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steroids and climbing?

Aerili · · Los Alamos, NM · Joined Mar 2007 · Points: 1,875
Brent Apgar wrote:The EPO topic is particularly laughable. If anyone actually looked into what goes into running a cycle of EPO for performance gains they'd realize how expensive and sketchy EPO use is. Just check out the drug info insert that comes in an EPO kit. The medical community will essentially only give EPO to a patient as a last ditch effort to save them.
Agreed although clearly the medical community is going to be quite conservative typically with why they administer a risky drug (they carry liability in a way that your trainer in the back room doesn't, exactly).

When I said that EPO "is good for" certain endurance athletes, I meant it is good when you are kicking butt for a while until you stroke out or get a PE. ;-)

There's no free lunch. Introducing hormones and precursors to hormones into the body which it already is making normally disrupts feedback loops and may create higher circulating levels which plug into additional cell receptors in various places that can be very undesirable and/or harmful.
kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608
superkick wrote:EPO could be useful in the deathzone. potentially ... climbing 8000m mountains without supplemental 02. prob not worth the risk.
Actually EPO is essential for any hope of climbing success at 8000 meters altitude. And at that altitude a normally-functioning human body manufactures lots and lots of extra EPO -- even without any injections from an external source.
(But low oxygen pressure is only one of the problems at high altitude, so artificially boosting EPO even higher wouldn't necessarily help overall).

EPO occurs naturally in the human body. EPO has a natural function of stimulating the body to produce more Red Blood Cells. Injecting it is only one of several ways to increase its level. Manipulating EPO levels in the body by means other than injection is pretty standard practice by serious athletes in several sports. There's lots of devices at various cost levels for doing this manipulation, fully legal to buy and sell them, generally permitted to use them in sanctioned sport competitions.

So both EPO and Red Blood Cells occur naturally in the body.
Now for the tricky part:
What causes the deadly risk of increased probability of embolisms is not the EPO itself -- it's the increased Red Blood Cells.

I mention this because athletes sometimes get confused about EPO and imagine that if they increase their Red Blood Cells "naturally" (without using injected EPO), then they've avoided the risk associated with that "nasty" blood doping stuff.
So they don't take the precautions that professional blood dopers use. Then they're surprised when they learn (e.g. after a long airline flight) that they've gotten a dangerous embolism.

Climbers at 8000 meters have a substantially increased risk of embolisms even without injecting EPO.

And they continue to be at risk for several days after they descend -- because they're still loaded with all those Red Blood Cells -- and if they don't take special precautions, they can get an embolism on the long airline flight home.

Ken
Ray Pinpillage · · West Egg · Joined Jul 2010 · Points: 180
Brian Croce · · san diego, CA · Joined Aug 2011 · Points: 60

well yes ken.. I know this. Was jsut saying EPO injections would potentially reduce acclimation times, increase vmaxes, and increase performance. vs someone who just trained normally and used naturally produced epo at their availability.

but then again why be a cheater.. if youre really into doing high altitude climbing messner is a prime example of why it isnt needed.

this isnt cycling.

IamDman · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2013 · Points: 15

the buff girl in that pic is gross! I hope the pro climbers aren't using performance enhancing drugs etc... its just plain cheating... do they ever test them?

William Domhart · · Ventucky, CA · Joined Sep 2011 · Points: 5
IamDman wrote:I hope the pro climbers aren't using performance enhancing drugs etc... its just plain cheating... do they ever test them?
What are they going to do to them if they get caught? Take their FA's away? You either bagged the 5.15 or you didn't. In regards to comps, that's a different story. Its not all about comps for pro climbers...
R. Moran · · Moab , UT · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 140
IamDman wrote:the buff girl in that pic is gross! I hope the pro climbers aren't using performance enhancing drugs etc... its just plain cheating... do they ever test them?
She is hotter than a lot of the sport climbing chicks out there. If you ain't cheating you ain't trying.
Ray Pinpillage · · West Egg · Joined Jul 2010 · Points: 180
IamDman wrote:the buff girl in that pic is gross! I hope the pro climbers aren't using performance enhancing drugs etc... its just plain cheating... do they ever test them?
Yes, Yosemite piss tests every climber that drives through the gate.
JCM · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jun 2008 · Points: 115
IamDman wrote:I hope the pro climbers aren't using performance enhancing drugs etc... its just plain cheating... do they ever test them?
Who are "they"?

Thankfully, there is not yet any governing body to rugulate climbing, and pro climbers can take whatever they like (it seems like reefer remains the most popular option, though). The only setting in which climbers do get drug tested is for the World Cups, which accounts for a pretty small portion of the world of professional climbing.
Superclimber · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 1,310
JCM wrote: Who are "they"? Thankfully, there is not yet any governing body to rugulate climbing, and pro climbers can take whatever they like (it seems like reefer remains the most popular option, though). The only setting in which climbers do get drug tested is for the World Cups, which accounts for a pretty small portion of the world of professional climbing.
I prefer performance enhancing ibuprofen.
Carl Sherven · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2007 · Points: 210
greenmonkey · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2015 · Points: 0

to talk about alex honnold.
i think someones jealous there :)
as far as i know alex made quite a bit of money between 2011-2015 and put most of it into a charitable foundation.
and hes a down to earth pretty humble person.
hes vegetarian and never had a sip of alcohol in his life.
even just thinking about steroids doesnt fit in there.
i think whoever solos in that range is a rather humble person.
hes a nature guy. being by yourself many days a year climbing,
you gotta be content with your own awareness, consciousness, bodyperception.
guys who boast with having a big house will never understand that.
its a game you play with youself. its not about fame.
false selfesteem and boasting on solos like last would kill you.
dean potter was the humblest guy ive ever met.
so was dean osman. those are simple modest folks who have a passion.
and apparently re happy without a house.
why the heck bring status symbols in this discussion ?
for me having the time to live in a van and climb all year round
would be the perfect dream and id change it for a house with tons of money
any day. and getting sponsored isnt that hard either.
you dont even have to climb ultra hard. you have to be dedicated and produce enough media.
and convince the company that people will look at it, because youre famous.
there's so many good climbers out there who dont care about media attention. what about ty landman. local french or spanish or italian alpine climbers with strong ethics.
in europe its different. strangely enough selfcentered u.s. climbing community doesnt even really now their own history apart from yosemite.
and i always hear that el cap is the worlds hardest, highest climb ?
hello ? how selfcentered and narrowminded is that.
its a very american thing to have this boasting media exposure.
and its an american thing to bring this competitive mindset of steroids into climbing.
but to be honest i even thought about it myself. there you go.
how far have we come that it is only about fast progress, about the hardest.
there is so much rock out there to have serious adventures on,
that might not be the hardest, but it feels hard because of your limits.
i think it really should be a personal quest for personal experience.
but everyones different. i dont think this compare all and everything does us all any good.
sharing information about amazing areas, beta and others as rolemodels might be very enriching.
in times of youtube ascents and this ever increasing transparence,
competitive comparison as the benchmark of selfworth undermines our personal experience i think.
as udo neumann says: back in the days without the media,
the quest for finding new areas, riddling puzzling boulders and routes was all there was to it. a very personal endeavour.

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

General Climbing
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