optimal level, the hypothalamus ceases sending these messages to the pituitary, with the net effect that the Testes
shut down (and might suffer atrophy from the inactivity) until testosterone levels have decreased to below optimal.
It is possible to take enough exogenous Test to completely replace the body's entire normal production but in a young man this would take quite a lot of steroid. These performance enhancing doses would be considerably larger than mere therapeutic doses, but such large doses pose the potential problem of aromatisation. Take too much AAS and the body will aromatise (convert) whatever it considers excessive into estrogen. Which not only is counterproductive to the purpose of taking steroids to begin with, it also can cause men to grow breasts (gynecomastia).
However, there are other drugs that can prevent both these limiting problems and make steroid doping more effective. You can bypass dependency of the HPG axis and 'trick' your Testes into continuing their normal testosterone output by taking Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG). The Testes mistake hCG for Lutinizing Hormone (LH), LH being the chemical messenger that the pituitary gland ordinarily would release into the bloodstream as a signal to the Testes to GET TO WORK! hCG is commonly prescribed to both men and women for certain fertility problems and will keep the testes health and fully-functioning despite excessive exogenous Test.
And there are Aromatase Inhibitors (AIs) that allow body-builders and power lifters to walk around with 10x a normal man's testosterone levels without their exogenous Test being aromatised and causing them to grow breasts.
However, now you're talking at a minimum two prohibited substances (AAS & hCG) and possibly a third (AI) in support an effective steroid doping program. Which manifestly increases your chances for getting popped for doping. And the steroids will, in any case, cause you to put on undesirable muscle mass and possibly water weight.
hCG in particular is one component the entire medical world looks for closely in bloodwork because it only occurs naturally in substantial amounts in conjunction with one of two medical conditions: pregnancy and certain cancers. hCG is what causes an early pregnancy test strip to test positive. And even before the cancer diagnosis, Pharmstrong knew he had stratospheric levels of hCG in his blood (because of the testicular cancer) but either he didn't understand the significance or chose to ignore it.
Fourth, the Nazis invented synthetic testosterone in the 1930s. If it were that effective for enhancing cycling performance, why hasn't pro cycling been awash in steroids for the past 90 years? After all, prior to 1966, there was NO drug testing, yet there are no stories of pro cycling being dominated by the steroid users, nor were there ever any cyclists (except maybe the odd sprinter) with a physique like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram