PEDs in climbing....drugz!

I don't mind where this topic goes, no set destination in mind other than curiosity. Can discuss AAS, ergogenic/recovery tools, lactic acid buffering agents, non-esential aminos......up to you... :)

Marijuana is a great tool for climbing but I'm guessing we all know THAT already so more interested on other supplements/compounds for this discussion (but by all means toke up before your training sesh, I do!).

Anybody else got anything?

I have never tried it because it makes me kinda crazy (thinking back to college) but I always wonder what the effects of adderall on climbing would be. I ran on it a few times in college and it made a noticeable (positive) difference.

For me I just drink coffee before the gym partly because I really just like coffee but the energy boost doesn't hurt either. There is also evidence that caffeine can help promote fat loss. Win win!

Some "interesting" discussion on the topic at Reddit. I put interesting quotes because it's a lot of speculation, much of which seems to be under false pretenses. I think there are some insights but a lot of fluff to wade through.

https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/6o5k44/steroid_use_at_top_levels_of_climbing/

https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/4vmxxg/bring_out_your_alts_peds_in_climbing_discussion/

Nootropics, the racetam family in particular.

https://www.outsideonline.com/1913031/should-rock-climbers-be-worried-about-doping

RangerJ wrote:

https://www.outsideonline.com/1913031/should-rock-climbers-be-worried-about-doping

Good article. I have to say that I think anybody competing in a federation sport should follow the rules. It sucks that people break them and get around them while others obey and are therefore put at a disadvantage, but them's the breaks.

My thread is more for the amateur athlete. I seriously do not think anybody is concerned whether I use a banned substance on my V8 boulder project FA out in the middle of the woods alone in which may not even be repeated ever ahahahaha :)

A couple more supplements...

Cardarine: promotes anaerobic endurance....as far as I know nobody as a climber has used this drug (probably though). Weightlifters are saying it gives 15-25% gains on endurance (higher rep sets) within the first week or two of use. I would be extremely interested what this does to a climber's "pump clock" when combined with a power endurance training cycle. Also promotes fatloss by freeing up fat stores and allowing the body to more easily burn fat as energy (there's a technical explanation of how the body does this available).

A stimulant that does not cause vasoconstriction (unlike the example of adderall above): fluorinate modafinil. Lasts 4-6 hours, using it does not cause much peripheral stimulation...just really clean pure energy.

RangerJ wrote:

https://www.outsideonline.com/1913031/should-rock-climbers-be-worried-about-doping

Not much serious content there.
Looks like the author didn't even bother to do a search on previous discussions on MP and some of the other climbing forums which have gone inactive.

The best performance enhancers for climbing are rest, good diet, and caffeine. Beyond that, I have no experience with any other performance enhancers, and thus cannot vouch for them. 

LSD for visualizing the send...amongst other visuals

5.samadhi wrote:

Need replication in somebody else....but at the very least I can conclude cardarine greatly improves ability to handle sustained volume as I have never made such quick gains during a PE phase in my life.

Timothy Carlson wrote:

The best performance enhancers for climbing are rest, good diet, and caffeine. Beyond that, I have no experience with any other performance enhancers, and thus cannot vouch for them. 

Agreed on rest and diet. Obviously if you are choosing to use any performance enhancing drugs those two should be on point. I'm on the fence about caffeine...in some ways I think it is an aid and in others I think it is a hindrance. But I am hopelessly addicted so espresso it is :)

But yeah it should be a given that rest and good diet should be in place. Without those in place (and a good training strategy) then all the supps in the world are not going to make up for a deficit in those areas!

Hey man I stopped it, didn't want to run it past 8 weeks, I'm very happy with it! I'll run it again in the spring. Did you get some?

It also improves your HDL/LDL ratio if you are concerned about that sort of thing :)

the saying is something like "the dosage makes the poison"

Thanks for giving me some more depth about those studies. The experience you guys had with cardarine peaked my interest, so I did a quick search and came across that. I’m more concerned about effects on the liver... were this effects only seen at that same dosage. 

Also, where are you buying this supplement? Definitely curious to experiment as PE is definitely my biggest weakness for hard sport climbing.

So, I'm pretty well versed in drug action and cell metabolism (it's what I do) - pretty much any peptide drug taken orally is going to thoroughly degrade in the stomach (you mentioned one, don't remember what it was) so anything touting itself as such is probably total placebo effect (thats why growth hormones are always given as injections). Also, with supplements like creatine and whatnot, doping your body with extra isn't actually going to do a lot - cell metabolism is almost totally dependent on expression of rate limiting enzymes, so upping the substrate isn't going to do shit without training-induced upregulation of those proteins. Lifters may claim gains from creatine but again they're mostly just getting placebo effect and thus reaping the benefits of training harder/increased expression of those proteins.

I'm of a mind though that stimulants and diamox are the real climbing PEDs, and that if you're really into the sport you're mostly interested in long lasting payoff, neither of which stims and diamox give.

My two cents

5.samadhi wrote:

OK now I need somebody to replicate this experiment. I have been taking cardarine for about 10 days now and starting to notice the endurance effects creeping into my training. Obviously in a PE training phase you make gains QUICK but I noticed something drastically new happening with an interval workout I do during PE training......typically I pick 2-3 long overhanging or roof boulder problems and do 10-20 laps on each with 30-60 second rest in between (depending on the V-difficulty of the problem). I struggle near the end of a 10 rep set and rarely achieve the 20 rep sets without achieving failure first (unless for some reason I choose an extremely easy boulder problem). This last workout I crushed the first 20 rep set (20 intervals on an 8 move 45 degree overhanging wall, so 160 moves making an intentional mind-muscle connection upon completion of each individual move in about 18 minutes). Then went on to crush another 20 rep set.....the last rep was as if I was just warming up still.

Need replication in somebody else....but at the very least I can conclude cardarine greatly improves ability to handle sustained volume as I have never made such quick gains during a PE phase in my life.

Weird that me and someone were just talking about this the other night and now it pops up in here. Going to give it a run and see how I feel about it. Good thread