My experince with drugs and blood doping - Page 2

The fact that Armstrong went out of his way to see Fararri on at least 10 occasions and for days at a time is proof enough for me.......Fararri only knows doping and how to beat tests....he doesn't know anything else that isn't also know by every rider, physiologist and trainer out there.

Armstrong was caught with a corticosteroid in his system. This stuff is one of the better drugs available for doping, besides epo, steroids and testosterone.

Ask yourself this bro...why the H did Armstrong go out of his way to see Ferarri, doping guru that he is.....he is an American cyclist that lives in the states and in Spain and not Italty.

Maybe I understood it wrong but Armstrongs visits to Ferrari, Armstrongs positive test (You have to be very stupid to use any cortisone cream as chamois cream because cortisone weakens the skin) and former team mates claims are pretty good proof for me. You are a doper for many people for even smaller issues than what Lance has had.

After 1998 only small things changed and testing etc. has increased only during last couple of years (after 2002) and there's still very long way to go.

I don't like either Lemond or Armstrong because they are "only-tour-riders" and the trend they are creating is terrifying because it is killing other races and transforming cycling more July-boring racing-slow suffering-nothing happening oriented.

__________________
Pain is just weakness leaving the body.

TiMan,

Thanks very much for your post.

I was suspicious when I read your opening post.
I thought: 'hmmm...this sounds too clean cut and easy an argument '.
It sounds to me as if you are making a case against Armstrong by using your own testimony that, as you know, no one can deny.

However, I myself have often wondered about Armstrong . for years after he came back from cancer I was 100% convinced that he was on something. I mean, all the evidence, as you point out, alludes to it. Then I saw him interviewed on the TV for a documentary and I began to have doubts. My impression, and I'm normally very good at detecting liers, is that either he is clean or a very very good lier.

As yet I am undecided, but I think that it would be totally impossible to do what he did, without some kind of help, whatever that may mean.


As an aside, let's say he was using EPO or blood doping. The crit limit is 50% (correct me if I'm wrong on that). Now, in all the pre-Tour tests, I'm sure Armstrong's crit wasn't head and shoulders above everyone else s, so how do we explain his dominance? It can't just be his crit level?

There is more to it than a high hematocrit bro....there are many other drugs. AND.....everyone responds differently to drugs bro and to different crit levels.

ie: if Armstrongs natural crit is 40% and he boosts it to 50% he will experience more power increase than a man that has a natural crit of 45% that also goes up to 50%.

Originally Posted by 3_days
Timan: Why'd you stop using/infusing? And after you quit, how far off did your training regimen fall?





I quit because I didn't like myself for doping.....I always wondered about the guys in the back of the pack....if they doped would they be kicking my ass.

I only fully doped for one season in an attempt to get a pro contract....it never happened so I decided to stop. I did blood dope with my own blood prior to that season though.

As I mentioned.... on the epo my sustainable power output went from 350 to 420 in three months and it peaked at around 440 watts....in other words I could do a 40 K tt at near 440 watts!!!

When I stopped my crit went down slowly over the weeks to my normal, which is about 43%. After stopping the testosterone it took about a month before my natural test levels returned to my normal, and a typical normal of 550nd/dl. I took clomid, an estrogen blocker, after stopping the testosterone, and this helped "kick start" the testes. I learned this form a bodybuilder. So my testosterone levels rebounded pretty quickly. But I did feel a little fatigued and my sex drive wasn't good for a few weeks while I waited for my natural testosterone level to return. I felt crappy on the bike at this time.

I was able to keep some of the power gain that I got from the epo and testosterone. I slowly dropped down to a sustainable power output close to 400 watts, which I then held with proper lactate threshold work on the bike. So the drug use did have some lasting effects on my body.

The testosterone allowed me to recover from repeated HARD workouts....four a week on a steady long term basis.

Some guys that do only testosterone or a steroid like Equipoise(EQ) see an increase in their hematocrit up to 50% or so but it takes a long time and this gain isn't seen in all men using these drugs. EPO works fast and in all men and you can take your crit WAY UP ...like Riis did for his tour win (almost 60%) a-la his name "Mr. 60%".

But as I said epo use is tricky and done wihtout strict monitoring it can kill you. NEVER ever go above 54-55% and 52 would be best. Check your crit weekly, drink all the time, never ever get even slightly dehydrated on the bike, never squat down for long, never cross your legs while sitting and take an aspirin a day to help prevent blood cell clumping.
I have to yell this bro's NEVER USE EPO UNLESS YOU CAN TEST YOUR HEMATOCRIT WEEKLY AT LEAST.....and twice a week is better. Portable testers can be bought for $300 US.

BY THE WAY.....in my opinion their is nothing differnet between using an altilude tent to get your crit up to 48-50% and using epo to do the same thing. BOTH methods offer an unfair advantage. Not everyone can afford an altitude tent...so it's unfair.
ALSO, altitude tents have MORE side effects than epo use so long as you don't push your crit too high with the epo use. Alitude tents make you feel tired all the time as you are sleeping in a hypoxic environment mimicing 12,000 plus feet in order to push your crit high enough to do anything.

Also, I don't think most men can get their crits up to even 50% with an altitude tent. Most men have a crit of about 41-44% and they would be lucky to get to 47-48% with a tent.

But lets get this straight it's not a level-playing field, right?........yet what do you say they all dope only some riders use better products and react better to certain products then others........Does that mean they are more guilty? Is LA more guilty then other riders? (don't really see the logic of only bashing LA then......oke he won it 7 times, but will you say the same when basso will win it now the next 4/5 years!!)

Ya it's not a level playing field as everyones body responds differently to drugs.....and yes some have better drugs.

As far as the Armstrong thing goes....I guess you are right... but he is bashed a lot because he is not as personable as a guy like Lemond or Basso.....it makes most of us mad that he was able to win seven tours and beat the tests, save for the corticosteroid one.

So. we are saying that all (or most) riders dope, yet some, for whatever reason, respond better to the stuff than other riders and that's just their good fortune. Now, are we saying that Armstrong responds better than the rest and that's why he's 'the best' or is it that he's on some new stuff that Ferrari got hold of ?

Back in the day it was common knowledge (in France at least) that all riders dope. Even the general public knew. And what's more they accepted that, since they knew it was impossible to ride events like the Tour de France and the Giro without help. It was physically impossible to race those events at those speeds without pharmaceutical help. The riders and the public knew and it was accepted to be normal so that the show of pro cycling could go on. People knew that Maertens would be the best sprinter and Kelly the best classics rider without dope,but that they all had to use it to keep the playing field level.

Now my question is that tacit assumption correct? i.e. that with them all doping (with the exception of Lemond, who for some reason I believe when he says he was clean) is the playing filed level. i.e. if everyone was clean, would Armstrong still be the best Tour rider of his day?

NO I do not believe Armstrong woud be beating everyone.....if everyone was clean. Before his cancer he was a fairly good classics rider but a terrible tour rider.
He was basically a quarter horse...then all of a sudden he is a throughbred....what the hell.

Then he comes back from cancer and something has REALLY CHANGED.....now he is killing everyone in the tour. Ya he lost weight, but only about 10 pounds for the start of the tour(168 down to 158). This is not going to make the huge difference.
So we see him going from getting killed in tours to killing everyone and doing so almost over night.

Now ALL the great tour winners except him did well in the tours, even in their first attempts...but not Armstrong.

From the age of 20 to 26 Armstrong was not even considered a minor threat in tours. What the hell happened...did he all of a sudden start training better??>>>NOT....oh then it must be the weight loss>>>NOT. It was his sustainable power output that changed and all of a sudden it was through the roof.



As a side here is a thought....

I would bet my house that Armstrong is allowed to take testosterone injections because now he has only one testes(after cancer) and the one that is there might not be that great...so he can tweek his testosterone level to the high normal range, which very few men actually have(1000ng/dl)....most men have about half that.

First of all, don't claim to know that Armstrong doped simply because you did and your buddies did. Bottom line is, Armstrong has been tested thousands of times and has never tested positive for anything. He was the number one most tested pro cyclist in the world and was under constant scrutiny and doping has never been proven for him...this while countless racers around him tested positive for all kinds of things. Even with so many other pros testing positive, Armstrong's performance still shined through, so even if he did dope, it only shows that he was still better overall than most of the other pros out there. As for his late entry into good tour performances, some people are just late bloomers.
You also say that losing 10 pounds doesn't make that much of a difference in the tour?? You are crazy. 10 pounds makes a huge difference in the mountains my friend, especially when most of the weight loss occurs in your upper body, as it did with Armstrong, and if you are the experienced racer you claim to be, you should know this.
You sound like the typical conspiracy theorist...we never landed on the moon, there are aliens in area 51, Kennedy was not simply shot by Oswald, etc. The simplest explanation is that Armstrong has incredible genetics, he has the perfect racer's mentality, much of which resulted from what he went through with cancer, he is very intelligent with tactics, he was lucky enough to discover and contour a training program that matched and improved his abilities perfectly for the tour, and he trained ONLY for the tour, which most other pros do not. He also did more research and improvements regarding equipment, body positioning, pedal stroke, etc. than any other team out there. He did extensive wind tunnel testing, power testing, weight reductions across the board, and even experimented with and designed dimpled wind-slicing uniforms. The guy has always been a few steps ahead of everyone else when it comes to this stuff. It is this attention to detail that made him the best. It is much more practical to believe that all of these little variables were improved upon by him, and that they all added up to one huge improvement in the form of performance than it is to believe that he doped for years but somehow eluded detection. Oh, and look at the countless wrecks he has either avoided or come out unscathed in the tour alone while other top riders have gone down right and left! Are you going to tell me that doping was the reason for his excellent bike handling skills?? Bring together all of this attention to detail, great genetics, his intelligence, his handling skills, his passion, his history, and his commitment to training right for only one important race of the year, and it makes sense. I have recently begun to try and follow his example which is don't focus on improving one thing, focus on improving everything, no matter how small, and it will add up...I have seen drastic improvements in my performance. Furthermore I have a cousin who is a Cat1 and a soon to be cousin-in-law who raced in the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and also raced in the world RR last year. Both have had outstanding performances in their "careers" and I know for a fact the neither doped.
I don't know what your history is, but maybe you just couldn't hack it as a pro without doping...doesn't mean others can't.

there are multiple types of conspiracy, those for and those against. How do you know that the above is true?

Surely you yourself are just another conspiracy theorist, just with your opinion alligned with the opersite side to the original poster. i.e the conspiracy to make out that lance trains harder does more research, tries harder etc than any other cyclist. All created by the Armstrong PR machine


just a thought

Armstong has good skills and is talented for sure.

Armstrong has been caught ....he had a corticostroid in his body bro......and you and many others bought the coverup story. Riders do not use corticosteroid based creams because as Flyer said it thins the skin, we all know that, and "they" know exactly what is in every single "medicine" bro....do you really think they missed reading that a CORTICOSTEROID! was in a product Lance was using!!!




Dr. Ferarri was/is a master at "beating the tests" bro. Riders go to him for doping advice plain and simple bro....that ALL they go to him for...not a damn thing else.

You are a young man I think......Armstrong has no training secrets nor does his coach Carmichael. No new scientific training or wind tunnel tesing, bike positioning, pedal stroke etc etc etc advantages at all. All has been done before...nothing new. As far as REAL training goes all exercise physiologists have done in the last 25 years is to CONFIRM what was already know and done years ago. In fact the guy Carmichael has copied is Cyrille Guimard, the coach of Benard Hinualt, Lemond, fignon etc....he did all this stuff 25 years ago at least. Trianing in cycling has also been the same for at least 25 years...... periodization, block training etc etc nothing new under the sun here.

10 pounds does make a difference in the mountains, of course it does,but it doesn't transform you from a poor tour rider to the best......but Armstrong's camp has convinced the public and riders that have no high level experience that this is the main reason he came back from cancer to win the tour. What a joke that it.
Bro Armstrongs sustainable power went from the low 400's at a time when he should have had PEAK power or very close to it , age 25, to about 500 watts in two years and after being VERY weak with cancer for a long time....that's the reason he won the tours.....HUGE sustainable power increases! What happens after age 25 to make a rider great is not so much physiological bro, although your lactate threshold will climb.....it's "paying your dues" on a team, and experience.



How do you know your brother-in-law hasn't doped...really? Just because he said so or because he appears to be clean....truth of the mater is you don't know.
I know Armstrong has doped because he has been CAUGHT! Corticosteroid work very well bro.

So are you saying that the UCI would actually sanction Armstrong taking shots of testosterone simply becasue he only has one testicle?

If his free testosterone level is lowish ie: below about 350ng/dl, then ABSOLUTELY YES. His natural testosterone levels may indeed be low as he only has one testes and the other one was also affected by the cancer.

This would mean that he could take shots under the direction of a doctor and then tweek his level up to the upper limits of normal, which as I said is about 1000ng/dl, which almost nobody has and especially not a hard training cyclist.
Most ahtletes see a drop in testosterone level with hard training and ALL see a drop when racing a lot. SO Armstrong would NEVER be even mid average if he took injections. His ability to train hard and recover quickly for another session would be great....a real advantage.

.....interesting stuff.
Incidently, what made you decide to post here and at this time?