illegal substances for tournies

[Army Fencer]

There was a really good thread about this back in March. I did a lot of research in it.

http://www.fencing101.com/vb/showthr...ned+substances

[kalivor]

The actual / social reasons for banning marijuana notwithstanding, I believe that regular use also increases your pain thresh-hold, so you could use it to train through an injury, giving you an advantage on strip.

Unfortunately, it would be accompanied by a lack of motivation and many of the same problems that accompany tobacco smoking.

You're better off using an actual painkiller -- most of those are legal.

[ndfencer]

Smoking weed isn't necessarily a performance enhancing drug, unless you are addicted, in which case you can't perform unless high. As a side note, this is why fencing is the greates sport on earth, cuz you can smoke weed, cigarettes, drink your liver to pieces, and still be a damn good fencer.

[akishier]

That's untill u can hardly breathe coz ur lungs are so damaged from smoking, or till u find urself in a hospital needing a liver transplant... I doubt u'll be damn good fencer then

[ndfencer]

who worries about that now? i mean nobody care about anything outside of junior and some senior comp. so why not do what feels good now and deal with the consequences later.

[npkeith]

....Marijuana is certainly not a performance enhancing substance. Neither is any opiate (i.e. heroin). Yet they're banned.

Actually, opiates could very well be performance enhancing.

Most people don't realize that people become tolerant to the drowsiness associated with opiates. The more you use them, the better your body and brain are able to cope with the side-effects. I gave 900 milligrams of morphine pills to a man in my ER once and then sat an watched him for an hour an a half. He talked to me the entire time, and the only difference is that his pain got better (Dying of bone cancer if I remember correctly). That dose would have put me into a coma within about 20 minutes and killed me in about 10 more (without treatment). He was used to it.

If I fence better because my knee doesn't hurt, or I can ignore my back muscles screaming at me, then my performance has been enhanced. This may well be at the cost of future performance (i.e. irreparably damaging a knee just for a shot at taking gold), but there are people out there will to take that risk.

[kalivor]

If I fence better because my knee doesn't hurt, or I can ignore my back muscles screaming at me, then my performance has been enhanced. This may well be at the cost of future performance (i.e. irreparably damaging a knee just for a shot at taking gold), but there are people out there will to take that risk.

Again ... why not take something legal to deal with the pain? Painkillers are not, in and of themselves, banned substances. You're allowed to freeze your knee if it's hurt -- you won't fail a drug test, or be called a cheat.

Calling painkillers "performance enhancing" is like calling carbs, water or multivitamins "performance enhancing." There's nothing that's banned *because* it lessens/eliminates pain, even if there are some painkillers that are banned.

[dunastor]

I think banning painkillers is usefull in protecting athletes from themselves...

Usually pain is a sign something is wrong in the body. Ignoring pain, especially in something destructive to the human body as high level sports, is asking for permanent injury.

[kalivor]

I think banning painkillers is usefull in protecting athletes from themselves...

Usually pain is a sign something is wrong in the body. Ignoring pain, especially in something destructive to the human body as high level sports, is asking for permanent injury.

Well, I'm not trying to argue the merits of painkillers, or encourage people to fence through serious injuries. I'm just pointing out that opiates and cannibas aren't "performance enhancing" because of their painkilling properties -- painkillers aren't banned substances.

Plus, the performance detracting elements of these drugs (which continue to exist at some level, no matter how much your body and mind have grown used to them) makes them less effective as a sport painkiller than the other options out there.

You should never use a painkiller to fence with an injury without first consulting a doctor (and, preferably, being under medical supervision) to ensure that you're not going to further damage yourself.

[npkeith]

Again ... why not take something legal to deal with the pain?

Because if the pain is bad enough, a couple of tylenol or motrin ain't gonna cut it. Freezing it may work for a few minutes. We are not talking about sprained ankle/pulled muscle kind of pain (although a bad enough sprain can take longer to heal than a break, and come back to haunt you more). I'm talking about fractured fibula (yes, you can still walk or even fence with a fractured fibula) or torn ACL. There are people out there who want to win badly enough that they will find ways to compete.

So yes, I think it is partially about protecting the athlete from him/herself, but also about protecting the other guy - If I can't feel pain, I may try things that I'd never do normally, possibly things that I'm not ready to do skillwise, and hurt someone.

[kalivor]

I'm talking about fractured fibula (yes, you can still walk or even fence with a fractured fibula) or torn ACL.

Well, you'd have to be on drugs to want to fence with a fractured fibula. As for a torn ACL, it doesn't hurt so much. Yes, there's a lot of initial pain, but after a couple minutes (far less than the 10 minutes you get), it doesn't bother you at all -- it's just unstable and stupid. No ibuprofin or freezing required.

[great bowyer]

actually, i am not sure if it was the acl, but at a tournament, i twisted my knee in a de bout, i to the advice given to me to withdraw. the next day, i fenced and i did a lot better than the day before.

[sabreur]

First of all, there are other ways to use cannabis besides smoking it. You can, for instance, ingest it. Assassins were hashish eaters, not hashish smokers.

My favorite (no-longer) forbidden substance is caffeine.

I heard an apocryphal story about a master who was banned from competition for two years because he was drinking beers while he was fencing and tested over the limit.

Cheers, MR