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General Climbing Discussion

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Onsight FA of 34 / 8c+ / 5.14c 27-Dec-2007 At 9:11:02 PM tmarsh

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On 21/12/2007 devlin66 wrote:
>Most of
>the routes that Paxti is climbing have been reported as having an 'endurance'
>nature. Obviously easier to train for and as you mentioned drugs, or more
>specifically blood doping, could help tremendously with this style.

I don't know about that. Blood doping is only going to be of use in sports where your aerobic capacity is being tapped. Climbing - sport climbing that is - just isn't in the same league as sports like cycling and cross-country skiing when it comes to oxygen uptake. Oddly enough, blood doping could conceivably give you an edge in alpine climbing, although I don't know what the effect of increased haematocrit and/or blood viscosity would do at altitude.

Which is not to say that climbers don't use performance-enahncing drugs. The rumour in the 90s was that the French were systematically using steroids in small doses enabling them to train more days on and recover faster. Which might 'fit' with the sort of endurance routes that were the French benchmarks at the time.

Who knows? The phrase that 'ultimate climbs are always achieved by dubious means' springs to ming.