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Latin American rowers from many countries train (or used to) at Tiquicaca Lake, in Bolivia. The highest lake in the world. Apparently intense training in a thin atmosphere made them more powerful when racing in richer atmospheres. Source: Olympic rower who is a friend.
I got a light case of CO poisoning from using a grill outdoors in a space that I guess wasn't really well ventilated. Threw up in the middle of the night (wasn't the food, everyone else was fine and so was I the very next day). I didn't feel any faster after that and it was kind of a miserable experience. I don't think I would mess around with that stuff.
Yeah, if I was gonna attempt this, it'd be N2 gas, or even CO2, but CO is stupid.
I knew immediately what had happened as I coughed in duck noises.
This sounds very stupidly dangerous. I’m amazed this is legal, and that people would do it in the first place. I get wanting to win at all costs but this is nuts.
If someone is well-informed (the key point here - but I assume professional athletes are well aware of what they're doing) and still wants to do something weird and/or dangerous to their body, without harming others in the process - who is to deny them their bodily autonomy, and on what basis?
> and that people would do it in the first place
Two words: professional sports. Those folks willingly (I hope, or that'd be insane) risk their health for money, fame, and advances of medical science. Although the entertainment industry really tries the weirdest thing that I really don't understand - trying their best to shift the focus away from the science advancement as much as possible, even though this is the only actually valuable thing in professional sports.
If it confers an advantage, even a small one, and it's allowed, everyone will be compelled to do it in order to remain competitive. That's the crazy thing about high level sports. Either it's banned or everyone does it. There is no in between.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He didn't say no skill, he said less in comparison with other professional sports.
Try riding down the side of a mountain at 50-70mph and tell me there’s less skill in that
I see the "argument" as: in sports like soccer or basketball, skills like dribbling or shooting accuracy don't have a skill "cap" and are generally uncorrelated to physiology. This is compared to the skill of descending a mountain at speed, which is dictated by how fast you can actually make yourself go, which is a matter of physiology.
It's not that strategy and skill don't exist in cycling, it's that raw power output (Watts per Kg) is ultimately the deciding factor once cyclists get to the skill cap of piloting their bike down a mountain.
So basically, could I cycle down a hill at 50-70mph? Absolutely not. But among the people who can, then the competitive advantage becomes how fast you can make yourself go down that hill.
Latin American rowers from many countries train (or used to) at Tiquicaca Lake, in Bolivia. The highest lake in the world. Apparently intense training in a thin atmosphere made them more powerful when racing in richer atmospheres. Source: Olympic rower who is a friend.
But if that's what they wanted to replicate they could use nitrogen, or carbon dioxide, or something else that isn't actively poisonous.
But anyway, that requires doing the exercise inside the controlled atmosphere. I'd guess the lure of carbon monoxide is that you can breath it, go out and exercise on a normal atmosphere. (That is, if you don't die on the first step.)
But then, if I had to guess I'd say the fact that the effects are long-term would reduce the athlete's performance. So yeah, I'd guess wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try riding down the side of a mountain at 50-70mph and tell me there’s less skill in that
For what it's worth, I don't think people are trying to say it's a zero skill sport. It's not an indictment of you or the sport. I see the "argument" as: in sports like soccer or basketball, skills like dribbling or shooting accuracy don't have a skill "cap" and are generally uncorrelated to physiology. This is compared to the skill of descending a mountain at speed, which is dictated by how fast you can actually mak…
The real advantage is how fast you can navigate dangerous mountain roads which are narrow and have many hairpin turns.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if that's what they wanted to replicate they could use nitrogen, or carbon dioxide, or something else that isn't actively poisonous.
Carbon dioxide is actively poisonous. But anyway, that requires doing the exercise inside the controlled atmosphere. I'd guess the lure of carbon monoxide is that you can breath it, go out and exercise on a normal atmosphere. (That is, if you don't die on the first step.) But then, if I had to guess I'd say the fact that the effects are long-term would reduce the athlete's performance. So yeah, I'd guess wrong.
I was just trying to point out that if they wanted to induce hypoxia, there's better gases to be inhaling.
[1] https://www.indsci.com/en/blog/carbon-monoxide-vs.-carbon-di...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth, I don't think people are trying to say it's a zero skill sport. It's not an indictment of you or the sport. I see the "argument" as: in sports like soccer or basketball, skills like dribbling or shooting accuracy don't have a skill "cap" and are generally uncorrelated to physiology. This is compared to the skill of descending a mountain at speed, which is dictated by how fast you can actually mak…
The competitive advantage is not physiological. Following your reasoning, that'd mean an F1 driver's competitive advantage is how fast they can push the pedals to get to 300kmph. The real advantage is how fast you can navigate dangerous mountain roads which are narrow and have many hairpin turns.
If you're on a bike, that competitive edge "engine" is the cyclist own physiology. Yes, how fast you can navigate the roads is part of it, but is it not the acceleration/max speed out of the hairpin turn that represents the lion's share of overall time? Rather than the fractions of seconds gained/lost in the timing of accelerations at the turn? I guess it depends on the length/ frequency of turns in the course.
Just out of curiosity, would you be defending the skill required to do cross country as vigorously as you are for cycling?
This sounds very stupidly dangerous. I’m amazed this is legal, and that people would do it in the first place. I get wanting to win at all costs but this is nuts.
> I'm amazed this is legal If someone is well-informed (the key point here - but I assume professional athletes are well aware of what they're doing) and still wants to do something weird and/or dangerous to their body, without harming others in the process - who is to deny them their bodily autonomy, and on what basis? > and that people would do it in the first place Two words: professional sports. Those folks willi…
If this is what athletes do to get to the top of the sport, then it soon becomes a pseudo requirement. If the sport regulators don’t clamp down on it then they’re basically forcing people to do something insanely risky if they want to compete.
Plenty of professional sports have banned things for simply being too dangerous even if they do give an edge.