RRC Archives

marathonmedic wrote:EPO, while only available by prescription, would increase hematocrit. But fatigue during climbing comes from blockage of blood flow to muscles during contractions. I'm not sure increased crit would actually help much.

increased hematocrit would make this problem worse. I've seen blood look like absolute sludge when the crit was high. EPO sounds like a really bad idea.

There's been alot of discussion on rockclimbing.com about this. General concensus from the people that know what they're talking about is that the benefits of creatine are far outweighed by by the drawbacks when it comes to climbing.

Meadows wrote:Marathonmedic: Why don't you climb more and stop schmoozing with the ladies?

I'm willing to make some changes and sacrifices to climb better but quitting schmoozing with you is NOT one of them.

I guess you'll just have to be my belay bunny.

Anything you wish, dear. And I promise I won't look at your butt, much.

Your gf probably wouldn't appreciate that.

I don't think she'd want you to get hurt if I wasn't paying attention.

Sandy wrote:I've seen blood look like absolute sludge when the crit was high. EPO sounds like a really bad idea.

Yeah, EPO has the unpleasant side effect of illegal users dropping dead from heart attacks. (When EPO first hit pro cycling a bunch of ultra fit guys in their mid twenties died from heart attacks - how strange .....) If anything, EPO might help with high altitude mountaineering, but I'd guess that the increased aerobic endurance wouldn't help with climbing much.

On the other hand, gene therapy sounds pretty damn interesting. There's a protien (I think) called "insulin-like growth factor type 1" that increases muscle growth. Researchers have been experimenting with inserting the gene that produces it into mouse DNA and seeing interesting results. They're working to package it into a harmless virus and then inject the virus into a subject where the virus can insert the gene into the subject's DNA. Check this out:

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/199 ... uscle.html

I used creatine for a little while. When I was on it I felt dehydrated all the time and my joints hurt day and night. It felt like it made me recover faster and improved overall strength, but that didnt do me a lot of good sense my elbows and shoulders hurt all the time. If you do decide to use it, use it in moderation and drink plenty of fluids.