Before I decided to start taking performance enhancing drugs in an attempt to aid in my training, I did a LOT of research. I read articles. I joined forums. I watched so, so so many YouTube videos. Unfortunately the only athletes who are willing to talk openly about PED use are bodybuilders and as a result, most of the information out there is specifically aimed at people who are looking to put on large amounts of muscle mass.
Heavy climbers have to work harder against gravity, therefore I’m really (REALLY) not looking to put on any more muscle muscle weight. Climbing is all about maximising the ratio of strength to weight. I want to be lean and strong, to climb hard while weighing as little as I can. I don’t want bulging muscles as they are heavy and heavy is bad. I’m already muscular enough thanks.
So if all the anecdotal information out there isn’t relevant because it originates from people who are primarily interested in hypertrophy, and if published clinical trials rarely focus on athletic performance issues (and if they do it’s in a “don’t do drugs kids” kind of way), I’m going to have to try various compounds on myself and see how they work in a climbing-specific context.
My primary goal in taking PEDs is to increase work capacity. Boulderers spend a lot of time falling off stuff and making repeated attempts at the same thing. However over the eight or so years I’ve been climbing, my ability to recover from exercise has diminished. I need to take longer breaks between climb attempts, I can accomplish fewer attempts in a session, and I need to take rest days more often than previously. It also takes me WAY longer to warm up than it used to.
In addition to enhancing recovery, there are a number of secondary goals I’d like to achieve. It seems to me If I’m going to do this, I might as well make it count. These goals are as follows:
- Lose weight (we’ve already discussed why this matters)
- Become stronger (this obviously helps, right?)
- Increase collagen synthesis rate (the most common injuries for climbers relate to finger tendons. If I can avoid something going “snap”, that’d be nice)
- Do something about the achy finger joints I get as a result of hanging my body weight from little edges on a regular basis.
And while we’re at it, this is what I want to avoid:
- Accruing more muscle (and therefore weight)
- Water retention caused by estradiol (again, weight)
- Any other kind of weight gain (er… you can see a pattern here, right?)
- Mood related side effects (I like being happy and mellow; I’m not interested in taking anything that makes me aggressive, paranoid, or overly wired)
- Other annoying side effects (I don’t want to grow moobs or lose my hair thanks)
Many of the negative effects caused by anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs are dose-dependent. Although there is virtually no available information on how strength and bodyweight athletes use these compounds, my feeling is that it’s probably at doses way lower than those used by bodybuilders and this is going to be my primary harm-reduction strategy. IE I’m not going to take enough to turn into a heavy, bloated, angry baldy.
So that’s what’s informing my selection of compounds to try and administration protocols to follow. If you’re looking for a little help yourself – maybe you want to climb your project, you appreciate the slow-and-gentle approach, and the only info you can find online comes via troglodyte bodybuilders measuring progress in kilograms of muscle gain, then watch this space…
Doping For Climbers 