No, not me 😉 This is theoretical only – just wondering what medical science is capable of nowadays.

so, if doping was allowed and the budget was pretty much unlimited, how quickly could you turn your average couch potato into a seriously fit cyclist? Let’s assume that the couch potato has the necessary physical/genetic attributes that would otherwise enable him to be a top cyclist (so, say, Lance Armstrong’s long lost identical twin brother who never took up sport).

By my reckoning you could quickly get his blood content up with EPO and so on and I guess lipo could be used to reduce some excess weight but what else could be done to actually enable our subject to ride a bike really fast? Basically, can you just add fitness or what adaptions does the body undergo that you just can’t cheat on (eg the ability to burn fat)

Wasn’t there some Belgian guy who went from being obese/never having done a sport to racing in the TdF in a year or something? I forget his name (and the actual facts probably).

The LA training book goes from rides a bike once in a blue moon to amature raceing in 24 weeks (including rest weeks).

After that its just a case of small gains I guess.

Although, tht limits you in how obease you are to start with, say you had to add a week per kg to be lost before you could start ‘training’.

So, say about a year to go form Lard Arse to Lance Armstrong?

That’s without medical help though – c’mon the Colostrum thread has shown that there are people with some medical knowledge…

Dunno, but this being the internet so my expertise, or lack of, is irelavent, I guess you could halve it with steroids.

There’s an interesting web article if you can dig it out in google about someone doing one of the classic audax/sportives and seeing how much faster he could go with medical help.

IIRC he used EPO, testosterone and anabolic steroids and got perceptably faster (not pro fast, but comfortably faster than most of the field)

A friend of mine went from an over weight truck driver to a rapid road rider in 9 months – I rode the London to Paris with him an he kicked my ass!

9 months is too long – how much instant performance gains can we give our rider – eg if we EPO him, Lipo him and then charge him up with other, how fast can he be next week?

I know this is theoretical, but surely using EPO etc is pointless anyway, as he’s then doping and it’s totally pointless. Medical assistance should include lipo etc fine, but nothing on the WADA list. To be honest I think you’d struggle to do too much in less than 6 months, but of course it depends on the end goal, big jump for a 4th cat race to a Premier Calender Elite race to the Tour.

Nah, I’m really wondering where we are with medical science – forget any of the ethical issues as clearly he’d be quickly caught – are we at a point like in the films where you can make a pro athlete (usually ‘ultimate soldier’ type films) or are we still at the basics of only helping them along.

Not very, you’d still nedd the heart, lungs, blood vessels and muscle to do the job.

Even if you could do it quickly, the rider would be very injury prone as he’d be all mucles and no flexibility or the tendons/ligaments to controll/suppourt/anchor the mucles.

Right, so what are the adaptions that actually take place when you get ‘fitter’ that you can’t cheat on by just injecting them/etc in a short space of time? Increasing muscle mass takes time I can see but how much muscle do you need to grow or adapt and how long does that actually take?

You’d need a couple of months just to recover from the lipo surgery. Minimum I reckon from complete slob to world class would be a year. Even with steroids and EPO, and such.

I went from 18.5 stone of non-exercised flab to 14.5 stone of chubbyness riding a ss quite hapily with the faster guys in a local club in 18 months!
I still went to the pub and ate loads of rubbish whilst doing it – just rode as hard as i could, 3-4 hours, 3-4 times a week 😯

Did mayhem and Torq in your sleep this year ss….

A blok at the gym I go to has lost 13 stone since June ’09.
13 stone!!

TSY that’s more than me….imagine carrying around a whole extra person.

😯

I’ve studied the changes of adapatations and limitations mental and physical through exericise.

To go through the sports physiology would take ages.

Physical responses won’t take long but the technique and psychological development would take a novice to pro in about 4-6 years.

Also starting later with a lower lung capacity VO2max would be a waste of time compared to the athlete training non stop since their teen yrs and kept their lung capacity.

Sorry Clubber you won’t win the tour de France but you might win Bristol Bikefest lol

Dammit, there go the plans for next year 😉

Actually wait a minute, what if we replace the lost cell lines in Clubber’s lungs with stem cells? Make him 21 again and immortal?

The new Lance or the new Fly (Jeff Goldlum)…sign here….

If it helps, you will add vascular improvements to compensate for lung capacity loss so no reason for not trying!

Study Training and nutrition – so many riders can’t even handle the basics and you could make it work for your advantage.

Go for it!

I was fit and immortal when I was 21. And all the way up to 29. Then it kind of went downhill… 😉

Just fill him full of “whizz”,ok he’ll probably throw a seven within the hour but he’d be as fast as **** in a TT…..

Plan B:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HofoK_QQxGc

Anyone have 6 Million dollars (adjusted please) 8)

Clubber…faster, stronger and more well hung than before he is the first bionic woman pleaser! 😆

Never understood how his hair hardly moved even though he was running at 60 mph

Have a look at this site:

http://www.joaoisme.com/

“Tales of a fat man who decides that being a pro again was a good idea”

p.s. Click to the 2006 tab on the right to see the starting point, then it took three years to get to the Pro Tour with the Cervelo Test Team.

So lung capacity is dependant on how much excercise you did whilst going through your growth spurt? Which might go some way to explaining why I’ve never been as fast as I was at 17/18 (pre the discovry of beer and women).

The article that thisisnotafoon is on about was in Outside magazine, freelance journo and keen cyclist, 40-something I think, ‘tried’ various performance-enhancing drugs and then wrote about how it changed his physiology and performance. He basically went from being mid-field-ish to top field-ish in his modest race class, but there was no control involved, so some of that might have been psychological as well.

This article in fact: http://outsideonline.com/bodywork/200311/200311_drug_test_1.html

So lung capacity is dependant on how much excercise you did whilst going through your growth spurt?

Lung capacity is dependent upon your stature, you can not make your lungs bigger than the size of your rib cage.

You can however increase the diffusion of oxygen from the lung and into the blood with training.

Basically lung capacity decreases with age and peaks at 18-21yrs.

Training can maintain and reduce the amount being lost.

If you have been a couch potatoe from 18-38 you will be able to get fit but compared to someone who has kept their lung capacity as high as possible who can exchange gas at a higher rate than you then you will have to work harder to keep up or stick a pump in his spokes!

Therefore ageing sucks. My 6.5 litres is now 5.5 litres 😥
But then again I know 55 yr olds are super skinny and race fit on single speeds.

You can increase vascularity but so can younger fitter people.

Don’t forget the science journals you read about sport science are 4 yrs out of date and teams using and developing the latest ideas are top secret unless you have worked in a sports science field and top teams.

Basically lung capacity decreases with age and peaks at 18-21yrs.

No it doesn’t, the strength of your respiratory mucles declines with age, not theoverall capacity of your lungs.

Strength??? LOL!

You mean cellular properties.

After 21 there is evidence showing alveoli degeneration.

There roadies who went from 4th cat to Elite in one season. I’m sure there was an article about someone who did this in cycling weekly a couple of years ago. I can’t remember what kind of athletic history the person had though.

Some people just have innate talent even though they are overweight and untrained. These people can quickly become world class when they take up the right sport.
One famous example is the Elijah Lagat who went from overweight office worker to marathon winner in 5 years.