What exactly made Armstrong so strong?

[jimbob_in_co]

Because he is better than you.

Okay then, let Lance deal with the crash I'm having in the multi-threaded, 3D computer graphics application I'm trying to fix.

NOT BLOODY LIKELY.

 

[jimmypop]

i believe this is the correct scenario.

FWIW -- i suggested this exact explanation a few years back to someone who would have been in the know at the time and they confirmed that i was very much on the right track.

Armstrong met a doctor in whom he placed near complete trust. He believed everything Ferrari said about EPO and Orange Juice and steroids, and literally put his health in the hands of a man who likely truly believes that PED have no ill effects if monitored properly.

 

[red_flanders]

It is possible he has more than one acquaintance or friend (OK, more than one acquaintance).

I think you miss the reason for my post. I've seen Betsey confirm this kind of narrative in another post. Was just wondering if that's the same event Big Doopie is referring to.

 

[BotanyBay]

Yep. I think LA may have come back to the sport (having just dodged what, at the time, was a near certain death sentence) not wanting to risk his health as he did before with PED use. He found out very quickly he was not competitive without dope and went home intending on retirement.

Something happened, a decision was made, the doping programme perfected...

There is no way he should have been so strong at the '98 Veulta...

IMO, this may have been the last time LA behaved like a normal human being. Once the decision was taken, the total focus on racing, corruption, doping and winning, he sold his soul.

I think the decision had to do with the fact that being a "regular person", in Lance's eyes, was like a death sentence. It fully explains his subsequent actions.

Pretty much everyone who'd ever met the guy knows he was a complete narcissist and jerk (pre-cancer). Then cancer made him a nice guy for like 18 months, and he went right back to V1.0 again. You can pretty much track his transition by how he treated those around him.

 

[Paco_P]

- Systematic team doping. Some teams had it but not all. With the years it has become harder to achieve.
.

This one is too often overlooked, and is part of the explanation as to why Armstrong was always able to beat a 'naturally' better rider like Ullrich.

 

[Paco_P]

Just like we can function just fine with just one kidney. We have two for reasons of redundancy. Just like we've got two cajones.

One for each sock?

 

[broken chain]

This one is too often overlooked, and is part of the explanation as to why Armstrong was always able to beat a 'naturally' better rider like Ullrich.

I used to argue quite a bit with a co-worker on this point.
I tried to rationalize to him that Armstrong had to be sauced to the gills to trounce the likes of Ullrich,Basso as they were later proven to be dopers.
His rationale was that Armstrong had a much better team than the rest of the field.
Turns out he was right,they were ALL sauced to the gills.
My apologies

 

[stainlessguy1]

A few questions before I begin-

1) Testicular cancer-after chemo treatments and removal of a testicle, what sort of testosterone levels can a normal, otherwise healthy male expect to produce?

2) Do these individuals go back to living normal lives or do they have to take testosterone supplements for the rest of their lives?

3) Can they produce enough sperm to have children?

This is why I ask-Armstrong's' vital numbers, like weight, power output and VO2 max have always been shrouded in secrecy. There is no doubt that an increase in power, heretofore unrealized pre-1999, took place. Hard work and maniacal training?

No. Something happened between the time he left Paris-Nice I believe in early 1998 (someone please chime in with the exact date-the timeline is important) and the Vuelta/World championships.

This is what I've been told, in layman's terms-the cocktail he was ingesting wasn't anything Earth-shattering but it does lend credence to his power output increase. The stamina came from blood manipulation, the tried and true method of combining EPO micro-dosing and transfusions. But the power, how was it able to increase so much?

I've been told this weekend that Armstrong had a special dispensation that allowed him to take up to 7 times the normal amount of testosterone that a normal male his age produces to make up for whatever deficiency he may suffer after having a testicle removed.

Granted this is overkill, as I doubt any normal male would need this amount introduced exogenously, but this is what he was doing. He was taking this amount during the times he was riding the Tour. The medical dispensation was never recorded by the UCI that I know of for whatever reason, but given the cozy relationship he had with the UCI it is not a stretch to say he probably made them verbally aware of the situation but wanted to keep it quiet so as not to take away from his mythological persona as the strongest rider in the peloton, which at the time both he and the UCI profited greatly from. So not a stretch to see why he would find an ally to keep this quiet within cycling's governing body.

This, in combination with HgH, cortico-steroids and blood manipulation was what made his doping regimen different than the other riders. This is aside the assurance that he nor any of his teammates would test positive for anything after the 1999 incident, which was another advantage riders from other teams didn't have. So they were able to behave as if the rules did not apply to anyone of the US Postal riders.

This is what makes the theory of the doping "super responder" harder to believe. Or at the very least that he was one of these cases, which I believe he was not.

The day Jan Ullrich took one and a half minutes out of Armstrong in the 2003 Tour, Lance was visibly suffering not from heatstroke but from a bad transfusion. Either the blood was not stored correctly or it belonged to someone else. But the situation was righted by the doctors that evening and all was well after that. It only seems right that one of the few bad days Armstrong had in the Tour wasn't due to loss of form but from a glitch in the doping regimen.

Having a high hematocrit that never decreased due to blood transfusions/EPO injections only tell part of the story. Many people feel in this regard he wasn't doing anything the other top contenders weren't also engaged in. So what made it possible for him to fly away from climbers whom he outweighed sometimes by over 20 pounds? Climbers he never in any other race in his career could keep up with much less leave in the dust?

It would seem a foregone conclusion that the Federal investigation will reveal systematic doping on the US Postal squad. But that is not enough. How did he do it? What made his regimen so much more effective? His transformation wasn't merely a consolidation of previously exhibited strengths-he morphed into a totally different rider.

Many people have underestimated the use of testosterone in cycling. In combination with the right amount HgH it makes for an incredible combination. If it's true that Armstrong was jacked up on such a great amount of testosterone, along with everything else, this would appear to be the missing ingredient, the one product he was able to use with impunity that others could not touch for fear of testing positive. At least not in the prodigious amounts he was allowed to ingest.

___________________________________________________________

You got it .. that is exaclty it . as far as i am concerned .

The minute an athlete has an injury or disease or the like , as in this case He is under legal doctor care , and the amount of testosterone that he can now legally take for the loss of one testicle will be to the advantage of the athlete and not the neutral amount needed for him to be an average joe .
Since this will be an experimental amount , most riders dont ride with missing balls ,, he has a clean slate ,, or at least his doctors do , till the rest of the doctors or world figure it out ,,,, it is all over ,,, seven year or so have gone by ,,,, and now well ,, oops oh well he got the amount wrong ,, prove it please .
I dont think there is much home work on this ........ maybe all the cyclists would be balless and could have extra synthetic testosterone so they can pump it in ......... legally

i know i am rambling on ,, but i got you and i think you have a valid point .
how does a doctor gage the amount of legal testosterone to compensate a missing nut . ( sorry ) lol .

Any real guide lines out there for different weights and sportypes . ?
probably not .

 

[peloton]

Thanks, spotless, says it all.

 

[Berzin]

Well, it seems like Armstrong was overdosing on testosterone way before he got cancer. Anyone remember how thick he looked when he won Fleche-Wallone in 1996? It was quite a change from the previous years.

The medical dispensation for the testosterone post-cancer wasn't made public from what I've been told. The UCI felt it would detract from the credibility of his comeback, especially his Tour win in 1999, given that it was the "Tour of Redemption" and all.

Now we have the HemAssist, which only he had access to (allegedly). Forgive me if this was covered in another thread, but I haven't read them all.

There is also the matter of the cow's blood, I forgot what that was called. Anyone know if that stuff actually worked and what other teams used it during this time?

The blood doping, the EPO use, the aforementioned products-what did this guy NOT take?

 

[Benotti69]

Well, it seems like Armstrong was overdosing on testosterone way before he got cancer. Anyone remember how thick he looked when he won Fleche-Wallone in 1996? It was quite a change from the previous years.

The medical dispensation for the testosterone post-cancer wasn't made public from what I've been told. The UCI felt it would detract from the credibility of his comeback, especially his Tour win in 1999, given that it was the "Tour of Redemption" and all.

Now we have the HemAssist, which only he had access to (allegedly). Forgive me if this was covered in another thread, but I haven't read them all.

There is also the matter of the cow's blood, I forgot what that was called. Anyone know if that stuff actually worked and what other teams used it during this time?

The blood doping, the EPO use, the aforementioned products-what did this guy NOT take?

unfilterd and un 'treated' water?

 

[thehog]

I've been told this weekend that Armstrong had a special dispensation that allowed him to take up to 7 times the normal amount of testosterone that a normal male his age produces to make up for whatever deficiency he may suffer after having a testicle removed.

Many people have underestimated the use of testosterone in cycling. In combination with the right amount HgH it makes for an incredible combination. If it's true that Armstrong was jacked up on such a great amount of testosterone, along with everything else, this would appear to be the missing ingredient, the one product he was able to use with impunity that others could not touch for fear of testing positive. At least not in the prodigious amounts he was allowed to ingest.

You were right. The SI article proved it. Good call.

 

[luckyboy]

There is also the matter of the cow's blood, I forgot what that was called. Anyone know if that stuff actually worked and what other teams used it during this time?

Hemopure [Rasmussen's stuff] was based on bovine hemoglobin I think. Not sure if it was the same USP threw out.

Oh, it was Actovegin that some USP worker threw out, along with empty insulin vials and used gauze. The Actovegin was, according to Gorski, used for one of the staff who had diabetes and for grazed skin after crashes.

 

[indoroids]

testosterone is very cheap, so today modern mankind have no problem supplement it for the rest of their lives, i do know several people who did that