TRIATHLON AND BIOLOGICAL PASSPORT III

Here we go again.  I thought this was over, but let´s go back to the subject now that Jonathan Tiernan-Locke was “caught” with the “Biological Passport violation.”  He was stopped from racing when he was losing; he was not finishing the races.  We are going to give you history regarding this cyclist and regarding what happened when you do not train well.  First we have what happened as incident:

http://www.espn.co.uk/cycling/sport/story/267073.html

In September, Tiernan-Locke had been asked by the sport's governing body to provide an explanation for irregularities in his biological passport, which are believed to date from late 2012 when he was racing for Endura, having agreed to join Team Sky for the following year.

A statement from the UCI read: "The analysis of the biological passport of Mr Jonathan Tiernan-Locke by the Experts Panel has demonstrated an anti-doping rule violation (use of prohibited substances and/or methods).

"Consequently and in compliance with the UCI anti-doping rules, the UCI has requested his National Federation to initiate disciplinary proceedings."

Andrew McQuaid, Tiernan-Locke's manager, released a statement on behalf of his rider, which read: "Jonathan Tiernan Locke was notified that the UCI wish to instruct British Cycling to instigate proceedings against him regarding an abnormality in his biological passport.

"Mr Tiernan Locke vehemently denies the charges brought against him and has informed the UCI that he fully intends to contest them. [He] is looking forward to a speedy and just resolution of these unfortunate charges."

In a separate statement, Team Sky confirmed that Tiernan-Locke would not ride or be involved in any team activities until a decision is made by doping authorities, and acknowledged that the abnormal readings pre-date his involvement with the team.

"We have been informed that he intends to defend himself against that charge," read the statement.

"There are no doubts about his approach or performance in Team Sky. This is a team that trains, races and wins clean."

I know what kind of EXPERT PANEL these International Unions have; panel made of friends except real experts.  It is dangerous to take decisions based on what they say.  We are falling into the Inquisition times if we continue this way.  I do not defend anyone regarding doping even less now that we know about doping in cycling, chances are that the 100% doping that it said that existed in the late 90´s is decreased; but not to zero, now it is closed to the latest percentage.

On our previous writings (posts), we said:

27 oct. 2013

BIOLOGICAL PASSPORT PART III  

I tackled a theme not too long ago: The Biological Passport.  It is necessary to speak clearly about it because bureaucrats want to be important like some of the referees in a Football game.  The biological passport is just a parameter to consider when evaluating doping in somebody.  Please see our post when the case of Mark Fretta came to light:

21 nov. 2012

BIOLOGICAL PASSPORT AND TRIATHLON

As we can see in the Hematopathology / Automated Blood Cell Counts Am J Clin Pathol 2008;130:104-116

http://171.67.112.51/content/130/1/104.full.pdf

It is also desirable that, as with the high standardization for basic CBC parameters, a continued effort be made for the parameters (ie, RDW, IRF, MCVr, and MPV) for which results provided are still too different when produced by different analyzers. To reach these goals, cooperation between long-standing (ie, International Council for Standardization in   Haematology and the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards, now the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute) and recent (International Society of Laboratory Hematology) organizations interested in hematologic standardization and the manufacturers is fundamental. It should be remembered that despite the essential role of automation in the modern hematology laboratory, microscopic control of pathologic samples remains indispensable, so much so that in certain cases, it alone is diagnostic.134 Moreover, knowledge of the limits of the specific analyzer in use is of paramount importance for the correct interpretation of results. These considerations require that clinical laboratories performing hematologic diagnostics have personnel with specific training and profound knowledge in laboratory hematology.

We have to find the substance to make a case; otherwise, we are not beyond a reasonable doubt.  There is a criterion in the law that says: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

The standard that must be met by the prosecution's evidence in a criminal prosecution: that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts except that the defendant committed the crime, thereby overcoming the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty.

http://jap.physiology.org/content/99/5/1745.full

Errors of measurement for blood volume parameters: a meta-analysis

Christopher J. Gore, Will G. Hopkins, Caroline M. Burger

Continuing with Jonathan, before the doping scandal, when he was not finishing the races:

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/15326/Jonathan-Tiernan-Locke-feature-Returning-to-an-old-approach-in-order-to-get-back-to-top-form.aspx

After a long break from racing, Jonathan Tiernan Locke returned to competition on Sunday in the Vattenfalls Cyclassics, the first step in what he hopes will be a successful attempt to turn around a difficult season… “It has been a bit more complicated, in terms of stepping up to the WorldTour. It’s been an issue with handling the training load, more than anything," he told VeloNation recently.

“Last year I had pretty much only myself to worry about and when we got to races, if it was a hilly race, I would get a free rein. This year I have been riding for guys of the calibre of Richie Porte and Chris Froome. So it has also been about learning, but also about trying to adapt to the different training and having a programme set out for me. In the past, I always just looked after my own training and came up my own plan.”  Essentially, he’s gone from riding on feel to this year training to a structured programme. It’s something that hasn’t worked out as hoped. “Before, if I was tired, I would just take the day off. So that has been different.”

The team’s training works well for other riders and so it’s relevant to determine why Tiernan Locke is different. Does he believe his physiology needs an alternative approach to some of the other riders, or is it the case that the step up to the WorldTour is what has posed the problem?

“I believe it is the former, to be honest,” he answered. “I got to mid-July and I was just knackered. I saw my performances going down and down…I was getting progressively more fatigued… Whereas myself, I find if I train too much it comes back at me. I have done it in the past, training myself and looking for a bit more…you always think, ‘I am going well now, so if I keep pushing and pushing I should build up,’ but I don’t respond well to that. Past a certain point, I seem to just go downhill and need to rest to come out of it.”

It is obvious that he was not made yet for this kind of training regime:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/jonathan-tiernan-locke-illness-doping-rumours-and-his-road-to-the-top

After a desperate month he returned to the UK, giving up the sport entirely. He became a rider lost: dropped from the sphere of competitive racing, an athlete unable to cut it at the top, and who despite all their promise, one who failed to make it in the big leagues.

“I turned my back on the sport. I went to university and thought about another career. I put on two stone, drank, partied and didn’t touch my bike. Keeping active for me was walking home from the pub totally pissed.”

For three years Locke didn’t even look at a bike. Then, in 2008, towards the end of his studies a friend offered him a part time position in a local bike shop. The majority of his university funds had financed his rampant partying, and so the proposition of cash and paying back student fees was too much to turn down.

His stint at the bike shop coincided with the Tour de France and each day the shop would show the day’s action on television. Both colleagues and customers would stand around and watch as the action played out each day and cries of ‘great stage’, ‘what an attack’ would flow as they dissipated from the television screen and back to their regular business.

Training changes the biology of our body if we are not used to hard work, huge training volumes, and order in our routines for recovery and nutrition as pointed out in the following article.  Real anemia and other hematological changes are seen rapidly in these subjects.  He was winning in 2012 and things changed drastically in 2013 when training with Team Sky.  We have seen it in some of our athletes:

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-89132007000100006

Oxidative stress during rehabilitation from protein malnutrition associated with aerobic exercise in rats

It has also been suggested that kwashiorkor, a severe form of protein malnutrition, may itself be a product of the radical initiated tissue damage in the malnourished child (Golden and Ramdath, 1987; Manary et al., 2000). The present study was designed to evaluate biomarkers of oxidative stress, nutritional status and muscle metabolism in rats submitted or not to exercise during a month recovery from protein malnutrition.

Triathlon and New Research

Much of what we do as coaches do not have a numeric research.  Most of the coaches’ practice is empirical, meaning that we depend on how accurate the coach reflects and how clearly the coach thinks.  It all depends on coaches’ education to see and to think, which in other terms means we depend on coaches’ experience.

I have heard more noise about research than research in itself.  Numeric research is coming to us but who does research is not too familiar with the practice of the sport.  Let’s take the case of swimming; we have spoken about swimming like an airplane

14 janv. 2013

SWIMMING IN TRIATHLON II

It is refreshing to know that numerical research is behind 15 years and not further behind.

http://koreaswimming.co.kr/pds/Garrett-swimming.pdf

Emphasis on technique started when coaches and athletes decreased training from 30k a day that the elite swimmer used to do, to 15 a day.  We cut it in half the time training per day; but athletes needed to be smarter, better educated and clever to stick with the technique program.  I will emphasize technique using the principle of the airplane.  Do we have anything faster and better in the earth for moving than the airplane?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_%28force%29

 

Drag

Figure 6 Movement through water is resisted by the water immediately in front and around the hydrofoil. This water resistance is called drag. Drag force always acts in the direction of flow. Due to its shape the water speed above the hydrofoil is greater than below. The pressure above the hydrofoil is less than below, resulting in a net upward force called lift. By definition, lift acts perpendicular to drag. The nature of the lift force is similar to that experienced by an aircraft wing.

Interestingly, 15 years back, Glenn Mills spoke of swimming with the “body,” instead of swimming with the arms and hands.  This is huge difference.  See the explanation of Counsilman (coach and researcher with numbers).  The nature of the lift force is similar to that experienced by an aircraft wing. As Counsilman (56) explained: "A wing provides aerodynamic lift through the camber (curvature) of its surfaces. Because the upper surface is more highly cambered than the lower surface, the air moving over the top surface is forced to move more quickly. This results in a lower pressure on the upper surface as compared with the lower surface and results in aerodynamic lift (Bernoulli's Principle)". (p. 61) Thus the pressure differential results in a lift force directed at right angles to the line of motion of the propelling surface (see Figure 6 and 7). 

 

It is clear to me that the plane is the entire body and by changing the shape, (technique and position) of the body we can get the effect of the lift force.  By using the lungs as buoys to keep the weight in front of the subject (swimming downhill), the lift force IS WHAT MAKES THE SUBJECT MOVE FORWARD, it is just like the plane.

Where are the hands in this equation?  The hands are used to keep the weight in front as a support to keep the body moving forward.  This is what is called swimming with the core.  Unfortunately, the direction of research took a different turn:  Subsequently, numerous papers were published (57-63) to support the notion that the total propelling force acting on the hands is composed of both a lift and drag component.

They did not notice that the core was the part of the body doing the lift force.  Researchers saw just the hands because they did not how swim!  That is problem with research done by somebody not familiar with swimming or the sport they research.

In the web I have seen videos of the research done at Johns Hopkins:

 

They “discovered” the same things said by Glenn Mills in the video above; but the research done at Johns Hopkins is making a lot of noise because it is a numerical research.  The only “researcher” that counts for this research is Counsilman.  This kind of behavior was mentioned by the Nobel Prize winner of Medicine (2013):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/10507434/Nobel-prize-winner-accuses-scientific-journals-of-tyranny.html

Nobel prize winner accuses scientific journals of 'tyranny'

A winner of the Nobel prize said he is boycotting top scientific journals as they create enormous pressure for young researchers who feel they need to get published in one of just three journals

Randy Schekman was awarded the Nobel prize in physiology and medicine Photo: Reuters

By Claire Carter

8:12AM GMT 10 Dec 2013

7 Comments

A Nobel prize winner is boycotting academic journals because he believes they are distorting the scientific process and encouraging researchers to cut corners.

Randy Schekman, a US biologist, said top scientific journals represent a “tyranny” as they create an artificial pressure on young scientists who feel they have to be published by one of the three main journals - Nature, Cell and Science.

Schekman, who has been awarded the Nobel prize in physiology and medicine, said journals were encouraging researchers to pursue fashionable science and topics that would attract attention.

He also said some researchers were being enticed to write what editors of the journals want because of the high price some institutions will pay writers as a bonus. The Chinese Academy of Sciences can pay researchers a bonus for publishing in some journals, which can reach £18,000.

Schekman, who will receive the award in Stockholm today, said he would no longer be sending articles to Nature, Cell and Science journals.

We have the same problem for tapering research.  The meaning of tapering has changed over the course of the years; it is more like a better preparation to improve performance:

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/magness-salazar-taper-new-wrinkle

Here’s the Salazar piece. His runners, Mo Farah and Galen Rupp, finished 1-2 in the Olympic 10,000 in London. Several days before the race, one of their training partners, Dathan Ritzenhein (who finished 13th in the hotly contested 10,000) told me that Mo and Galen had done some mind-boggling speed sessions. After the race, in the mixed zone, Salazar said that Galen had run an 11-second 100-meter the previous day. The previous day!!??

So Salazar seems to be using small amounts of serious speed in the days before big races. Magness is using hard surfaces. He theorizes that running on slow, soft surfaces (like grass) will tune your legs to feel slow and heavy. Many runners I know (like me) taper on soft surfaces in the belief that it will rid them of all their aches and pains. Magness seems to be saying: Don't worry about the little aches and pains. Get your legs (and brain) ready to run fast on race day. You'll have recovery time post-race.

So that's what I'm doing before the RW Half. Taking short runs, on the road. Finishing them with hard strides, on the road. This isn't a perfect experiment, because I'm not in great shape and not expecting a fast time in the Half.

But it's something I've never done before, so it's experimental in that regard. And it's fun to change things up a little vs my usual boring slow taper on grass and trails.

A good taper is absolutely crucial. It's the most important part of a training program. Why do we train long and hard if not to race well? Finding our best taper is job one for us distance runners.

Tapering has always been about running less. Magness and Salazar are taking another look, and introducing new elements. That's forward thinking.

It is not that tapering has changed and that there is no tapering as people put it.  We have learned a little more about tapering.

Triathlon, Education and Pisa Scores

I read different explanations on the Pisa Scores from different countries in different languages.  Triathlon is related to education and Pisa Scores are relevant to triathlon for that reason; although, education is cultural, meaning that we are educated to perform for what the culture dictates.  We can be great business men if we belong to this culture, great scientist if we belong to this culture; even terrorists if we belong to that culture.  

To be good at our “métier” we need basic education regardless of what we do culturally.  It can be a doctor or a top triathlete:

1)   Pay attention to details.  Concentrate the most we are able to do (most likely we do not know the limit and the limit does not exist).  We need a strong culture that supports learning as we see in the BBC video.

2)   Pisa Scores are related to perform well in a culture that produces “goods.” We need to be able to sit down to do the testing, concentrate during the event, and solve problems according to what we know as culture.  If we have a sport culture we need the same basic parameters of attention, concentration and solving problems to perform well.  I like the video of BBC regarding Finland that has high scores in the PISA examination since it started.