Doping v. Genetics: What Caused Lance Armstrong’s Success?
Was Lance Armstrong’s superior performance the result of drug use?
Ben Greenfield
by Ben Greenfield
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that this week, Lance Armstrong will appear on Oprah to discuss whether or not he doped (used performance enhancing drugs or illegal biology-enhancing tactics) during his cycling career.
So was Armstrong simply super fit, or was his superior performance the result of drug use? Fortunately, at the height of his career, Armstrong underwent comprehensive testing at the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. The results show that even without the use of drugs, Armstrong had some great genetic advantages:
- His heart can beat over 200 times a minute (much higher than average) and pump a very large volume of blood and oxygen to his legs. This means his VO2 max, the maximum amount of oxygen his body can utilize, was very high. This could have been partially influenced by drug use, but other “clean” pro athletes have demonstrated similarly powerful hearts and lungs. Armstrong just used his very strategically during races.
- Armstrong’s average muscle efficiency, which is the percentage of chemical energy that muscles are able to use to produce power, was also much higher than average, which allows greater production of power. A big part of this is Lance’s experience riding a bicycle, his extremely high “RPM” (over 100 compared to an average of 90), a good bike fit, and the ability to convert a very high number of fast-twitch muscle fibers to slow-twitch muscle fibers. This type of muscle efficiency is tough to improve with drug use.
- Armstrong had extremely low lactic acid levels during hard exercise. Since build up of acid can cause muscles to stop contracting, it certainly helped that he produced nearly half as much acid as the average person. Part of this also could have been assisted by increased blood volume from blood doping, or enhancing oxygen-carrying capacity of red blood cells, but much of that can also be genetic.
So while drugs could have been a factor in Lance’s domination of cycling, he was also genetically gifted, with incredible VO2 max, muscle efficiency, blood lactate buffering capacity and more.
What do you think about Lance Armstrong and his spectacular, and very public, fall from grace? Post your comments on Facebook.com/GetFitGuy!
Lance Armstrong photo from Shutterstock
About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.