Re: General Football Discussion
Geplaatst: wo mei 22, 2013 1:46 pm
Hey, they don't call it blood doping, and haven't banned it for providing an unnatural advantage, for nothing.
Beg your pardon? Synthetic EPO, by its very function (and as verified in clinical trials), increases red blood cells, i.e. hematocrit. That's why it's prescribed for people with anemia. Increased hematocrit leads to greater cardiovascular capacity over a period of time, i.e. endurance. That's why cyclists, race walkers, cross country skiiers, etc are always getting popped for it. Soccer is an endurance sport - players are running for 90 minutes. Anything that increases aerobic capacity is going to help those players. I advise you to read Tyler Hamilton's book for accounts of how EPO improves aerobic capacity. Or check out Michael Ashenden (like this interview here: http://nyvelocity.com/content/interview ... l-ashenden) one of the world's leading experts on blood doping. The link between EPO and increased performance is so clear that I'm amazed to hear someone say there is no link. It's completely inarguable.Orange14 schreef:That is arguable. AFAIK there have been no direct trials to assess the impact of EPO on sports performance. The data that I have seen indicates that hemoglobin concentration in the blood is increased but the direct oxygen intake and utilization has not been measured (at least in the open scientific literature). In terms of performance enhancement one can get a much bigger improvement through the use of anabolic steroids (increased muscle mass) and stimulants (increased reaction time). With respect to the latter, a lot of years ago when I was still playing competitive volleyball in college I had a bad sinus cold and was taking pseudoephedrine (then available only by prescription and this was way before diversion of large amounts for manufacturing of crystal meth). We had a match against another school that weekend and I was amazed at how my reaction time to hard driven spikes was. This was at a time when there was only drug testing at the Olympic level and this was one of the first drugs to be banned (I think a US swimmer lost his Olympic gold medal in 1972 because the US coaches didn't realize that this was a part of his asthma medication).aveslacker schreef:Of course it would have. EPO lets you run forever without needing time to recover. Any individual who uses it has an advantage over those that don't.Orange14 schreef:@Tom_ I don't think think it had any impact at all on the result of the game.
It's all a difficult thing to deal with and I would like all sports to be drug free.
That's from Jelkmanm & Lundby (doi: 10.1182/blood-2011-02-303271). I didn't look at any of the studies it discussed so it could all be balls.The performance enhancing (ergogenic) effect of recombinant human Epo (rhEpo) in aerobic sports was investigated shortly after the medicine became available. It soon became clear that subcutaneous administration of rhEpo at doses of 60 to 350 U/kg body weight and week for 4 to 6 weeks increases O2max and the time to exhaustion substantially.
I'd be interested to read more about that. Has that side of the argument made its way into the literature? If so, I'd appreciate a link to an article... sorry if we're going too far off topic here.Orange14 schreef:I've read as much of the literature on performance enhancing drugs as I've been able and the conjecture that EPO makes huge improvements in performance is still arguable.
Yeah, of course, like any biological question there are many factors involved. You can imagine that some athletes' genetics give them more natural oxygen capacity than other athletes who are on a doping regime but are not as lucky genetically. But if you consider elite runners, of course they have a physical advantage: you are looking at a biased sample, because the ones who are more likely to succeed at the sport are the ones who are naturally predisposed to doing well. For example, playing basketball doesn't make someone grow to be 6′8″, rather basketballers are often tall because that is a physical characteristic that enhances your likelihood to succeed in the sport.Orange14 schreef:If one looks at the Olympic distance races since 1968 (1500 m and up) when the east African runners first came to prominence there is no question that these runners have enjoyed a measured advantage over runners from elsewhere. Is it genetic, is it socio=cultural, is it training and living at altitude?
I guess this is a crucial point. So how would you characterize football? Repetitive, high-intensity "sprints" with short recovery periods? And you don't think increasing the maximum oxygen uptake would be useful for that? (I'm not trying to say it is).Orange14 schreef:Comparing football to cycling or distance running is one of apples to oranges. The latter two require a constant expenditure of energy and oxygen utilization for the length of the race whereas in football there are significant portions of the game with little action (and there is a 15 minute rest period as well) such that players are not running full out for 45 + 45 minutes.
Lots of red herrings here. For starters, nobody said anything about "huge" improvements. You don't need huge improvements at the top level of sport to make a difference. Incremental ones will do. And there is simply no basis for arguing that EPO doesn't increase aerobic performance. Put it this way: if it didn't make any difference, why is it banned? And why have so many top-notch athletes been found using it?Orange14 schreef:I've read as much of the literature on performance enhancing drugs as I've been able and the conjecture that EPO makes huge improvements in performance is still arguable. If one looks at the Olympic distance races since 1968 (1500 m and up) when the east African runners first came to prominence there is no question that these runners have enjoyed a measured advantage over runners from elsewhere. Is it genetic, is it socio=cultural, is it training and living at altitude? One can go on with a number of other postulates. I have never seen any evidence that runners from this region ever failed a drug test and it's certainly unlikely that they had access to EPO. From my perspective there is a causal relationship at work here but one that has not been conclusively proven. Comparing football to cycling or distance running is one of apples to oranges. The latter two require a constant expenditure of energy and oxygen utilization for the length of the race whereas in football there are significant portions of the game with little action (and there is a 15 minute rest period as well) such that players are not running full out for 45 + 45 minutes.
I know that there are now statistics on the amount of running that players do during a game (I think that the shoes have transmission chips in them that collect such data). Consider a typical Ajax match; who does the most running? Not counting the keeper, I would think that Blind, the two wingers would be the top three followed by Eriksen. The least amount of running would be the two central defenders and the holding midfielder (if it's Poulsen). van Rhijn doesn't go forward all that much so he would be in a category just above those with de Jong (when he is in the midfield) and Sigthorsson. Maybe someone can point to the statistics here and we could see. Given this the only players I could see gaining an advantage from EPO would be Blind, and the two wingers; it would be a wash with all the other players.
The reason for doping with blood or rHuEpo was evident. There was a direct relationship between Hb levels and increased performance (Ekblom, 1996). In exercising rats, increased Hb levels resulted in increased in O2 delivery to the brain and increased muscle fatty acids and glycogen with reduced accumulation of lactate (Lavoie et al., 1998). An improvement of up to 5–10% was estimated in humans (Birkeland et al., 2000; Wilber, 2002) due to increased maximum capacity to transport and utilize oxygen (VO2max), velocity at VO2max and maximal aerobic power (Kanstrup and Ekblom, 1984; Ekblom, 1996; Ashenden et al., 2001). Each of the enhancements can translate directly into a change in time-trial performance and in long-distance events (Levine and Stray-Gundersen, 1997). The benefit from increased Hb was comparable whether the increase was due to transfusion or rHuEpo administration (Buick et al., 1980; Ekblom, 1996; Birkeland et al., 2000; Lippi et al., 2006b), suggesting that the improvement was due to increased Hb and resulting increased O2-carrying capacity, not the method by which Hb levels were raised.
More important than oxygen utilization is the ability to deal with lactic acid build up in the muscles. A lot more research has been done on this than EPO, that's for sure (this was being looked at in distance runners in the 1960s IIRC by Bowerman at University of Oregon where a lot of the best US distance runners developed. I know that Counselman who was the swimming coach at Indiana (where I got my PhD and I did audit his biomechanics and sports performance classes) studied this extensively and tailored workouts to deal with it. This is why resting periods in football (and by this I mean the slowing down of players) is important and why it's different from cycling or long distance running where the stress on the muscles is much more constant and at a higher level. The problem with all the research is that we really don't know what the true percentage of enhancement is relative to the other parameters. In the days before the availability of EPO blood doping (the removal of blood a month or two before a competition and subsequent infusion just prior) was allegedly quite common in cycling. Lasse Viren who won double gold medals in the 5 & 10K runs in both the 1972 and 1976 Olympic games was always a suspect here but it was never proved. Blood doping is quite difficult to prove in any event whereas EPO use is.aveslacker schreef:
And I have to disagree with the notion that comparing soccer to cycling is apples to oranges. The point is that both of them are relatively more aerobic than, say, a 100 meter sprint. In the final of the 2010 World Cup, Xavi covered almost 15 kilometers. 15 km in 90+ minutes, regardless of whether there is a 15 minute break in between, is significantly aerobic. Perhaps the gain from EPO will be less for a soccer player than it will be for a cyclist, but it will still provide a soccer player more benefit than it would an NFL player. Over 90 minutes that adds up to being able to cover more ground.
Re: literature linking EPO and enhanced performance. I did a quick google search for "erythropoietin + performance + enhancer" and this is the first article that came up: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2439521/. From the article:
The reason for doping with blood or rHuEpo was evident. There was a direct relationship between Hb levels and increased performance (Ekblom, 1996). In exercising rats, increased Hb levels resulted in increased in O2 delivery to the brain and increased muscle fatty acids and glycogen with reduced accumulation of lactate (Lavoie et al., 1998). An improvement of up to 5–10% was estimated in humans (Birkeland et al., 2000; Wilber, 2002) due to increased maximum capacity to transport and utilize oxygen (VO2max), velocity at VO2max and maximal aerobic power (Kanstrup and Ekblom, 1984; Ekblom, 1996; Ashenden et al., 2001). Each of the enhancements can translate directly into a change in time-trial performance and in long-distance events (Levine and Stray-Gundersen, 1997). The benefit from increased Hb was comparable whether the increase was due to transfusion or rHuEpo administration (Buick et al., 1980; Ekblom, 1996; Birkeland et al., 2000; Lippi et al., 2006b), suggesting that the improvement was due to increased Hb and resulting increased O2-carrying capacity, not the method by which Hb levels were raised.
Nice to read.SPL schreef:At cricket today my pal's 16 year old son told me he has adopted Dortmund and Ajax as his teams having watched alot of them on ESPN and enjoyed the football they play. He then started talking about Eriksen knew about Fischer and then shocked me by saying how good is Lucas Andersen.!! I had to say apart from one game as a sub I have not seen enough of him . Anyway all my mates know I love Ajax but its great to know a16 year old english kid is following our club. He also said english football is ruined by money and knows our club is famous for youth and producing our own,even though the 3 mentioned are Danish.
Just thought I would share this little bit of encouraging news.I am really impressed with him!
I read that earlier today and remember it at the time as well. Great story and amazing twist on how they actually tracked the guy down for an interview - bit of poetic licence about the accents though as not that much difference between a South Midlands (eg Rushden where this chap is from) and a London accent.Manneken Pis schreef:Here's a nice story about the days when football was a simpler, and probably more fun:
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blo ... n-west-ham
ofey schreef:Back to the problem at hand
We have a midfield three of Duarte-Poulsen-DeJong.
That's NOT ideal.
I hope we sign someone in January.