performance enhancers?

[1xsculler]

I never consume caffeine except just before I push away from the dock for a race at which time I drink two small (6 oz.) cans of Starbucks Doubleshot. It seems to give me a boost, imagined or real. I am definitely walking on my tiptoes for the rest of the day. The other day I had a glucose tolerance test (not the official test which monitors blood glucose several times) but a simpler one where I consumed 10 oz. of a glucose solution with 10 grams of glucose per ounce. I had to down it within 5 min and they drew my blood 20 minutes later for a multitude of tests including glucose.
My question is: might that be a performance enhancer and maybe even better combined with caffeine. I have never experienced a sugar rush like I did with that 10 oz. drink. Three or four chocolate chip cookies don't even come close. That drink really wound me up like I've never felt before. Maybe I should add it to my pre-race caffeine this Sunday for the HOTL.

[Norm]

Anecdotally, I worked for ABC TV at the '84 Oly venue, and after things had wrapped up, I walked the temporary tents and booths. In the Romanian women's tent, there were injection vials marked "glucose" lying around. Certainly way back then, the Romanians seemed to think glucose was a performance enhancer. It should be noted that the Romanians lost to the US women that year.

[sandor]

i use VFuel, caffeine and sugars.
http://vfuel.com/p/vfuel-advantage.html

though 4-5 cups of coffee a day since i was young has numbed me to the caffeine part...

i dont notice an immediate difference, but the dense refueling definitely helps in multi-race weekends.

[bloomp]

Yes, exogenous carbohydrates are ergogenic. This is pretty basic - calories in provide you with more calories for output, and blood glucose in the concentrations you ingested is going to be the very first fuel source used up. At a more complicated level there's some interplay with insulin, and how our brains react to "sweets"

The neural pathways involved with tasting "'sweet" foods/drinks can be activated without consuming the item in question. Swishing a sweet solution (whether real or fake sweeteners) results in differences in cognition and perceived effort during exercise.

[bd_sculler]

1xsculler, nice win at the HOTL, Did you load up on glucose and caffeine as mentioned?

[lt.wolf]

Would stem cell treatments be considered performance enhancing?

[1xsculler]

Yes, I did consume my usual two 6 oz. cans of Starbucks double-shots just before pushing away from the dock and I attempted to consume the last drop of the 75 g. of glucose just before the start but due to a delayed start I finished the glucose about ten minutes before I was on the clock. I could definitely feel the glucose sugar high during the first five to ten minutes (about twenty minutes after finishing it) of the race but I then felt like I hit the wall, presumably a glucose let down. I felt like I wanted to quit but I was able to row through it. I'll have to check my Speed Coach to see if my splits were better during the first five to ten minutes of the race.

I didn't like that let down feeling and would not use the glucose again unless just before a 1k sprint..

I guess according to the way the Mens Masters 1x age categories were set up by the regatta organizers I won the H group as they didn't apply USRA handicaps because we were all three Hs. In the groups where there was more than one age category, i.e. E and F, handicaps were applied. So, since my buddy Bill Jacquette, with whom I have a multi-year back and forth competition, was only six seconds slower than I was and since he is more than one year older than I am I presented my very nice 1st place medal to him as I owed him eleven seconds based on USRA handicaps.

[lt.wolf]

Thats a lot of caffeine. I know I have some mostly every row. But not of that level.

On race day I usually have a small bag of skittles or a coke about an hour out. Probably not the best idea but it gives me a small charge.

[sandor]

Thats a lot of caffeine. I know I have some mostly every row. But not of that level.

at 125 mg per, it would be the same as 16 oz of coffee or 2 shots of espresso.
not much at all for a coffee drinker.

[bd_sculler]

..., was only six seconds slower than I was and since he is more than one year older than I am I presented my very nice 1st place medal to him as I owed him eleven seconds based on USRA handicaps.

Very classy on your part. Still, congratulations on a good row.

[Mango]

caffeine is absolutely a banned substance, but you would have to take it in super concentrated doses for it to have a major effect on performance. By super concentrated, I mean you literally could not drink enough coffee to test positive for it. It would have to be a supplement. You are fine. You'll get a little jolt, but any difference in race performance is purely mental given the dietetics and chemistry of your quantity.

[bloomp]

caffeine is absolutely a banned substance, but you would have to take it in super concentrated doses for it to have a major effect on performance. By super concentrated, I mean you literally could not drink enough coffee to test positive for it. It would have to be a supplement. You are fine. You'll get a little jolt, but any difference in race performance is purely mental given the dietetics and chemistry of your quantity.

I think you’ve mixed up the lethal dose of caffeine and the ergogenic dose level of caffeine. The performance benefits of caffeine are about a 3-4% improvement in performance and at doses of 3-6mg/kg. A cup of coffee has about 90-100mg, so a lightweight rower would receive some benefit at 2 cups of coffee while a heavyweight would need 3-4 cups. In pill form, that’s a very easy dose to achieve.

Meanwhile the LD50 somewhere around 200mg/kg.

[sandor]

caffeine is absolutely a banned substance, but you would have to take it in super concentrated doses for it to have a major effect on performance. By super concentrated, I mean you literally could not drink enough coffee to test positive for it. It would have to be a supplement. You are fine. You'll get a little jolt, but any difference in race performance is purely mental given the dietetics and chemistry of your quantity.

I think you’ve mixed up the lethal dose of caffeine and the ergogenic dose level of caffeine. The performance benefits of caffeine are about a 3-4% improvement in performance and at doses of 3-6mg/kg. A cup of coffee has about 90-100mg, so a lightweight rower would receive some benefit at 2 cups of coffee while a heavyweight would need 3-4 cups. In pill form, that’s a very easy dose to achieve.

Meanwhile the LD50 somewhere around 200mg/kg.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26568580

A literature review of evidence based research on the effects of caffeine on performance

[bloomp]

caffeine is absolutely a banned substance, but you would have to take it in super concentrated doses for it to have a major effect on performance. By super concentrated, I mean you literally could not drink enough coffee to test positive for it. It would have to be a supplement. You are fine. You'll get a little jolt, but any difference in race performance is purely mental given the dietetics and chemistry of your quantity.

I think you’ve mixed up the lethal dose of caffeine and the ergogenic dose level of caffeine. The performance benefits of caffeine are about a 3-4% improvement in performance and at doses of 3-6mg/kg. A cup of coffee has about 90-100mg, so a lightweight rower would receive some benefit at 2 cups of coffee while a heavyweight would need 3-4 cups. In pill form, that’s a very easy dose to achieve.

Meanwhile the LD50 somewhere around 200mg/kg.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26568580

A literature review of evidence based research on the effects of caffeine on performance

Yes - there is a preponderance of literature agreeing that caffeine is an ergogenic aid. I’m sure you’ll get some disagreement for the ideal dose or the expected performance improvement, but of all the conclusions of sports nutrition it’s one of the soundest.

[ltwt1x]

caffeine is absolutely a banned substance, but you would have to take it in super concentrated doses for it to have a major effect on performance. By super concentrated, I mean you literally could not drink enough coffee to test positive for it. It would have to be a supplement. You are fine. You'll get a little jolt, but any difference in race performance is purely mental given the dietetics and chemistry of your quantity.

Caffeine is not prohibited in any dose but it is a monitored substance. Every once in a while i read threads on here where people think taking protein powder or taking things like creatine is doping. There are rules on WADA's website and there are tools like GlobalDRO.com to search ingredients. Also there is an in competition list and a less stringent out of competition list for those in the testing pool.