Realistic Wattage

In one of the threads on this forum about a year ago, somebody posted a link to an article (in Outsider magazine IIRC) by a cyclist who used his own body to research the incremental benefits of various banned substances, including steroids and EPO. IIRC, he documented the percentage boost he got from each illegal drug. I think EPO gave him the biggest boost.

Oops, it was Outside Online, not Outsider Magazine. Here it is outside.away.com200311 drug test 1.htmlOpen ↗

wiredued said:

If a rider generates 334 watts for and hour and then gets caught for doping what would the derating factor be to estimate his power if he was clean. Should 10% be taken off for example what do you think?

It would depend on the individual rider's response to the "doping" and what drugs they're using, but a pro-level rider isn't going to increase power by 10% unless it's over the long term and by using things like testosterone and Hgh to improve recovery. When races can be decided by 1 or 3% differences in power the useful difference can be small. EPO and other blood doping can make that difference.

Real world example, a pro riding/training with other pros drops some of them by 10 minutes on a one-hour climb. A month later some of those guys only lose a minute or three.

WarrenG said:

a pro-level rider isn't going to increase power by 10%

Unless, of course, they use EPO or blood doping to raise their hematocrit by ~20% (in a relative sense, e.g., from 40% to 48%).

acoggan said:

Unless, of course, they use EPO or blood doping to raise their hematocrit by ~20% (in a relative sense, e.g., from 40% to 48%).

In my discussions with Max about the effects of doping I get the impression that the effect on the riders' power is not as high as 10%. Maybe in the riders who are normally outside the top 10-20 places?

That is a great article Thanks

RapDaddyo said:

In one of the threads on this forum about a year ago, somebody posted a link to an article (in Outsider magazine IIRC) by a cyclist who used his own body to research the incremental benefits of various banned substances, including steroids and EPO. IIRC, he documented the percentage boost he got from each illegal drug. I think EPO gave him the biggest boost.

Oops, it was Outside Online, not Outsider Magazine. Here it is outside.away.com200311 drug test 1.htmlOpen ↗

wiredued said:

If a rider generates 334 watts for and hour and then gets caught for doping what would the derating factor be to estimate his power if he was clean. Should 10% be taken off for example what do you think?

This study recorded a VO2Max of 63.6 +/- 4.5 mL before rhEPO administration (so, these were trained subjects) and and 68.1 +/- 5.4 mL after. That's about 7% more oxygen; hardly chump change. Andy has mentioned elsewhere that rhEPO disproportionately increases VO2Max relative to functional threshold, though; so the influence on "hour power" would probably be less than this 7% figure.

WarrenG said:

In my discussions with Max about the effects of doping I get the impression that the effect on the riders' power is not as high as 10%. Maybe in the riders who are normally outside the top 10-20 places?

There's plenty of published scientific literature to go by, so you can consider the numbers that I gave verifiable facts. The only real issue is the amount of "headroom" you have between your normal hematocrit and the anti-doping limit of 50% (and how close to that limit you're willing to push it). For example, somebody who normally runs around with a hematocrit of 45% even when training is going to benefit less from EPO use than somebody like me whose normal hematocrit is in the upper 30's.

And no, there is no evidence that having a naturally high hematocrit is related to endurance performance ability, i.e., no selection phenomenon seems to be at play...

acoggan said:

There's plenty of published scientific literature to go by, so you can consider the numbers that I gave verifiable facts. .

So then, how about some links to verify what EPO does for decent, to good pros?

WarrenG said:

So then, how about some links to verify what EPO does for decent, to good pros?

Whether you're a pro or not isn't relevant: the increase in VO2max is typically ~50% of the increase in hematocrit/hemoglobin concentration/O2 carrying capacity, with the increase in LT tending to be slightly less than that. For example, here's a classic study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=3781999&query_hl=4&itool=pubmed_DocSum

In the baseline state, these subjects had a hematocrit of 45.6% and a VO2max of 77 mL/min/kg, whereas after the reinfusion of the 3rd unit of blood (1 unit = 450 mL), their hematocrit was up to 50.5% (+11%) and their VO2max was up to 82 mL/min/kg (+6%). Raising hematocrit via EPO administration would have the same end result.

acoggan said:

Whether you're a pro or not isn't relevant: the increase in VO2max is typically ~50% of the increase in hematocrit/hemoglobin concentration/O2 carrying capacity, with the increase in LT tending to be slightly less than that. For example, here's a classic study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=3781999&query_hl=4&itool=pubmed_DocSum

In the baseline state, these subjects had a hematocrit of 45.6% and a VO2max of 77 mL/min/kg, whereas after the reinfusion of the 3rd unit of blood (1 unit = 450 mL), their hematocrit was up to 50.5% (+11%) and their VO2max was up to 82 mL/min/kg (+6%). Raising hematocrit via EPO administration would have the same end result.

Offering up studies about the change in VO2max does not answer the question about how much the power changed for a one hour duration. Do you have any studies that address the OP's question or my comment that the change in power is probably less than 10% for a good pro?

How much do you think Levi's power would increase if he started doping? 10%?

WarrenG said:

Offering up studies about the change in VO2max does not answer the question about how much the power changed for a one hour duration. Do you have any studies that address the OP's question or my comment that the change in power is probably less than 10% for a good pro?

If you understood anything at all about the physiology of exercise, you'd realize that changes in power/performance would parallel changes in submaximal blood lactate concentrations/LT...which as I indicated previously, would be nearly as great as the change in VO2max. For example, in the classic study I cited before, exercise for 6 min at 91% of control VO2max resulted in a blood lactate concentration of 6 mmol/L (i.e., well above OBLA, and thus likely unsustainable for any significant duration), which fell to only 1.7 mmol/L (i.e., below practically any definition of LT, and thus likely sustainable for a very long period of time) after blood reinfusion. Indeed, in a parallel study the same authors observed a 35% increase in time to exhaustion at 95% of control VO2max. Others have shown that blood doping results in a significant reduction in the time required to run 5 mi. IOW, there is plenty of evidence that increasing hematocrit (via either blood doping or EPO) can* have a very large (at least from a competition perspective) effect on endurance performance, such that a 10% improvement in "hour power" is quite conceivable, provided that your hematocrit is low enough to start with.

*You will note that my original post was a conditional statement.

WarrenG said:

How much do you think Levi's power would increase if he started doping? 10%?

Since I don't know his natural hematocrit, there's no way of telling. As I said before, though, for somebody with a natural hematocrit in the upper 30's (such as myself), 10% would be easily achievable, even w/o going over the UCI hematocrit limit.

acoggan said:

If you understood anything at all about the physiology of exercise...

I guess Max isn't much of a teacher then is he?

So, do you have any specific information about the increase in power for a pro who dopes, other than the ones who have somehow got themselves to the upper levels of cycling with a natural hematocrit of below 40'ish?

acoggan said:

As I said before, though, for somebody with a natural hematocrit in the upper 30's (such as myself), 10% would be easily achievable, even w/o going over the UCI hematocrit limit.

How much did your hematocrit increase due to your use of an altitude tent? How much did your pursuit time (or power) improve as a result?

WarrenG said:

I guess Max isn't much of a teacher then is he?

There is an alternative explanation. 😉

WarrenG said:

do you have any specific information about the increase in power for a pro who dopes, other than the ones who have somehow got themselves to the upper levels of cycling with a natural hematocrit of below 40'ish?

First, what do you mean by "somehow"? As I told you before, there's no relationship between somebody's natural hematocrit and their innate endurance performance ability, and in fact the distribution of hematocrit values among elite male and female cyclists who are apparently not doping is not different from that of the normal population, e.g.:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12383076&query_hl=32&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10606218&query_hl=32&itool=pubmed_DocSum

Second, what do you mean by "specific information"? Are you asking if I've personally studied any elite cyclists who have used EPO or blood doped? The answer to that question is no...

WarrenG said:

How much did your hematocrit increase due to your use of an altitude tent?

It didn't.

WarrenG said:

How much did your pursuit time (or power) improve as a result?

Sleeping in the tent appears to increase the power that I can sustain for ~4 min by ~10 W, which translates into a ~3 s reduction in 3 km pursuit time. (OTOH, I did my fastest 3 km ever - a 3:47 at T-town - before I ever owned the tent...go figure!)

WarrenG said:

other than the ones who have somehow got themselves to the upper levels of cycling with a natural hematocrit of below 40'ish?

BTW, in my youth I was a cat. 1, won multiple district championships in a number of states, qualified for two Junior World Team trials and one Olympic Trials, yada, yada, yada. That was with a VO2max of just over 80 mL/min/kg and a hematocrit in the upper 30's...just think of what I could have accomplished if I'd been willing to blood dope! 😉

acoggan said:

BTW, in my youth I was a cat. 1, won multiple district championships in a number of states, qualified for two Junior World Team trials and one Olympic Trials, yada, yada, yada. That was with a VO2max of just over 80 mL/min/kg and a hematocrit in the upper 30's...just think of what I could have accomplished if I'd been willing to blood dope! 😉

Andy, did you ever ride with John Allis (from Boston)? He would been in the twilight of his great career when you were at your peak, but you may have seen him at Nationals or the World or Olympic trials. John was my original mentor and training buddy. Incredible aerobic motor.

RapDaddyo said:

Andy, did you ever ride with John Allis (from Boston)? He would been in the twilight of his great career when you were at your peak, but you may have seen him at Nationals or the World or Olympic trials. John was my original mentor and training buddy. Incredible aerobic motor.

I was still a Junior when he was tearing it up, so no, I never rode with him or raced against him, but yes, I did see him race.

OTOH, I, along with many others, had the pleasure (?) of racing against Greg Lemond, who is a few years younger than I am...

BTW, just to sort of take this thread off in another direction: there are mechanisms by which use of EPO (or blood doping) might increase VO2max, and hence performance ability, even in the absence of (or in addition to) a sustained increase in hematocrit. IOW, use of EPO (or blood doping) as a "training aid" might result in your VO2max being higher even after your hematocrit has returned to normal. Consider, for example, the results of the following studies:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=7380690&query_hl=9&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1758289&query_hl=42&itool=pubmed_docsum

(Yes, the latter study is the one I intended to cite.)
Just some food for thought...