Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
After Tour de France winner Floyd Landis was alleged to
have taken testosterone, several physicians were widely quoted
in the media stating that taking testosterone for one day cannot
improve performance. They are wrong. After multiple Olympic
gold medal winning sprinter Marion Jones tested positive for
erythropoietin (EPO), many physicians stated that EPO doesn't
help sprinters. They are also wrong. (She was cleared because
her second sample tested negative.)
Such lack of knowledge reminds me of the early 1970s,
when the East Germans and Russians won just about every
sports event that required strength. Many American physicians
were widely quoted as saying that synthetic testosterone does
not make athletes stronger. The athletes thought that these
physicians were misguided because soon after starting to take
synthetic male hormones, they could observe spectacular
improvements in their own performances. Athletes train by
taking a hard workout that damages muscles, feeling sore on the
next day, than going easier until the soreness diminishes, and
then going hard again. As soon as an athlete starts to take
anabolic steroids, he notices that he recovers much faster than
before, so he can do more intense training which makes him a
better athlete.
Every athlete who has ever taken synthetic testosterone
knows that it helps him recover faster. So Floyd Landis was
exhausted after bonking on the previous day. Late in the race, he
ran out of fluid and fuel and tired terribly. On the next day, he
was better than any one else and won his race by more than
eight minutes.
The limiting factor in endurance races is how long it
takes to move oxygen from the bloodstream into muscles.
Anything that moves oxygen into muscles faster will make you a
better athlete in events that take longer than two minutes. Since
98 percent of the oxygen in your muscles is carried by your red
blood cells and very little is diffused in the blood fluid, anything
that increases the number of red blood cells allows the blood to
carry more oxygen and makes you a better athletes. Marion
Jones races in events that take much less than 30 seconds, a
time where oxygen deficiency is not a factor. However,
increasing her red blood cell count allows her to run faster over
longer distances in practice, which makes her stronger and faster
in short-distance races.
September 15, 2006