Training at altitude VS Blood doping

Bhima

Just read in a running magazine that, by training at altitude where there's less oxygen in the air, your body adapts and makes more red blood cells.

Cyclists who do blood doping do it in order to raise the ammount of red blood cells they have.

So, what if you lived & trained at altitude all your life? Is it possible that you could have a level of red blood cells higher than the UCI limit, but completely naturally?

If you trained on rollers with one of those air-masks you get in hospitals, feeding you modified air, to mimic the oxygen concentration found at altitude, you could, effectively, dope and get away with it, if you explained that you lived in the Himalayas/Alps.

Not looking to try this myself. :roll: Is this kind of this banned in cycling? I always read in magazines and hear on TV such phrases as "Team X Y & Z have been training at altitude in the run-up to this year's Tour of X Y & Z... etc" ???

shockedsoshocked

Altitude training and coming from a country well above sea level is legal, blood doping is not. Pretty simple.

And if I remember correctly there is more benefit from training at low altitude and sleeping at high altitude.

Soni

That is a very interesting point.....

I can't see any difference between the two, they are both achieving the same results aren't they? So how can one be illegal and the other not?

Its a little bit different with steroids and performance enhancing drugs, however if the same result can be achieved naturally, for example the benefits of blood doping can be achieved naturally by altitude training, then what is the problem?

disgruntledgoat

Because training at altitude/ living at altitude/ training with an oxygen mask on is rather less likely to result in you dropping dead if performed incorrectly. That's the issue in a nutshell.

redddraggon

Soni wrote:

That is a very interesting point.....

I can't see any difference between the two, they are both achieving the same results aren't they? So how can one be illegal and the other not?

Its a little bit different with steroids and performance enhancing drugs, however if the same result can be achieved naturally, for example the benefits of blood doping can be achieved naturally by altitude training, then what is the problem?

You can train and live at Altitude, but the effect can wear off quite quickly, so as soon as you start competing in say the first week of the Tour in the lowlands, the number of blood cells will start to drop off - caused by both the body accustomising to the lower altitude and the effects of competing.

EPO will work at any altitude though. Oxygen tents which simulate altitude are I beleive illegal in Italy (so same as doping) but not in Spain :? .

robthehungrymonkey

I remember seeing a doc on Chris Boardman just before he retired and he had converted a spare room into a low oxygen environment for him to train in.

Is there a level that the UCI consider too high? How does this compare to a sherpa for example?

Always found the effect of altitude an interesting subject.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Soni wrote:

That is a very interesting point.....

I can't see any difference between the two, they are both achieving the same results aren't they? So how can one be illegal and the other not?

Its a little bit different with steroids and performance enhancing drugs, however if the same result can be achieved naturally, for example the benefits of blood doping can be achieved naturally by altitude training, then what is the problem?

Training enhances performance. More than anything else in fact. Should that be banned? Consuming carbohydrates is known to enhance performance.

Quite simply, doping is whatever WADA and relevant national anti-doping bodies say it is, irrespective of the rationale for such a substance or method being on the prohibited list.

But let's take altitude tents/rooms for instance. In essence that's just artificially altering the environment, much in the same way as using air conditioning, or heating, or having a roof over our heads. They are all artificial environmental aids as well. Should they be banned? (that's rhetorical BTW)

Altitude training has been thoroughly researched (there are in fact entire books on the subject), although many of the underlying physiological mechanisms are still not completely understood. What we do know is that different athletes respond differently to the various strategies that can be employed, and that some strategies are more effective than others depending on the circumstances.

Kléber

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Altitude training has been thoroughly researched

I beg to differ here, the sample groups have been small and hardly with double blind testing protcols. Some of the literature says altitude training boosts the red blood count but the resulting more viscous blood can be harder to pump so the advantage of increased oxygen carrying capacity is negated. Try telling this to the pros with their 60% haematocrits, the science behind this matter is still a long way behind the practice used by the likes of Dr Ferrari!

There's been plenty of research but it still needs refining. Some studies suggest the reaction is genetic, some people have a greater response to altitude than others. You could spend three weeks living at 2,500 metres or spend £5000 on an altitude tent system only to find you're a "non responder"

Altitude training simply encourages a natural reaction in your body. Now you have to be wealthy to spend time - three weeks they say - living on the side of a mountain so it's not necessarily fair but it's about a natural, endogenous reaction and not sticking a syringe to generate a change.

GyatsoLa

I think living at altitude does have minor long term benefits (hence all those Ethiopians and Kenyans who dominate long distance running), but they are minor.

I've spent time and cycled at altitude in excess of 2 weeks on three occasions (over 4,000 metres). Each time, I felt like I was rocket propelled when I got back down to lower altitudes - but the effect only seemed to last about 3-5 days. Each time I felt a strange disconnect between my legs and my head - almost as if my brain was saying to my legs 'you've been spinning like mad for hours, why the hell aren't you tired?'. Quite a strange feeling really! Made me tempted to sample EPO 8) But of course some of the effect may have been psychological, a burst of wellbeing from actually being able to breathe oxygen (cycling at altitude can be very painful).

A doctor friend said I would almost certainly have failed a medical if I'd been tested for a sports event, I'd have had a haemocrit in excess of 50.

Incidentally, I believe there is some evidence that EPO can help with altitude sickness (although its not been firmly proven yet so its not a recognised treatment).

eh

Well I know from my experience that staying at altitude for 10 days and doing a fair amount of exercise (cycling and walking but not training), meant I felt I was flying when I returned back. However, the effects seemed to had worn off within 5 days max. Obviously this clearly is about as unscientific as you can get, but it was enough to convince me there was something in this altitude training lark. Maybe next time I go I'll try and do some tests before and after.

eh

Made me tempted to sample EPO

Hah, I had the same thoughts after returning as well. Although I was only at around 1600m.

Just a thought but my instinct is that people who live and race at low level but train at altitude will benefit more, than those who always live at altitude and only come down to race.

Moomin23

Or, if you're Tom Boonen, you can train out of competition coked up to the eyeballs and just cry a bit when you get caught at a later date still free to race, at any altitude!!

robthehungrymonkey

Moomin23 wrote:

Or, if you're Tom Boonen, you can train out of competition coked up to the eyeballs and just cry a bit when you get caught at a later date still free to race, at any altitude!!

I don't think that coke will help his performance though!

teagar

robthehungrymonkey wrote:

Moomin23 wrote:

Or, if you're Tom Boonen, you can train out of competition coked up to the eyeballs and just cry a bit when you get caught at a later date still free to race, at any altitude!!

I don't think that coke will help his performance though!

I've heard coke can really do wonders for performance..
















...in the sack....

georgio15

GyatsoLa wrote:

I think living at altitude does have minor long term benefits (hence all those Ethiopians and Kenyans who dominate long distance running), but they are minor.

genetics also play a MASSIVE part in that. all the ethiopians/kenyans you refer to come from within ten miles of each other and live in the same valley. its not just the altitude.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Kléber wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Altitude training has been thoroughly researched

I beg to differ here,

A quote taken out of context, then you essentially go on to say the same thing.... I didn't say it was thoroughly understood.

Kléber

Sorry Alex, didn't mean to have a go at you I just meant that studies are actually very light. I've heard the best test is being done at the moment on US troops in Afghanistan where the local altitude has its effects, medics are able to measure troop populations on the ground in the US and Germany plus those at altitude in Afghanistan and then put them through their paces. Apparently one cohort of troops are being given EPO. Results should be out in a year or two.

DaveyL

Kléber wrote:

Sorry Alex, didn't mean to have a go at you I just meant that studies are actually very light. I've heard the best test is being done at the moment on US troops in Afghanistan where the local altitude has its effects, medics are able to measure troop populations on the ground in the US and Germany plus those at altitude in Afghanistan and then put them through their paces. Apparently one cohort of troops are being given EPO. Results should be out in a year or two.

What's Afghan for "tranquilo"?

DaveyL

Kléber wrote:

Sorry Alex, didn't mean to have a go at you I just meant that studies are actually very light. I've heard the best test is being done at the moment on US troops in Afghanistan where the local altitude has its effects, medics are able to measure troop populations on the ground in the US and Germany plus those at altitude in Afghanistan and then put them through their paces. Apparently one cohort of troops are being given EPO. Results should be out in a year or two.

On a slightly more serious note, I seem to recall in the Competitor Radio interview with Michael Ashenden, he said his initial training was as an exercise physiologist and he looked at the effect of altitude on athletes, so I guess if you look up his publications you'll probably find some studies there.

incog24

I'm spending about 5weeks sleeping at 4500ish and working at 5200ish so it would be nice to believe that this would all help! Is there any standard practice for exploiting the effects when you get back? Everyone seems to be saying they taper off quickly and it would be nice to prolong it a bit...If I have an muscle mass left by that stage I guess...

robthehungrymonkey

incog24 wrote:

I'm spending about 5weeks sleeping at 4500ish and working at 5200ish so it would be nice to believe that this would all help! Is there any standard practice for exploiting the effects when you get back? Everyone seems to be saying they taper off quickly and it would be nice to prolong it a bit...If I have an muscle mass left by that stage I guess...

Maybe the best way to expolit it would be to use the time you have benefitting from the effects with some intensive training which you wouldn't normally be able to do and then that training will benefit you for longer?

I dunno, just speculating!

Kléber

incog24: you need to be riding / exercising if you can. You will gain in haematocrit - assuming you're not getting altitude sickness or even HAPE/HACE - but there's no point in ketchup-thick blood if you're lardy and lazy

Chaz.Harding

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but...

Training at altitude stimulates your red blood cell production, right? Blood doping simply adds more red blood cells. So THEORETICALLY it's the same. EPO boosts your red blood cell count too, so is the 'same' also. But WADA can test for both of these. EPO as it's a drug or stimulant (whatever the hell it is) and blood-doping, as the blood cells are slightly different.

BUT...... If you were to extract YOUR red blood cells, and store them... You body soon recovers the blood cells (24h-ish for a pint I believe), and you could train hard, then inject YOUR blood back into your system, and no-one would know, right?

Any way to test this, or not???

Kléber

bigchazrocks wrote:

BUT...... If you were to extract YOUR red blood cells, and store them... You body soon recovers the blood cells (24h-ish for a pint I believe), and you could train hard, then inject YOUR blood back into your system, and no-one would know, right?

Any way to test this, or not???

That's exactly what blood doping pros do, the first reference came from the US cycling team which employed this method in the 1984 Olympic Games. More recently some were caught in Operacion Puerto. Although if you give blood it takes hours to replace the liquid lost but weeks to replace the lost red blood cells. There is no test for this method but it's potentially risky. We were debating this yesterday on the Pro Race thread:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12629055

incog24

I'm doing a fair bit of exercise. Field work each day, and then a few 6500mish trekking peaks. I'm not planning on getting altitude sickness (I've been to altitude fine before) so hopefully I'll come back fitter and not a wreck! So when I get back should I do VO2 max type intervals? Or masses of distance?

Kléber

incog24 wrote:

I'm doing a fair bit of exercise. Field work each day, and then a few 6500mish trekking peaks. I'm not planning on getting altitude sickness (I've been to altitude fine before) so hopefully I'll come back fitter and not a wreck! So when I get back should I do VO2 max type intervals? Or masses of distance?

It depends what you want to do. Generally speaking you can avoid some of the lower end work and concentrate on more intense stuff but don't neglect base fitness. One of the trends following rampant EPO abuse in the pro peloton was the move towards more intense workouts, riders could climb an alpine pass "with their mouth closed" so the focussed instead on their abilities for the final climb or to be able to make that decisive attack. But I'd just stick to normal training suited to the type of fitness you want.

Chaz.Harding

Kléber, sorry mate, didn't realise!

Just one last question on this, then I'll drop it (promise! ).

So, unless you are 'grassed-up' by one of your team mates, manager, another team, etc, there's not really any other way to test for being doping by your own blood, other than looking at previous red-blood cell counts, and seeing a sudden boost? Which of course you could attribute to being at altitude, right? Presumably these guys just take a little blood, often, so as to minimise the peaks-and-troughs effect of 'loosing' so much blood, then suddenly boosting it back up, right?

GyatsoLa

bgchazrocks, there is a useful link here:

http://www.wada-ama.org/en/dynamic.ch2? ... ory.id=626

also, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_doping

Homologous blood doping can be found through testing (i.e. if someone elses blood is used). This is the test that caught out Tyler Hamilton in the Olympics. I don't know if anyone apart from him really knows whether it was deliberate or accidental that he got someone elses blood.

There is no test yet for autologous doping (using your own blood), but Wada are apparently confident they will have one soon. But by constant testing of athletes I'm sure they have a pretty good idea who is doing it.

I don't know if its still the accepted theory, but I know it was floated about that Floyd Hamilton's positive test for a steroid came from blood doping - that his stored blood still had traces of his out of season steroid regime.

DaveyL

I suspect you mean Floyd Landis.

That theory is nonsense - if you think about diluting the pint you transfuse into another 8 pints of blood - how much tesosterone would've had to have been in that original pint. And it in itself would've been extracted from the body's 8 pints, so how much testosterone would've had to have been in the athlete's system originally?

GyatsoLa

Yes, sorry DaveyL, I meant Landis of course.

The 'dilution level' as you put it is irrelevant - steroids are active in tiny quantities and the tests are highly sensitive. Anyway, the test does not focus on the presence of testosterone, it measures the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, not absolute levels. His ratio was 11:1 - 'normal' is 4:1.

While I agree that the theory requires a certain suspension of belief - it still seems to be the only credible explanation for a positive test in the middle of a Tour when earlier tests were negative - so far as I know steroids do not give a short term boost, they are used (misused) in training, not in competition.

Kléber

GyatsoLa wrote:

While I agree that the theory requires a certain suspension of belief - it still seems to be the only credible explanation for a positive test in the middle of a Tour when earlier tests were negative - so far as I know steroids do not give a short term boost, they are used (misused) in training, not in competition.

We'll never know. It could be someone on the team gave him some testosterone gel or patches and got the doses wrong, maybe buying a new product and not checking the label. Or Landis fell asleep with the patch on, he claimed he had some Jack Daniels after the stage, perhaps this knocked him out! Or maybe little green men injected him whilst he was asleep.

Apparently the French anti-doping agency the AFLD has a test for autologous blood doping but it is not yet approved so it can't be used to bust a rider. They are collecting data on the riders, so if they can't convict on the basis of their info, it gives them some "intelligence" on who to target and even to tip off the police.