🚀 go-pugleaf

>>On 18 Nov 92 11:09:12 GMT, tordm@vand (Tord G.M. Malmgren) said:


>  thanks! now, could there be any connection like taking steroids and doing
> heart-stressing training like interval, which orienteering is, could lead
> to some problems with your heart like it growing too much or getting "watery"?
> ("watery" is a term the local bobby-builders use at the gym I go to, to
>  describe how their muscles get when they take too many steroids)
> I can understand there be no way to find out if they took steroids, but
> I'm curious as to whether it's possible at all...

I would doubt this very strongly.  Orienteering has a reputation as a
very "clean" sport, backed up by a very stringent drugs program (going
on the experiences of the international orienteers I know).  I can't
believe that if there was a large group of steroid users in the sport
that there would have been no hint of it.

I don't think steroid use would even make much sense to an orienteer.
EPO would be of more benefit, say.

Finall, heart muscle is of a different type to skeletal muscle.  I
don't know whether the effects of steroids are the same for the two
muscle types.

Training while suffering from infection seems the most likely cause at
present.  This isn't just an orienteering problem - athletes in other
sports have died in similar ways.  Orienteering has just been hit hard
by it, and has reacted in a newsworthy manner.

Steve.
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