donrhummy

The common theory on lance's huge improvement from before cancer to after cancer in the TDF is that he lost a huge amount of weight without losing power. This article (using data from the study done on Lance over 8 years) looks at whether it's the case. What's interesting about it is that, while his weight loss did help, it was not the primary reason for his improvement. Rather, it's what Terry Morse pointed out in another thread: an increase in mechanical efficiency.

https://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=3267

slowandsteady

So you mean it is like he had more red blood cells or something? How is that possible?

donrhummy

No, the tests done on him actually would not be thrown off by that. Rather, it's testing: to put out X amnt of watts, what VO2 is required? Taking more EPO would improve your VO2 Max but wouldn't change the VO2 req'd for a specific watt output.

marin1

He had the best equipment, funding, team commitment, doctors, mechanics, transportation and DRUGS!

damocles1

Spoken like a true Canadian...

Go lose 20 pounds and keep your power. You will, in fact, be a lot faster...

Ritterview

Keep in mind what Dr. Michele Ferrari was doing to improve Lance's efficiency.

marin1

I'm sure I will but I won't be so fast that I beat the best cyclists in the world by as large a margain as lance did.

bigskymacadam

watts per kilogram

rbrsddn

Lance never tested positive even once! Even if he did take EPO or anything else, he got away with it. Why couldn't the testers find anything? Whatever, the 7 he won were awesome to watch, and got me back into cycling. It would be good for American cycling if Landis is cleared.

bbattle

Lance himself said before the cancer, he didn't train as hard or as well and didn't always listen to his coaches. After the cancer, he got a new lease on life and used it

"To crush his enemies. To see them driven before him, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

marin1

Originally Posted by CrimsonKarter21Cool, I wish I was that good. Theo Bos (Olympic track cyclist) brother is an Olympic speed skater. Good drugs.

There, fixed it for you...

Faster than you think you are









Wow, I guess only you get to decide who takes drugs and who doesn't. I didn't know, my fault, so sorry. By the way I think they are all on drugs, Lance just had the best ones.

jrennie

My guess would be training and focus. If he was on drugs(seems to be the common theme) they don't make the pedals turn or keep you in the saddle for 6 hours a couple times a week. You have to want it.

ratebeer

1) Do your testosterone levels naturally drop if a testicle is removed?
2) If so, could Lance appeal to racing officials to have his missing testosterone "replaced"?

If you look at every day riders today who have insane workout loads but don't compete or definitely don't use drugs, and compare them to the Eddy Merckx and his era riders in terms of vascularity, muscle size and tonus, you'll find a lot more similarity than when comparing Lance Armstrong's physique to either. In fact, you'll see more similarity between Lance Armstrong's physique and a female body builder's.

I wouldn't say Lance *definitely* used steroids because I simply don't know, but I also can't prove Ben Johnson used steroids either. But Lance Armstrong's body doesn't look anything like Eddy Merckx,' the greatest rider ever. He's just way more muscular and way more vascular -- in a seemingly obvious very unnatural way.

To me it seems hard to deny that steroids played a major role in Lance Armstrong's destiny. Also EPO is very hard to impossible to detect.

crd15

id say lose 20 pounds biking and spend a lot of time doing squats and other leg excercises.. youll get more power

marin1

Lance was not the only one who wanted it. Drugs do not make you a world class cyclist, you have to get there yourself. They do give you the edge on others who have trained just as much as you have.

donrhummy

Read the article. Drugs are not what made him better. Sure, he could have been using them all along, but they're not what caused the huge improvement. Just read the article first.

ratebeer

This should close the case.

cooker

I reviewed that Coyle study in an earlier thread. Here's a cut and paste: Coyle had Lance come into his lab on 5 separate occasions over 7 years, for a day of testing each time. This involved a 25 minute bicycle endurance task at a steady cadence of 85 with progressively increasing resistance, to exhaustion, and measurements of heart rate, power output, oxygen intake, and post exercise lactate. Tests were done in the winter months when Lance was in training but not at his race weight of 72 kg...instead he was 76-80 kg.

Lance’s maximum oxygen usage (VO2-max) remained constant at about 6.l L/min over the 7 years, except for dropping right after his cancer treatment when he wasn’t training as hard. Despite that consistent oxygen usage, his performance on the endurance test increased by 8% over that time, showing that his muscles became more efficient, probably reflecting a change in muscle fibre composition over time.

Lance’s high VO2max is away above what it is believed most people could achieve even with intense training, so it’s partly genetic, but it isn’t as high as reported for Miguel Indurain (6.4 L/min). However if it was the same when Lance was at race weight, then Lance’s weight-adjusted O2 usage would be slightly higher than Indurain’s.

The most striking finding is that Lance can clear lactic acid out of his blood more quickly after exercise than anyone else Coyle has tested, including former team-mates who were training with Lance at the time. So maybe Lance doesn't get the same "burn" on sprints and climbs the rest of us do. (Of course, Coyle has not tested Indurain or Ullrich, etc.)

So these findings help explain Lance’s remarkable performance. However they shed no light on whether performance enhancing drugs played a role in his success. The testing didn’t involve (or at least Coyle doesn’t comment on) measures of hematocrit and since it happened in the off-season it sheds no light on whether Lance might have used EPO or some other PED closer to race dates. Also we don’t know if the improved muscle efficiency over time could be partly caused by PEDs, since Coyle says the mechanism for this phenomenon, which has been seen in other endurance athletes over years of training, is not known.

schnee

All athletes in all sports are more cut and vascularized than the athletes in Merckx's day. Complete non-issue.

austinspinner

Could Lance have been as great as Eddy? We will never know partly because of the programmes they raced. Lance concentrated on the tour almost exclusively, where as most pro's have much more robust racing programmes.

Trevor98

Didn't this exact thread occur a couple of weaks ago? Talk about Deja vu.

"the 'cancer-made-lance-stronger' argument?"

krazyderek

losing weight like lance did can help shed fat that occurs naturally IN muscles, as lance rode his bike when he was sick and losing weight (and of course after) he was helping to make his leg muscles leaner, denser and stronger but still staying the same volume. Add on that losing weight to up his watts/kg (which on it's own is a nice jolt, but also adds more confidence), and his 20 years of conditioning of being an amateur, junior, then elite athlete AND his genetic gifts... then almost kill him (cancer) to light a match under his ass to get him serious about what he wants in life....

Or the comic books are true and all that radiation made him a mutant super-cyclist with amazing pedal pushing super powers!

slowandsteady

Of course he didn't. At the time there was no standardized test that could confirm someone was dosed with EPO. And since the effects of epo last longer than the drug itself, it would be near impossible to tell if someone was dosed with it.

ratebeer

This is interesting. How would you calculate this?

Also I wonder what your thoughts are on claims that Tabata HIT can achieve a 15% increase in Vo2max in trained athletes. Does this mean that an athlete with a 5.3 L/min VO2 max can be turned into a Lance Armstrong with just two weeks of training?

How is this measured? I'm very curious about this process and how it can be trained or otherwise improved.

Exactamundo.

G60

yessir, that's what's best in life.