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Re: [RC] Live high, train low. - Jon . LindermanI'd be REAL careful about ascribing cause and effect of Lance's performance in the TDF w/hypoxic training or living. I'd make a better case for the fact that the pre-chemo Lance, who by the way had won a world championship, weighed in at 170+ pounds. The post-chemo Lance weighs in the low 150's. His entire frame was dramatically changed such that when his body did recover from chemo his already amazing cardiovascualr system was powering a human machine that was decreased in mass about 10%............drop 10% off the weight of a race car w/the sme engine and see how much faster it goes AND how much less fuel it needs to power that car. Like Tom said, humans increase in red cells at altitude, in response to high/low schemes like chambers or breathing a hypoxic gas, or simply living up high and driving down low to train, etc.........and the mechanism is EPO, the same drug we hear about human athletes get busted for. Wicklers research shows that horses are mammals and respond to hypoxic stress like every other mammal by increasing red cells. Gee big surprise a mammal is a mammal & we've known this reponse for over 50 years. Steve was really just the first to do a decent job of it w/horses and I beleive mules and demonstrate that mammals at altitude increase red cells. BUT, because dogs and horses increase their red cells quite dramatically by contracting their spleen during exercise they already have the capacity to naturally do what humans try to achive by taking EPO, living in clastrophobic chambers, moving to Boulder, CO, or good old fashioned blood doping. At some point too much is counterproductive to hemodynamics....things get sluggy. A number of strokes in young cyclists seem suspicious, and a friend of mine who I own a race horse with lost a horse we suspect due to EPO (BTW lets not assume all race people are bad & all endurance people are salt of the earth). The horse had several good lines before they bought it and a few weeks after they bought him his feet sloughed off we think due to poor blood flow from thick blood messing w/the circulation in his hooves killing the tissue. It was not pretty. Not saying altitude would do that, but horses have such a far greater blood volume reserve than humans it won't turn Pepe the backyard arab into an FEI horse. Jon K. Linderman, Ph.D., FACSM
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Assistant Professor of Health and Sport Science University of Dayton 300 College Park Dayton, OH 45469-1210 Voice:(937) 229-4207 FAX: (937) 229-4244 http://homepages.udayton.edu/~lindermj/ To: <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> From: "Gina Bass" <G1BASS@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent by: ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: 08/10/2005 08:44AM Subject: [RC] Live high, train low. With all the excitement about Lance Armstrong's 7th winning of the Tour de France (he uses an altitude simulator), and the success of Kenyan runners in sea level competition. Does anyone see a possible correlation between horses and humans when it comes to elite performance and training at simulated altitude or use of Intermittent Hypoxic Treatment, even when taking into account the horses splenic mechanism? Here is Dr Wickler of Cal Poly's paper on Hematological changes and athletic performance in horses in response to high altitude (3,800 m) comments or insights? G
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