The Real Dope

There's an excellent piece at SI.com by Jack McCallum about steroids and ped's in the United States:

Steroids in America: The Real Dope.

I've been waiting for someone to write this sort of article for a while now.

We are a juiced nation.

We are a nation on dope.

We are a nation looking for enhancement, a way to age gracefully, perform better and longer, and, at the outer edge, vanquish what was once considered that alltime undefeated opponent known as aging. We do that by Botoxing our wrinkles, lifting our faces, reconstructing our noses, despidering our veins, tucking our tummies, augmenting our breasts and taking a little pill to make sure we're ready when, you know, the right time presents itself. We also do it by injecting human growth hormone (HGH) and testosterone, America's new golden pharmaceutical couple.

Indeed we are and have been for some time now. It's nice to see it openly acknowledged.

McCallum points out that steroids are the norm not just in sports but in many other walks of life: Hollywood, rap music, the rest of the entertainment industry, the police and military, and in our neighborhoods via gyms and anti-aging clinics.

But we are hypocrites. We denounce this or that athlete and act as though there's something thoroughly un-American about this sort of thing.

But it's not un-American. It's entirely American, that search for an edge, that effort to be all you can be, that willingness to push the envelope. That's what Andy Pettitte was doing when he took HGH. That's what Debbie Clemens was doing when she took HGH. That's what male collegiate cheerleaders are doing when they bulk up on anabolic steroids so they can lift more weight, or more female cheerleaders, according to author Kate Torgovnick in her new book, Cheer! That's what a rapper is doing when he receives a package of PEDs at his hotel. That's what Schwarzenegger was doing when he loaded himself with steroids years ago. That's what Kevin and Peggy Hart are doing in the privacy of their bedroom with their HGH and their "test," now as familiar a morning ritual as tea and toast.

Pointing out our cultural hypocrisy about steroids and other performance enhancers is not the same as condoning their use. It's simply acknowledging the reality: we are already using them. And the reality is only going to more complex as the science progresses. We can enhance our athletic performances, we can enhance our physiques, and now we can enhance our cognitive processes with drugs like Adderall and the like. These things are not going to go away. We need to be able to talk reasonably about these issues without surrendering to hysteria and nonsense.

Articles like McCallum's are a necessary first step toward that conversation.

In the news: a better way to repair a rotator cuff?

An orthopedic surgeon at Emory University has pioneered what he believes to be a more effective technique for the surgical repair of the rotator cuff:

Dr. Spero Karas, assistant professor in the Department of Orthopaedics, Emory University School of Medicine, is using a new technique for rotator cuff repair called the "double-row" arthroscopic repair. This procedure secures the tendon to the bone at two sites rather than one.

"It is much stronger than a typical 'single-row' arthroscopic repair and does a better job restoring normal rotator cuff anatomy," says Dr. Karas, who is part of the Emory Sports Medicine Center. "Recent studies also reveal that the 'double-row' repair heals in a more stable fashion, which results in better long-term outcomes.

It'll be interesting to see if this bears fruit.

In the News: Exercise slows aging

The boys in the lab are at it again. You couldn't ask for better marketing:

Physically active people have cells that look younger on a molecular level than those of couch potatoes, according to new research that offers a fundamental new clue into how exercise may help stave off aging.

The study, involving more than 2,400 British twins, found for the first time that exercise appears to slow the shriveling of the protective tips on bundles of genes inside cells, perhaps keeping frailty at bay.

So they're looking at twins and these cellular thingamajigs called telomeres. Beats me, but the bottom line is very promising:

"We're using telomere length as a marker of our rate of biological aging," Spector said.

The length of the twins' telomeres was directly related to their activity levels, the researchers found. People who did a moderate amount of exercise -- about 100 minutes a week of activity such as tennis, swimming or running -- had telomeres that on average looked like those of someone about five or six years younger than those who did the least -- about 16 minutes a week. Those who did the most -- doing about three hours a week of moderate to vigorous activity-- had telomeres that appeared to be about nine years younger than those who did the least.

So keep up the good work folks. And if you aren't training, why aren't you training? Get going, it's important.

First look: Starting Strength 2nd edition

I got home from work and the package was waiting for me. I opened it and the first thing I noticed about the 2nd edition of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore was that it is a heftier book than the first edition. Obviously there was going to be a good bit of new content in this edition. Given the quantity and quality of the content of the first edition, this is something to be excited about. The second thing I noticed is that the new edition is designed not just for coaches and trainers (as was the emphasis of the first edition), but rather is intended for anyone who wants to train with barbells. This is emphasized by the new subtitle: "Basic Barbell Training." Thus an already great book extends its reach and usefulness.

I was anxious to get reading but I had to put the book down as I was due at the gym. I figured I'd get around to it in a day or two. Later that night, at about two a.m., I stopped on my way to bed and picked it up to have a quick look at the table of contents. The next thing I knew, my knees were getting stiff from standing in the same place for thirty-five minutes utterly absorbed in the book. In that time I learned a new assistance exercise, a helpful tip for a staple of my deadlift program, a variation on an important exercise, had a mental argument with Rippetoe, decided he was probably right, and found a good way to start improving my wrist flexibility for Olympic lifts and front squats. And man did I want to go back to the gym and train right that minute. Few training manuals can give you that kind of return on investment. And I'd barely scratched the surface. I can't wait to dig deeply into this book.

You should pick it up. It's available here or here.

In the News: the riddle of muscle fatigue solved?

Why do muscles get fatigued? For a long time we thought it was due to the buildup of lactic acid. The best evidence now says that's not correct. So we still don't really know why muscles get tired. But new research suggests that it may be caused by calcium leaks:

In a report published Monday in an early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Marks says the problem is calcium flow inside muscle cells. Ordinarily, ebbs and flows of calcium in cells control muscle contractions. But when muscles grow tired, the investigators report, tiny channels in them start leaking calcium, and that weakens contractions. At the same time, the leaked calcium stimulates an enzyme that eats into muscle fibers, contributing to the muscle exhaustion.

Drugs are in the works for heart patients, but athletes shouldn't start licking their chops over this just yet:

So the day may come when there is an antifatigue drug.

That idea, “is sort of amazing,” said Dr. Steven Liggett, a heart-failure researcher at the University of Maryland. Yet, Dr. Liggett said, for athletes “we have to ask whether it would be prudent to be circumventing this mechanism.”

“Maybe this is a protective mechanism,” he said. “Maybe fatigue is saying that you are getting ready to go into a danger zone. So it is cutting you off. If you could will yourself to run as fast and as long as you could, some people would run until they keeled over and died.”

And whose problem is that exactly? If such drugs exist, athletes will find a way to use them. It's inevitable. And those athletes should be responsible for the consequences of doing so.

In the News: grueling achievement

Research suggests that proper nutrition in the first two years of life is of the utmost importance, influencing not just health but educational achievement and economic status. Eat gruel, go far in life:

In two of the Guatemalan villages, children under the age of 7 were given a gruel made of skim milk powder, sugar and vegetable protein. Children in the other two villages were given a drink that was low in energy and had no protein.

The experiment ran from 1969 to 1977. Then, in 2002-2004, researchers returned to see what had become of their young subjects. The results were unambiguous: The boys, now young men, who were given the gruel for the first two years of their life benefited substantially from improved nutrition. They earned on average wages that were nearly 50 per cent higher than boys who had not been given the supplement.
...

It was the first two years that proved critical, according to the study, which was published last month in the British medical journal, the Lancet. The adult earnings of children first given the supplement after age 3 did not show as large an increase.

"The study confirms that the first two years of life are the window of opportunity, when nutrition programs have an enormous impact on a child's development, with life-long benefits," said Reynaldo Martorell, one of the original researchers and professor of international nutrition at Emory University...

Start sharing those protein laden post-workout shakes with the little guys and watch them grow up to be not just big and strong, but smart and successful!

Review: Elite Pull Through Handle

If you don't already do pull-throughs, you should start doing them. If you already do them using a rope or some other handle, you should pick up the Elite Fitness Systems pull-through handle. If you go to a commercial gym, like my horrible horrible gym, then chances are you don't know what a pull-through is. The pull-through is a great exercise for your posterior chain. Don't know what the posterior chain is? You've got a lot of work to do pal. Jim Wendler explains its importance in this interview.

The average trainee sorely neglects the posterior chain, probably because he/she can't see it in the mirror, but it is unquestionably one of the primary keys to being truly strong and it is also of vital importance to anyone who wants to be faster. In fact, I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but we can safely say that if your posterior chain is weak, then you are not strong. Nice peak on those biceps though!

The heavy work for the posterior chain is done with variations of deadlifts, squats and good mornings but there are a number of other exercises that are excellent, like glute-ham raises and reverse hypers or sled work, but these require equipment that the average gym is not likely to have. That's why pull-throughs are so invaluable. All you need is a cable machine, or a place to affix a band. Using a cable pulley and a rope handle will get you started nicely. But the specially designed pull-through handle is an inexpensive and helpful way to improve your pull-throughs.

You notice right away that it is durable and well-constructed. It has a little weight to it and it's clearly built to withstand the abuse of a serious gym. It's also designed to allow a comfortable pronated grip which is nice. You can use it in the gym on a cable, or you can use it with a sled outdoors. Not only is it functional, cheap and well built, but it provides considerable amusement as well: the bicep curlers in my horrible horrible gym stare in utter bewilderment when I whip this baby out of the gym bag and start doing pull-throughs. I guess they're trying to figure out how it works the biceps.

You can only get one here.