When is the smackdown on Chris Horner?

[Netserk]

Being I'll seems to be a common thing for some of the new gen of gt winners.

Probably because of the passport. I think being ill will allow for more.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Always nice to see guys appearing from 20yrs in the past with information that has been known for that amount of time.

You post a lot on here with opinions that are often "expert" in tone. Yet, you are just now learning something about the human body, aging, health, drugs that can effect health and performance? I mean, at a very high level of knowledge? This is 101 basic knowledge for many what you stated above that are in the know with true knowledge and experience.

Not sure how you think you can continue to make posts like that and be taken seriously by anybody that really understands the science, and has utilized/experienced PEDs directly.

To be honest I really do not understand what you are trying to get at here. I didn't mention drugs at all. Not once. If I have made a mistake in my post, please point it out plainly - "you're wrong because" is a good pattern to use for someone like me who struggles with subtlety of what you are writing.

To keep this coherent, here's the post you were responding to, where Wallace claims muscle mass declines after 30 years of age, and I mention a study I read recently that found otherwise:

*Sigh* The male body hits its peak at age 30. After that muscle mass, bone mineral and breathing capacity all decline, progressively. It isn't ageist to point this out, it's just the sad facts of mortality. This is why riders over the age of 40 have never (before CH) won GTs.

I have been reading research recently that indicates the muscle loss observed previously has been more due to reduced activity than an age-specific thing.

Not to say there are not age-related effects, but they are mitigatable far more than previously thought.

Note: it is not my opinion - it is simply what I read. The "decline after 30" is something I have been aware of for some time, so yes, it was something new to read that this "common knowledge" may in fact be wrong. I am not sure what you are going on about "true knowledge and experience".

As for "continuing to make posts like that" - well, all I did was post that I recently read about some research. I am really struggling to see the crime in writing something as innocuous as that?


The following summary of the study I was referring to does 2 things:
1. confirms that the "common understanding" was that people over 40 lose muscle mass
2. shows that that muscle loss was due to inactivity more than it was due to age.

Through a series of fitness tests on subjects between the ages of 40 and 81, Dr. Wright offered convincing evidence that the "typical" loss of muscle that begins in adults around the age of 40 has more to do with lack of use than aging alone. Two interesting points in this research: the subjects were Master athletes and Dr. Wright used MRI scans to measure muscle and fat content. Dr. Wright pointed to the fact that most research is typically studying sedentary subjects to draw broad conclusions about the intrinsic effects of aging.

http://phoenixfitnesskelowna.ca/articles/152/we_control_70_of_how_we_age.php

Now. This is a doctor, doing a study, on 40-81 year olds. It was her study that I was mentioning in my original post.

Here's the original article where the study was mentioned that I read originally: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/fitness/with-muscles-use-it-or-lose-it-rings-true/article547007/

At no point am I putting anyone down. Insulting people. Or trolling. Just retelling what I read recently.

Now, it's possible the 40 to 81 year olds were doping, no question. But in the short term, I am open to the possibility that you can, in fact, continue to train and maintain muscle mass and fitness as you age, without drugs. That the established wisdom was looking in the wrong place for what is possible as you age - ie sedentary people.

Posts like the above really come off as complete amateurs and clueless about PEDs in general when statements about certain drugs, that have been studied an insane amount and published over the years, are so-well known their effects

Except: I didn't mention PEDs, drugs, or anything of the sort. Nor was the post to which I was responding talking about drugs. To be honest, I find your post very confusing in this regard. I welcome further explanation.

Here's a direct link to the study, and its conclusion:

Conclusion
The loss of lean muscle mass and the resulting subjective
and objective weakness experienced with sedentary aging
imposes signifi cant but modifi able personal, societal, and
economic burdens. As sports medicine clinicians, we must
encourage people to become or remain active at all ages. This
study, and those reviewed here, document the possibility to
maintain muscle mass and strength across the ages via simple
lifestyle changes.

https://physsportsmed.org/sites/default/files/rpsm.2011.09.1933_secure.pdf

 

[Energy Starr]

To be honest I really do not understand what you are trying to get at here. I didn't mention drugs at all. Not once. If I have made a mistake in my post, please point it out plainly - "you're wrong because" is a good pattern to use for someone like me who struggles with subtlety of what you are writing.

To keep this coherent, here's the post you were responding to, where Wallace claims muscle mass declines after 30 years of age, and I mention a study I read recently that found otherwise:



Note: it is not my opinion - it is simply what I read. The "decline after 30" is something I have been aware of for some time, so yes, it was something new to read that this "common knowledge" may in fact be wrong. I am not sure what you are going on about "true knowledge and experience".

As for "continuing to make posts like that" - well, all I did was post that I recently read about some research. I am really struggling to see the crime in writing something as innocuous as that?


The following summary of the study I was referring to does 2 things:
1. confirms that the "common understanding" was that people over 40 lose muscle mass
2. shows that that muscle loss was due to inactivity more than it was due to age.



Now. This is a doctor, doing a study, on 40-81 year olds. It was her study that I was mentioning in my original post.

Here's the original article where the study was mentioned that I read originally: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/fitness/with-muscles-use-it-or-lose-it-rings-true/article547007/

At no point am I putting anyone down. Insulting people. Or trolling. Just retelling what I read recently.

Now, it's possible the 40 to 81 year olds were doping, no question. But in the short term, I am open to the possibility that you can, in fact, continue to train and maintain muscle mass and fitness as you age, without drugs. That the established wisdom was looking in the wrong place for what is possible as you age - ie sedentary people.



Except: I didn't mention PEDs, drugs, or anything of the sort. Nor was the post to which I was responding talking about drugs. To be honest, I find your post very confusing in this regard. I welcome further explanation.

Here's a direct link to the study, and its conclusion:

Thanks DW...that answers the question I was asking. I'm aware of testosterone being used, but had not heard that the decline in natural t may be due to inactivity rather than just age. That was new to me. To whomever that was ranting on about google, sorry for asking a question. Jeez

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Thanks DW...that answers the question I was asking. I'm aware of testosterone being used, but had not heard that the decline in natural t may be due to inactivity rather than just age. That was new to me. To whomever that was ranting on about google, sorry for asking a question. Jeez

Just to clarify - I have said nothing regarding testosterone decline. I am talking purely muscle mass. There were more studies referenced in the study I linked to above that may have more info.

That said - some exericses have been shown ( from memory ) to induce test production, so it may be possible that continues should you continue to exericse.

 

[D-Queued]

Just to clarify - I have said nothing regarding testosterone decline. I am talking purely muscle mass. There were more studies referenced in the study I linked to above that may have more info.

That said - some exericses have been shown ( from memory ) to induce test production, so it may be possible that continues should you continue to exericse.

(also from memory)... this may be more related to fitness than specific exercise.

If you are a fat coach potato, your T production isn't as high as if you are fit and exercising regularly.

Dave.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

(also from memory)... this may be more related to fitness than specific exercise.

If you are a fat coach potato, your T production isn't as high as if you are fit and exercising regularly.

For sure - when you are fitter you also tend to eat better, etc. It's all intertwined.

 

[del1962]

For sure - when you are fitter you also tend to eat better, etc. It's all intertwined.

Not sure, sometimes after exercise ppl will eat any old rubbish, thinking the exercise has offset its negative effects (not talking about pro athletes)

 

[SundayRider]

As far as aging and performance goes I think comparing non elites and elites isn't the best. Practically all amateur athletes never reach their absolute best performances (they will reach the best they can for the training they do, but not their genetic potential) whereas a professional will, or is much more likely too. A pro is going to hit their potential much earlier due to years and years of massive training volume, so you would think that performance would drop off quicker than in a non elite.

 

[SundayRider]

For sure - when you are fitter you also tend to eat better, etc. It's all intertwined.

Not sure I agree, I know athletes who do eat very 'clean' and I also now some who eat chocolate/cake/pizza etc on a pretty much daily basis. I guess this depends very much on the individual though, I mean some people who have fast baseline metabolisms to begin with need an awful lot of calories when you add in lots of training and its difficult to do this when you stick to general nutritional guidelines.

 

[Cycle Chic]

Dave/Dim ‏@dimspace 8m
Horner really dishing out the compliments "Everyone here can ride in the gruppetto, especially on my team."

Horner's comment is being mis - taken.

He is saying that his team riders are all perfectly competent to ride in the peloton - there is only one reason why they would hang on the back of cars and thats because they are sick or tired.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

Horner's comment is being mis - taken.

He is saying that his team riders are all perfectly competent to ride in the peloton - there is only one reason why they would hang on the back of cars and thats because they are sick or tired.

Yeah I think Dim got the wrong end of the stick there.

 

[Master50]

*Sigh* The male body hits its peak at age 30. After that muscle mass, bone mineral and breathing capacity all decline, progressively. It isn't ageist to point this out, it's just the sad facts of mortality. This is why riders over the age of 40 have never (before CH) won GTs. It has nothing to do with mindset or wanting to retire. It doesn't matter how talented Horner used to be/has always been. He is simply too old to be believably winning Grand Tours.

I know lots of totally hard-a$$ed vets who can climb, TT, race, put in major miles and stomp on killer group rides, but the difference between doing all that and racing professionally in Europe is like the difference between commuting and Formula 1 racing (as in: you may be using a similar kind of vehicle, but that's where the similarity ends).

Finally: GL can't get racing fit: he has lead pellets in his heart and his doctor has forbidden serious aerobic exercise as it leeches lead into his blood stream. If he could, I'm sure he'd be an awesome vet.

I see there is plenty of discussion on your point which is really thin. never read a geriatric study on the effect of exercise on oldsters?

As for my muse on Greg. he'd need to lose a hundred pounds before that remotely becomes possible. It was just a speculation about his capacity to do well even as he ages. you remember he did race for 2 years after the gunshot wound so I am not so sure he was really told to not race. He retired due to Muscular myopathy which turned out to be EPO in the other riders.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

This is almost as silly as Coggan's claim that muscular efficiency improves with training in pro cyclists. Why? Because of the logic - it implies there's no upper bound on efficiency, when clearly there is.

Similarly, exercise can not halt the effects of aging. People age, decline, and die. Otherwise you would have the ability to train someone to become an 85 year old champion of the Vuelta. Have you ever met an 85 year old? It's illogical. People age, and part of aging includes a decline in physical fitness even if you do prop up the system with PEDs. A 42 year-old champion is absurd enough.

John Swanson

 

[acoggan]

This is almost as silly as Coggan's claim that muscular efficiency improves with training in pro cyclists. Why? Because of the logic - it implies there's no upper bound on efficiency, when clearly there is.

By your "logic", it is impossible for training to increase, e.g., VO2max, because according to you that would imply that there is no upper bound.

Anyway, I'm not the only one who believes that efficiency can improve w/ training, e g.:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19941249

Similarly, exercise can not halt the effects of aging.

No, but there is plenty of scientific data to show that it can slow it down, even when considering fundamental aging-related processes such as telomere shortening, loss of satellite cells, etc.

 

[ScienceIsCool]

What in the world does telomeres (extra bits at the end of a chromosome to prevent transcription errors) have to do with aging? And glial cells (they form sheaths around ganglia)?

Unless you're talking about DNA damage theory of aging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_damage_theory_of_aging) in which case, I still don''t see how they apply. BTW, that article has some great info on effects of aging and explains how they are irreversible.

If Chris Horner is able to slow these processes by cycling, he's an idiot to not form a billion dollar industry around his training methods.

Or, you know. Dope.

And as for the increased efficiency via training, I have no problems with that. It's been measured, analyzed and published. What I simply can not believe is that the efficiency is unbound. That a pro cyclist can continue to improve his efficiency. Because that says that efficiency is unbound. The more training you do, the more efficient you become. It would also mean that Jens Voigt and Chris Horner would have efficiencies that are far, far above the average for the peloton. This is not believable.

When I am faced with data that is not believable, I immediately suspect that my testing and/or analysis is flawed. I.e., neutrinos do not travel faster than the speed of light even if my results say they arrived before a laser fired at the same instant.

John Swanson

 

[DirtyWorks]

If Chris Horner is able to slow these processes by cycling, he's an idiot to not form a billion dollar industry around his training methods.

Or, you know. Dope.

Well played sir! Not just the part I quoted either...

 

[peloton]

By your "logic", it is impossible for training to increase, e.g., VO2max, because according to you that would imply that there is no upper bound.

Anyway, I'm not the only one who believes that efficiency can improve w/ training, e g.:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19941249



No, but there is plenty of scientific data to show that it can slow it down, even when considering fundamental aging-related processes such as telomere shortening, loss of satellite cells, etc.

Simple question, why are my running times getting slower as I get older? I train the same as I've always done, but need more days to recover after hard efforts. I'm over 30

 

[Wallace]

I see there is plenty of discussion on your point which is really thin. never read a geriatric study on the effect of exercise on oldsters?

You're entirely right: my reading list has never included any studies on the effect of exercise on older people. Somehow, I've never gotten around to that. I have had many discussions with doctors on the subject (I had knee surgery a while ago and am now in training for an ultra-marathon event) and they--and my physical therapists--have all given me the same lectures on the decline of the male body after age 30. Numbers, percentages, etc., the whole grim outlook. It seems like none of them have read the studies either. As it turns out, one of my doctors is a team surgeon for the Seattle Seahawks (he has a Superbowl ring, which is a very odd piece of bling to see on your physician), so you'd think he might know something about the decline of athletic abilities over time, but he seems to have missed out on the latest studies too. Why don't my doctors spend more time on the internet? They'd learn so much.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Simple question, why are my running times getting slower as I get older? I train the same as I've always done, but need more days to recover after hard efforts. I'm over 30

Not replying to you directly. This is the part of the fraud where the doper is granted some genetic anomaly to explain the doping transformation.

This could be hilarious. Maybe Thom is getting desparate?

 

[Night Rider]

There is so much information that is easily found out there, you just need to take some time and effort, years worth though, to become very knowledgeable and an expert of many of these topics related to drugs and the effects on the body, particularly as it relates to performance enhancing characteristics.

CEM forums?

 

[Master50]

You're entirely right: my reading list has never included any studies on the effect of exercise on older people. Somehow, I've never gotten around to that. I have had many discussions with doctors on the subject (I had knee surgery a while ago and am now in training for an ultra-marathon event) and they--and my physical therapists--have all given me the same lectures on the decline of the male body after age 30. Numbers, percentages, etc., the whole grim outlook. It seems like none of them have read the studies either. As it turns out, one of my doctors is a team surgeon for the Seattle Seahawks (he has a Superbowl ring, which is a very odd piece of bling to see on your physician), so you'd think he might know something about the decline of athletic abilities over time, but he seems to have missed out on the latest studies too. Why don't my doctors spend more time on the internet? They'd learn so much.

You mean like what we are learning here? Your football doctor also deals with endurance athletes I suppose? I get he might know a lot about power and strength athletes. I recently turned 58. For the last 29 years I have pretty regularly tried my hand at the airport sprint and I think I won one. This year I have won 3. My recorded max speed is about the same as 10 years ago. I suppose that means everyone else is getting slower? as for geriatric studies, no one is becoming super athletes but it is clear from the studies that well trained endurance people decline at very different rates and people who are sedentary can increase VO2 even in 70 and 80 year olds and all benefit from strength training. The fitter ones tend to decline much slower.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

You mean like what we are learning here?

I have learnt beyond a shadow of doubt that doctors are simply humans, as fallible as anyone. That they may not know the latest facts from research is akin to the old skool coaches who still advocate 3 day starves pre-carbo loading.

I don't put riders on pedestals, and doctors don't belong there either.

 

[Catwhoorg]

1) It is fairly undisputed there is a decline with age

2) The degree of decline, the age of onset of it and the rate of decline can be mitigated by exercise (this is more the current argument)

3) Losing even 1% is a massively significant drop for an elite athlete, it may not matter for weekend warrior

(4 - decline in cardio and strength are not necessarily correlated, and both need to be considered. This one is a little harder to pin down in the literature)

 

[Merckx index]

There may be an effect of exercise on aging, but the age-associated decline of physical abilities is beyond question. This is especially well documented in baseball—the most statistically analyzed occupation, let alone sport, in history--where reams of data show that the typical player reaches his peak around the age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight, then enters a decline. Of course there is individual variation, both with regard to the peak and to the rate of the decline, but no player is immune from it. This has been demonstrated literally thousands of times. If there were a way to avoid this decline, I’m sure MLB teams, with their enormous financial and other resources, would be actively pursuing it. With multi-million dollar contracts at stake, let alone to avoid the emptiness so many pro athletes feel upon retirement, I’m sure if players thought there was any way they could maintain their production into their late 30s and early 40s, let alone beyond, they would do whatever it takes. In fact, with the help of PEDs, many do do whatever it takes, but even PEDs can’t stop aging. See Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens.

So Derek Jeter is finished. ARod (even with all his PEDs) is about finished. Pujols’ ten year contract promises to be one of the worst ever, though it may be exceeded by Cabrera’s. Somehow, none of these guys has found a way to beat father time. Despite having access to training, nutritional, etc., approaches that were unknown to players decades ago, they end up retiring at about the same age that Babe Ruth did, that Ted Williams did, that Hank Aaron did.

Baseball is a skill sport, quite different from cycling, obviously. But we also have huge amounts of data from riders at different age groups. These individuals are not elite athletes, but they aren’t couch potatoes, either. They exercise moderately, and for those of you who claim to know all about the literature on exercise and aging, you will understand that a lot of studies indicate that moderate exercise is actually more beneficial to health than the more extreme type typical of professional riders. To the extent that exercise can counter the effects of aging, we would expect them to get some benefits from it. And yet these folks, too, are subject to an obvious age decline. That of course is why we have age groups, why riders in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s or so compete against others of about their own age, and not against riders in other groups.

None of this is to say that exercise is irrelevant to the aging process. But it’s not some kind of magic bullet, a total game changer.

 

[IzzyStradlin]

There may be an effect of exercise on aging, but the age-associated decline of physical abilities is beyond question.

But do we know if the cause of this decline is physical? Could it not be players getting (relatively) lazy after getting rich?