Medical Question to a Doctor regarding Supplements.

Ion, you always have the most interesting posts . . . I have a thousand responses, and don't really know where to start, but . . . Some Italians have big noses. I should know (see my last name). I'm just curious about which brand of goggle Rosolino uses :) Given the reward structure of Masters swimming, isn't even a *risk* of a side effect unacceptable? Why are you so concerned about the letter of the rules, rather than the spirit? As far as I can tell, there is no (Masters) letter of the rules with regard to performance-enhancers, and you can take (otherwise legal) steroids, EPO, HGH, etc. as much as you want. The spirit of the rule is different, and whether the enhancer comes from a bottle as a pill or a bush as an herb makes little difference. Maybe you are getting old, like the rest of us. Or maybe it is not your physiology, but your psychology - If you are healthy and rested I see no reason why you should swim slower in a meet than you do in practice. Or perhaps you should practice smarter before you increase your 'enhancer uptake.' A few suggestions from what I saw during your 100 free: Work on your turns, your streamline could be a lot better. Also, you breath both going into (and this breath is not a natural part of your stroke) and out of the turn - bad, bad, bad. I saw you breath several times every arm pull, making your body role and especially twist excessively. Finally, the best swimmers that I observe recover into the water just in front of their head. You stretch your arms out and kind of lay them on the surface of the water. I think this wastes a significant part of your stroke, and is possibly damaging to your shoulder. Finally, I agree that starting to swim late in life puts you at a disadvantage, though others are in that situation also. But you can't change your history and you have to deal with the situation you are in, and there are ways to do better. More important, there are ways to enjoy yourself more. This post of yours implies that you are getting too obsessed with swimming faster. What will happen if you swim your 100 even 8 seconds faster? You still won't place, and you won't be in better shape than you are now. (and if anyone cared, they would accuse you of taking performance enhancers. ) You have asked for help several times on this forum, so I am giving you public advice.

From what you say about your workouts, your stamina is fine. Jim T. has some knowledge about supplements and athletic performance, maybe he can point you in the right direction.

I didn't mean to imply that heavy-duty, illegal anabolic steroids don't enhance performance. These seem to be particularly effective for women athletes, as the Chinese women swimmers demonstrated so effectively a few Olympics back. The reason: women produce very little natural testosterone, so it doesn't take much extra to make them into functional "men." Interestingly, there have been anecdotal reports that the East German women became men-like in more ways than one. Supposedly, the Olympic village where they stayed was rife with rumors of these women's voracious sexual appetities. But that's another story. Men, on the other hand, produce relatively large doses of testosterone naturally. To boost this over the natural amount requires relatively whopping supplemental quantities--not that some guys won't resort to this. Ben Johnson--not to mention virtually every male athlete whose neck is significantly thicker than his head--have added an otherwise impossible-to-obtain-by-exercise-alone level of (mainly) upper body musculature thanks to illegal steroids. Clearly, these drugs do "work" to bulk you up, and in some sports, perhaps even swimming, they enhance performance. My point is that the over the counter supplements hawked in muscle mags and at health food stores are NOT the same as these heavy duty, illegal drugs--though they attempt to imply they are. What many claim to be, for instance, are "precursors" for the real thing--i.e., andro is not an anabolic steroid, but rather one of the chemical building blocks that your body uses to create its own supply of anabolic steroids. Moreover, these so-called HGH enhancers are NOT actually human growth hormone per se, but rather a building block your body will convert into human growth hormone. IF you look at the biochemistry of human hormones, there are almost always complex chemical pathways where compound A naturally breaks down to compound B, and so forth, ultimately producing, say, testosterone or HGH. The marketers of these "over the counter steroids" try to say that if you take compund Y it will cause your body to produce, through a complex chain of steps, what you're hoping to actually get--i.e., testosterone or HGH. But there's no evidence this is true! There is, however, some evidence that your urine will test positive for steroids. You get none of the "benefit", in other words, while putting yourself at all of the risk of side effects and positive drug tests. All so that some baement chemist somewhere can line his pockets with your money! That is the point I was trying to make...

There's no doubt that steroids, EPO, and many other drugs, when used 'well,' aid performance. Over the counter snake oil is another matter. There are two type of abusers - those who do it as part of a larger program, such as happened in Germany and is happening in China, and those who do it on their own. The latter group is more interesting psychologically, and is the group that abusing masters swimmers belong to. I think they typically start with a sense of unfairness - "I work harder than so and so, but he is still faster. Why should he be so lucky to be (taller, stronger, grow muscles better, better endurance, started swimming earlier). Why should I be penalized by my genetics and unavoidable history, when I deserve it more?" From that, enhancers serve to make up these unfairnesses. I know when I get in the fast heat, and am the smallest person on the block (I'm not used to feeling small), I notice my own lack of genetic endowment. Steroids are particularly tricky, because what they really do is allow the body to recover from stress more quickly, allowing the athelete to train more often with higher intensity. So they allow the athlete to train even harder, providing even more 'moral justification.' As masters swimmers age and need more recovery time, the temptation is even stronger. Just remember folks, there is nothing moral or fair or deserving merit in swimming faster - it is just a race that should be fun, and all you get is a medal.

Originally posted by Philip Arcuni ... - it is just a race that should be fun, and all you get is a medal. Speaking for me Phil, what I get is an achievement in how I live. It's called: a lifestyle. To me, the greater the achievement within fair-play rules, the better. I mean by 'fair-play' rules, the FDA medically accepted diets, hence my question of this thread. To me, this achievement is similar to building a roof, then thinking or not "Job well done.". I read your two links, Jim. They speak about hazy supplements on the wild market.

While I think I will avoid the HGH stuff for fear of unintended consequences vastly outweighing shaving a second or two off an event, I do have a question about over-the-counter meds I will post. I have found I get a nice little boost from an Excedrin or a cup of coffee or two prior to a workout. Actually, the boost is somewhat addicting so I am trying to limit my intake. My wife says I am a doper, although I'm not certain Excedrin would technically make me a doper. Alternatively, if anyone has found a secret (legal) sports enhancing cocktail they take prior to working out, I would like the ingredients. Anyway, does anyone have an opinion about caffeine, aspirin, etc. in appropriate amounts before a workout? Thanks.

Ion: Keep to the high road and keep off that junk. Philip has the best advice. Work on your stroke, turns and related items. The natural HGH's God gave you are the best ones you"ll get.

Ion, Consider the possibility you are overtraining.

Ion, Your getting quite a bit of good advise here, forget about the HGH (and all the other "snake oils" out there). Personally I have only found that my diet has more impact than anything, along with lots of rest/recovery. As for "supplements", Accelerade/Endurox are the only products that I've found to be of any benefit, and mostly for cycling not swimming. Going back to Phils original reply, he nailed it. I say the same things at Nationals that Phil pointed out, basically a tremendous need for intensive stroke work. I would also suggest that Emmett nailed it as well, if your training as much as you say then with proper rest (I tapered almost four weeks on about 12,000 yds a week) you should see/feel some great swims! One last point, I've mentioned in prior posts about the "mental" aspects to training. With as much importance as you place on swimming the amount of pressure you are dealing with is probably enourmous. To put it in perspective, when I spoke with Laura Val at the meet she mentioned how much she was enjoying getting in an ocean swim the mornings before the meet! Talk about the right perspective and some incredible swimming to boot!!

Ion, I've had the opportunity to interview some of the country's leading experts on steroids and OTC supplements for various magazines. One article I wrote for Men's Health-18 is still up on the web--you can check it out at: www.mh18.com/.../0,3099,1-314,00.shtml The bottomline for the vast majority of this stuff, from andro to HGH "promoters"--is that they are snake oil that don't give you the benefits they claim (though it's conceivable that a belief that they might do so could account for some placebo effect.) The only supplement for which there is even slight evidence of efficacy is creatine, and the "benefit" here is tiny at best. For another magazine, Modern Maturity, I went on actual testosterone in the relatively new gel-delivery form. This is a medicinal drug available with a prescription only, and it can only (ethically) be prescribed for men with low levels. I took the stuff religiously for months, and it had absolutely no positive effects on my swimming performance or anything else that I could discern. Weight lifters who abuse anabolic steroids (synthetic testosterone) can significantly boost muscle mass, but only by taking so-called supraphysiological doses, i.e., way more than your body is capable of producing. As your body registers this excess testosterone, it kicks back on its own production. As one researcher told me, the Arnold Swarzeneggers of the world are often afflicted with "shrunken nuts" and teeny-bopper-esque *** buds the size of golf balls. The price of vanity! You can read my Androgel piece at www.aarp.org/.../manpower.html Finally, for GQ magazine last year, I decided to test out a battery of over the counter products. For two months, I took hundreds of pills, HGH enhancing tic tacs, protein powders, andro, etc.--at the cost of hundreds of dollars (which, thank god, the magazine reimbursed me for because it was a total waste of money). GQ does not post its articles on the web, but if you e-mail me directly, I will e-mail you a copy of that piece. The lure of "buff in a bottle" has been around forever--Aztec athletes, for instance, thought they could enhance strength by imbibing human blood. No doubt, there are researchers of the East German ilk secretly working on ergogenic drugs that will truly enhance performance for real (side effects and long term health consequences be damned.) But this is not what Masters swimming is about. This is not what sports is about. This past swimming season has been, in many regards, the finest of my life. I did at age 49 a personal lifetime best time in the 200 free, and my second of lifetime best 100 fly. These swims occurred at least a year after all the various snake oil potions and Androgel were well flushed out of my system. The reason I believe I swam so well was 1) a great coach who really helped me with technique and conditioning 2) a major increase in weekly yardage, both in quantity and quality and 3) a lack of injuries. If I had actually found a drug that could simulate these effects without have to actually DO much (besides swallow the pill), the sense of personal accomplishment would have been nonexistent.