Why Steroids
June 29th 2007 07:24
While the world has been focusing on the murder-suicide of Chris Benoit and his family, I noticed a little story from Europe which reminds me why performance enhancing drugs have been,are,and will be a problem.
Officials of the Giro d'Italia announced last week that they had flagged the drug test samples of several of the race's riders for being anomalous. These samples included that of the race winner, Danilo Diluca, and others who had ranked high in the race's order of finish. Flagged drug tests in professional bike racing is not news. In 1998 the Festina team was summarily removed from the Tour de France after a team car was stopped by authorities and discovered to be loaded with various banned performance aids. When the 1996 winner of that race,Bjarne Riis, recently admitted that he had used an illegal blood booster during the race it was a little embarrassing to discover that the second and third placed riders that year could not really claim an injustice, because they were guilty of drug offenses of their own.
Yet the Giro's announcement is interesting,because the flagged tests were not noted because they showed excessive levels of testosterone in the system of the riders, but amounts that are below the considered norms. That is correct. The riders were for some reason below normal limits. The cynical response to this news was to suggest that the wily riders and/or team managers have discovered a way to mask the presence of illegal externals in the system. I sincerely doubt that that is the explanation.
I suggest that overtrainining is the reason for these test results. The Giro d'Italia is a three week stage race(called a grand tour for obvious reasons) which continues for three weeks and asks riders to ride in a pelaton that now averages 30 miles an hour on flat terrain and crosses mountain after mountain. Modern riders have abandoned the old practice of riding the 3 big stage races of the summer, because the modern demands are such that no one can remain competitive while trying to complete all. The fact is that riding a grand tour is a major assault on the human body. Since the race continues whatever the condition of individual riders, it is inevitable that some put mind over matter to the detriment of the latter. That is classic overtraining. In such a situation the body's natural response is to go into a shell. Thus it catabolizes its muscles and weakens. Testosterone levels go down,as a desperate attempt to stop participating in the work that is killing it.
If you insist on driving the body to extremes it will break down, unless you intervene in your body's natural mechanism for stopping the insanity. You can do that with steroids. They will jump into the breach created by the body's natural shutdown. You will be able to go on and on, but, as I pointed out in my last post, don't stop using them unless you want a real problem.
If you are a fitness enthusiast only and not a pro athlete, you can still learn from this. You are always working on a razor's edge between work and recovery. You must practice balance. That is the key to making progress. Period. Steroids exist because the body has its wisdom. Unless you want a real disaster, you had better forget the roids and start planning your training in accordance with that wisdom. Your servant, as always.
Officials of the Giro d'Italia announced last week that they had flagged the drug test samples of several of the race's riders for being anomalous. These samples included that of the race winner, Danilo Diluca, and others who had ranked high in the race's order of finish. Flagged drug tests in professional bike racing is not news. In 1998 the Festina team was summarily removed from the Tour de France after a team car was stopped by authorities and discovered to be loaded with various banned performance aids. When the 1996 winner of that race,Bjarne Riis, recently admitted that he had used an illegal blood booster during the race it was a little embarrassing to discover that the second and third placed riders that year could not really claim an injustice, because they were guilty of drug offenses of their own.
Yet the Giro's announcement is interesting,because the flagged tests were not noted because they showed excessive levels of testosterone in the system of the riders, but amounts that are below the considered norms. That is correct. The riders were for some reason below normal limits. The cynical response to this news was to suggest that the wily riders and/or team managers have discovered a way to mask the presence of illegal externals in the system. I sincerely doubt that that is the explanation.
I suggest that overtrainining is the reason for these test results. The Giro d'Italia is a three week stage race(called a grand tour for obvious reasons) which continues for three weeks and asks riders to ride in a pelaton that now averages 30 miles an hour on flat terrain and crosses mountain after mountain. Modern riders have abandoned the old practice of riding the 3 big stage races of the summer, because the modern demands are such that no one can remain competitive while trying to complete all. The fact is that riding a grand tour is a major assault on the human body. Since the race continues whatever the condition of individual riders, it is inevitable that some put mind over matter to the detriment of the latter. That is classic overtraining. In such a situation the body's natural response is to go into a shell. Thus it catabolizes its muscles and weakens. Testosterone levels go down,as a desperate attempt to stop participating in the work that is killing it.
If you insist on driving the body to extremes it will break down, unless you intervene in your body's natural mechanism for stopping the insanity. You can do that with steroids. They will jump into the breach created by the body's natural shutdown. You will be able to go on and on, but, as I pointed out in my last post, don't stop using them unless you want a real problem.
If you are a fitness enthusiast only and not a pro athlete, you can still learn from this. You are always working on a razor's edge between work and recovery. You must practice balance. That is the key to making progress. Period. Steroids exist because the body has its wisdom. Unless you want a real disaster, you had better forget the roids and start planning your training in accordance with that wisdom. Your servant, as always.
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