Quote:
Originally Posted by azmg
When I enter into discussion about his wins or whether I think he's guilty or what have you, I always ask if people think it's relevant that he has about the lowest resting heart rate I've ever heard of (even for an athlete), or that he has one of the highest V02 max numbers I've seen and if by chance he might just simply be better.
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Back in the late 80's Mark Hodges and Andy Jacob's came to town to talk about USCF and the OTC. Hodges did something with the US Olympic Cycling Team and Jacobs was a sport shrink. During this day long meeting, Hodges excitedly told us about this Triathlete in Texas who had this amazing MaxV02, who IF they could pull away from Triathlons would be the most amazing cyclist the world had ever seen.
His name Lance Armstrong.
Now if I read correctly, if Armstrong had agreed to the arbitration he would only have lost 2 tour wins, leaving him with a total of 5....the same number as Spain's Miguel Indurain who won an unbelievable 5
consecutive tours.
And according to Wiki:
Quote:
Indurain had a physiology superior to fellow athletes. His blood took seven litres of oxygen around his body per minute,[25] compared to 3–4 litres for an ordinary person and 5–6 litres for fellow riders. His cardiac output is 50 litres a minute; a fit amateur cyclist's is about 25 litres. Indurain's lung capacity was 7.8 litres,[2] compared to an average of 6 litres. His resting pulse was as low as 28 BPM,[2] compared to an average 60–72 bpm, which meant his heart would be less strained in the tough mountain stages.[14] His VO2 max was 88 ml/kg/min; in comparison, Lance Armstrong's was 83.8 ml/kg/min and Greg LeMond's was more than 92 ml/kg/min.[26]
He consulted the Italian professor, Francesco Conconi, from 1987 and his weight dropped from 85 to 78 kg under his guidance,[5][6] "changing himself into an all-round rider", said Philippe Brunel in L'Équipe.[2] He was 10 kg lighter than when he was a junior.[27]
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So apparently 5 tour wins is the magic number for humanly possible, and anything over 5 means you have had your performance enhanced.