steroids and climbing?

Ryan Palo wrote:yeah, im not so sure roids would help all that much. In climbing, the winner is the thinner. What would really help, especially with route climbing would be EPO. Something like a 20% boost in red blood cells. Out of morbid curiosity, I did a quick search. Looks like a treatment would set you back about 1500. Multiply that by 6 or 7 cycles and all of your world cup earning would be cannibalized.

I would agree that in Honnold's case EPO would be a better choice, not that I think he does, just saying. Also, because the UIAA or whatever group is trying to get climbing into the Olympics, at least the World Cup has to abide by WADA rules and thus the athletes are tested. Sharma was stripped of a medal several years ago in a bouldering world cup, I believe, though it was not for something that would be considered "performance enhancing".

As far as cycling goes. Apparently every year there are at east a few people in the amateur ranks busted for something. Usually it is the people that are close to "making it pro" or guys that used to be really good and as they age they want a little something to keep them where they were.

John Wilder wrote:what gain would a climber have from gaining muscle mass?

Steroids can be skillfully used to aid in recovery and not add mass. So they're not as one dimensional as many people think. A number of endurance athletes (including tiny women) have been busted for testing positive. They definitely didn't have extra muscle mass as the giveaway.

Ryan Palo wrote:What would really help, especially with route climbing would be EPO. Something like a 20% boost in red blood cells.

I disagree unless you're a mountaineer. Most technical climbing isn't limited by one's lack of ability to deliver O2 cells to the tiny muscles which fatigue the fastest. I am pretty sure your body can easily handle the O2 demand for finger and elbow flexors. EPO is really good for those athletes requiring major O2 delivery to large muscle groups involved in continuous sub-maximal exertion. Not typically the description of most route climbing.

20 kN wrote:My experience with being around people using roids is they tend to always be pissed off to all shit. One side effect to roids is increased anger. So, that is often a tall-tail sign.

And acne! (Not sure if that is a "tall tail" sign though...;-))

Probably varies with dosage and frequency of usage, but it's true that steroids plug into androgen receptors in the brain--and there are a lot of em!

Is this thread about steroids or pro climbers` pay checks?
Steroids and climbing - probably maybe likely but not prevalent. It's not sustainable long-term.
Honnold making over $100k - maybe but the guy said on Enormocast recently he couldn't afford Vail if he didn't have the hook up.

steroids: not worth the risk of being called raisinballs or grapenuts for the rest of your life.

J Q wrote:Seems like genetics are a better bet than roids in this case.

and whats funny is that these are not genes passed down from royalty, these are monkey genes. all the best climbers are closely related to apes.

frankstoneline wrote:steroids: not worth the risk of being called raisinballs or grapenuts for the rest of your life.

tell that to an NFL team

TRmasta wrote: tell that to an NFL team

only from the safety of the internetz. them boys would crush me

There was a ton of innuendo about certain personalities back in the early 90's; which often coincided with a sudden surge in ability.

Aerili, I tend to come these enduro routes running huge deficits. Most of the high end lines are just that, endurance (well actually power endurance). I find that being able to effectively manage your heart rate at rests and on route is key.

I would agree with you otherwise, but since we're talking about high end climbing and not your standard 1-2 crux adventure, I think EPO would be key.

If one were to dope in climbing, what would a climber take? It seems like most anecdotal and experimental evidence correlates climbing ability to finger strength - there doesn't seem to be much that specifically targets this capacity. Sure, you could get ferociously strong (possibly with some negative side effects like increased bulk) and be able to crank pull-ups until the cows come home, but would that strength, presumably gained from anabolic steroids, transfer proportionally to your climbing? Likewise, it would almost certainly help to take EPO, but for the sake of a sport climbing RP (and many big walls come down to sport-like crux pitches) those effects would be marginal. So I guess that sure, people could dope, but I don't know of a particularly efficient way to gain ligament strength, which would generate finger strength.

How about non-steroid supplements? Is there anything that is actually helpful? I take a whey, a multivitamin, and glucosamine. I think they probably do help my overall health and climbing ability.

I asked a couple instructors if there was anything climbers took, the answer was always 'weed' ha.

Acumen, there's a bit of truth to that. Most of the usual suspects are big fans of the cig-o-weed. Whether that's of any help is anyone's guess.

Ryan Palo wrote:Acumen, there's a bit of truth to that. Most of the usual suspects are big fans of the cig-o-weed. Whether that's of any help is anyone's guess.

I think I read a blog post where someone addressed the effects (albeit not super scientific if I remember correctly) of weed on climber friends. will try to dig it up.

The other substance that hasn't been mentioned yet is HGH. This would be very useful to a climber because of its ability to aid recovery. Faster recovery means that you can stack workouts closer together, and compress the time scale of the supercompensation cycle...and get stronger faster. HGH is used for this reason by athletes in various sports.

Additionally, the recovery-enhancing properties of HGH would be useful in any multi-day climbing endeavors. The obvious application is free routes on El Cap, where a limiting factor is the ability to recover between climbing days. This could be useful even in the single-pitch setting; faster recovery means more opportunities to have a good attempt on your project during a two-week trip. This won't exactly make a 5.11 climbing into a 5.14 climber overnight, but it would help a climber send more things in the time they have.

JCM wrote:The other substance that hasn't been mentioned yet is HGH. This would be very useful to a climber because of its ability to aid recovery. Faster recovery means that you can stack workouts closer together, and compress the time scale of the supercompensation cycle...and get stronger faster. HGH is used for this reason by athletes in various sports. Additionally, the recovery-enhancing properties of HGH would be useful in any multi-day climbing endeavors. The obvious application is free routes on El Cap, where a limiting factor is the ability to recover between climbing days. This could be useful even in the single-pitch setting; faster recovery means more opportunities to have a good attempt on your project during a two-week trip. This won't exactly make a 5.11 climbing into a 5.14 climber overnight, but it would help a climber send more things in the time they have.

That and testosterone. Blood transfusions is likely a bit too sophisticated for climbers, but items that can be injected or creams (e.g. corticosteroids) seem like more useful/convenient items.

but a high altitude climber technically cold dope their blood to perform better at altitude.

not sure why youd want to.. but in theory it would probide an advantage.

Corticosteroids are not the same as anabolic steroids. Corticosteroids are usually used for their powerful anti-imflammatory or immune suppressive effect . So maybe they would help with soreness short term, but long term there is evidence to suggest they have an ill effect on connective tissue. Besides that, long term use of corticosteroids makes you fat. Google Cushing's Syndrome. Frankly, I DON'T even think cortisone shots are a good idea for the elbow pain many of us get.

JCM wrote:The other substance that hasn't been mentioned yet is HGH. This would be very useful to a climber because of its ability to aid recovery. Faster recovery means that you can stack workouts closer together, and compress the time scale of the supercompensation cycle...and get stronger faster. HGH is used for this reason by athletes in various sports. Additionally, the recovery-enhancing properties of HGH would be useful in any multi-day climbing endeavors. The obvious application is free routes on El Cap, where a limiting factor is the ability to recover between climbing days. This could be useful even in the single-pitch setting; faster recovery means more opportunities to have a good attempt on your project during a two-week trip. This won't exactly make a 5.11 climbing into a 5.14 climber overnight, but it would help a climber send more things in the time they have.

I would still argue that poorly vascularized connective tissues like tendons probably wouldn't keep up with highly vascular muscular tissue. So I would imagine that they would still be prone to the same elbow problems as the rest of us.

superkick wrote:but a high altitude climber technically cold dope their blood to perform better at altitude. not sure why youd want to.. but in theory it would probide an advantage.

Having more Red Blood Cells improves athletic performance substantially only for categories of performance where maximum oxygen utilization is a critical performance bottleneck.

No doubt for running up steep hills, oxygen is critical. The open question is whether maximum oxygen is critical for "technical" climbing. Just because you're breathing hard after doing a sequence of moves doesn't mean you got anywhere near VO2max power output.

For performance categories where maximum oxygen utilization is critical, then the speed increase from having more Red Blood Cells is just as large (or larger) at sea level than it is at high altitude.

Also the proportionally higher risk of getting a serious embolism from having more Red Blood Cells is similar.

Low Oxygen pressure is just one convenient stimulus to get your body to build more Red Blood Cells. Once you got em, they work just fine for high-Oxygen performance also.

Ken