7.

Ergogenic Aids

ERGOGENIC AIDS AND PERFORMANCE

Ergogenic aid
• Any substance or phenomenon that able to improve performance.

Ergolytic substance
• Any substance that able to impair performance.

Placebo
• An inactive substance usually provided in a manner identical to an active substance
(real drug), typically to test for real versus imagined effects.

Placebo effect
• An effect produced by the subject’s expectations after being administered an
inactive substance (placebo).

Ergogenic Aids /Substances classified into :

1. Pharmacological agents
 Alcohol
 Amphetamines
 Beta Blockers
 Caffeine
 Cocaine
 Diuretics
 Marijuana
 Nicotine

2. Hormonal Agents
 Anabolic Steroid
 Human Growth Hormone
 Oral Contraceptives

3. Physiological Agents
 Blood Doping
 Erythropoietin
 Oxygen Supplementation
 Aspartic Acid Salts
 Bicarbonate Loading
 Phosphate Loading
 Warm-up & temperature variations

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4. Nutrition Agents
 Carbohydrates
 Proteins
 Fats
 Vitamins & minerals
 Water & special beverages

5. Psychological Phenomena
 Hypnosis
 Mental practice or Covert rehearsal
 Stress management

6. Mechanical Factors
 Clothing
 Equipment
 Environment – structures & surfaces

A. Pharmacological agents:

1. Alcohol
• Classified as a drug because of its depressant effects on the CNS.
• Can elicit both stimulant and depressant effects (initial sensation of excitement
and followed by depressive effects).
• Used by athletes because of its psychological effects.
• It is thought to increase self-confidence, calm nerves, reduce anxiety, increase
mental alertness, and reduce pain & muscle tremor.
• Risks: No improvements in physiological functions. Decreases psychomotor
functions. Can negatively affect health.
• Can cause physically addictive.
• Have ergolytic effects (decrease performance).

2. Amphetamines
• CNS stimulant.
• Increase concentration & mental alertness, elevate mood, decrease the
sense of fatigue, and produce euphoria.
• Used as appetite suppressants in medically supervised weight-loss programs.
• Recent studies showed increase in strength, acceleration, and increase
maximal lactate response during exhaustive exercise and increase time to
exhaustion.
• Risks: – increase HR and BP that can trigger cardiac arrhythmias. Excessive
use can cause deaths.
• Also cause psychological & physically addictive.
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3. Beta blockers
• Block beta–adrenergic receptors, therefore preventing neurotransmitters binding.
This reduces the effects of stimulation by the sympathetic nervous system.
• Lowers HR, therefore advantage to shooters & archers.
• Impair endurance performance, reducing VO2max because cardiac output is
decreased due to decreased in HR.
• Risks: cause bradycardia that can lead to heart block, hypotension, bronchospasm,
fatigue and decreased motivation.

4. Caffeine
•CNS stimulant.
• Increases mental alertness, increases concentration, elevates mood,
enhances catecholamine release, increases free-fatty-acid mobilization, increases
muscle use of triglycerides to spare glycogen, decreases fatigue & delays its onset.
• Risks: Can cause nervousness, restlessness, insomnia, tremors, and diuresis.
Diuresis increases the risk of dehydration & heat-related illness when performing
in hot environment.
• Disrupt normal sleep patterns, contributing to fatigue.
• Can cause physically addictive.

5. Cocaine
• CNS stimulant.
• Produce euphoria that is thought increase self confident & motivation. Masks
fatigue & pain, increase alertness & cause energetic.
• No evidence that has any ergogenic properties.
• Risks: Extremely addictive. Trigger major psychological disorder and has numerous
undesirable physiological effects, includes stress to heart function, which leads to
death.

6. Diuretics
• Affect the kidneys, increasing urine formation and excretion.
• Often used by athletes for weight reduction or maintenance (weight category
sports), and also by those trying to mask the use of other drugs during drug
testing.
• Weight loss is proven the ergogenic effect of diuretics, but the weight loss is
primarily from the extracellular fluid compartment, including blood plasma.
• Risks: Loss of body fluid leads to dehydration, which can impair thermoregulation &
cause electrolyte imbalances, can cause fatigue & muscle cramping.

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7. Marijuana
• Act on CNS & can elicit both stimulant and depressant effects (initial sensation of
excitement and followed by depressive effects).
• No ergogenic qualities & in fact ergolytic.
• Impair performance that requires hand-eye coordination, fast reaction time, motor
coordination, tracking ability & perceptual accuracy.
• Risks: can lead to personality changes, short-term memory impairment,
hallucinations, & psychotic-like behavior.

8. Nicotine
• CNS stimulant.
• Ingest by smoking (cigarettes) or in smokeless forms - chewing (chewing tobacco),
& snuff (powdered tobacco).
• Thought to increase alertness, better concentration & more calm.
• Detrimental to performance & cause several changes in CV, metabolic, respiratory &
hormonal function.
• Risks: can lead to cancer & CV disease.

B. Hormonal Agents:

1. Anabolic Steroids
• Androgenic-anabolic steroids: – include androgenic (masculinizing) & anabolic
(building) properties.
• Synthetic steroids have been designed to maximize the anabolic effects while
minimizing androgenic effects.
• Proposed to increase muscle mass, strength, and endurance capacity, & to facilitate
recovery from exhaustive training bouts.
• Proven can increase muscle mass, and strength.
• Do not increase endurance capacity & ability to facilitate recovery from exhaustive
exercise has not been proven.
• Risks: personality changes, cardiovascular disease, liver damage, masculinization in
women, breast regression in women, breast enlargement in men, prostate gland
enlargement, testicular atrophy, & reduced sperm count.

2. Human Growth Hormone

• Stimulates protein synthesis & nucleic acid in skeletal muscle, increase bone growth,
increase lipolysis (thus decreasing body fats), increase blood glucose levels, and
enhances healing of musculoskeletal injuries.
• Limited research that supports its ability to increase fat-free mass & decrease fat
mass, but GH might have little or no effect on increasing muscle mass & strength.

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• Risks: can cause hypertrophy of internal organs, muscle and joint weakness,
diabetes, hypertension, & heart disease.
3. Oral Contraceptives
• Birth control pills contain synthetic versions of natural estrogens & progesterones.
• Proposed as ergogenic aids foe women due to its ability to regulate menstrual cycle
(function as contraceptives by preventing ovulation).
• Little research that support as ergogenic aid. May be beneficial for women athletes
who suffer from PMS or dysmenorrheal.
• Risks: nausea, weight gain, fatigue, hypertension, liver tumors, blood clots, stroke, &
heart attack.

C. Physiological Agents:

1. Blood doping
• An artificial increase in a person’s total volume of red blood cells (RBCs) via
infusion of RBCs in effort to increase hemoglobin concentration & O2- carrying capacity
of blood.

• Proposed ergogenic benefits

Theoretically, O2 is carried through the body bond to hemoglobin. It seems logical
that increasing the number of RBCs will increase hemoglobin concentration,
available to ferry the O2 to the tissues. Increasing the number of O2 carriers
(hemoglobin) should increase the blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity, allowing more
O2 to be delivered to the active tissues. This will results in improvements in
VO2max and aerobic endurance performance.

• Recent research found major increase in maximal O2 uptake, longer time to

exhaustion; enhance performance in cross-country skiing & distance running.
• Risks:
a) Blood clotting due to blood become too viscous.
b) Heart failure due to clotting.
c) Administration of mislabeled blood & mismatched of reinfused blood could
cause allergic reaction such as chill, fever & nausea.
d) Transmission of hepatitis.
e) Transmission of virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome
(AIDS).

2. Erythropoietin (EPO)
• Hormone that stimulate RBC production.
• Proposed with the premise that increasing the number of RBCs would
increase the blood’s O2-carrying capacity.
• Proven increase maximal O2 consumption (VO2max) & increased time to
exhaustion.
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• Risks: very dangerous because we cannot predict the magnitude of the

body’s response to EPO supplementation. Can lead to death if RBCs are
overproduced, because increased blood viscosity can cause clotting and heart
failure.
3. Oxygen Supplementation
• During exercise improves endurance performance but is too cumbersome to be
practical.
• Supplementation before or immediately after exercise has not been proven
ergogenically effective.
• Risks: no serious risks associated with brief (2-3 min) periods of O2 breathing.

4. Aspartic Acid
• An amino acid involved in the liver’s conversion of ammonia to urea. Because excess
ammonia is associated with fatigue, ingestion of aspartates has been postulated to
reduce the ammonia that builds up during exercise, thus delaying fatigue.
• Research on its effectiveness as an ergogenic aid & risk is insufficient.

5. Bicarbonate Loading
• Bicarbonate is an important component of the body’s buffering system, needed to
maintain normal pH by neutralizing excess acid.
• Proposed to increase the blood’s alkalinity, thus increasing the buffering capacity
so that more lactate can be cleared. This would delay the onset of fatigue.
• Ingest of at least 300 mg∙kg-1 body weight can delay fatigue & increase
performance in all-out bouts of exercise lasting more than 1 min but less than 7
min.
• Risks: cause gastrointestinal distress, including cramping, bloating, & diarrhea.

6. Phosphate Loading
• Ingestion of sodium phosphate has been postulated to improve general CV &
metabolic functioning.
• During exercise, phosphate loading has been proposed to elevate phosphate levels
throughout the body, which would increase the potential for oxidative
phosphorylation & phosphocreatine synthesis, enhance O2 release to the cells,
improve CV response to exercise, improve the body’s buffering capacity, & improve
endurance capacity.
• Research on its effectiveness as an ergogenic aid & risk is limited.