Russian Olympics and metenolone, trenbolone and oxandrolone: mechanisms?

[Leo_Bloom]

According to an upcoming documentary and 5/12/16 report in the NYTimes, apparently the 2012 Summer and 2014 Winter Olympics were infiltrated at the highest level by the Russian government to allow doping (and urine substitution) of Russian athletes.

The chemicals are anabolic steroids metenolone, trenbolone, and oxandrolone and the newspaper account only says their effect is it helps athletes “recover quickly”:
…
Dr. Rodchenkov said it was up to him to ensure that Russian athletes won the most medals, preferably gold ones.

He had been the director of Russia’s antidoping laboratory in Moscow since 2005, and was widely considered among the world’s top experts in performance-enhancing drugs. He often experimented with such drugs on himself, he said.

He published papers in peer-reviewed journals, traveled often to scientific conferences abroad and was a frequent guest at the annual antidoping symposium organized by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, most recently in October in Lansdowne, Va., just a month before he was forced to step down.

By his own admission, Dr. Rodchenkov, who has a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, used his expertise to help athletes properly use banned substances and go undetected, which he says was done at the behest of the Russian government. After years of trial and error, he said, he developed a cocktail of three anabolic steroids — metenolone, trenbolone and oxandrolone — that he claims many top-level Russian athletes used leading up to the London Olympics in 2012 and throughout the Sochi Games.

The drugs, Dr. Rodchenkov said, helped athletes recover quickly after grueling training regimens, allowing them to compete in top form over successive days…

Within the limits of this thread, can someone say why those steroids were chosen, out of what I guess is a vast pharmacopeia, or maybe a little more explanation on the chemistry?

And in general, I still don’t know an overview, conceptually, “performance-enhancing drugs”–does it includes things for (I’m guessing here) better oxygen usage? Temporary Hulk-like strength? There are other non-illegal-steroid classes of chemical cheating?

Or is “muscle repair” the name of the game–the definition, in fact, of steroids’ purpose, and is basically the “doping” that anyone cares about in athletics?

[bordelond]

@Leo_Bloom

Within the limits of this thread, can someone say why those steroids (metenolone, trenbolone and oxandrolone) were chosen, out of what I guess is a vast pharmacopeia, or maybe a little more explanation on the chemistry?

Answering this question will take highly specialized knowledge. I will be interested to see if any Dopers can lend insight.

And in general, I still don’t know an overview, conceptually, “performance-enhancing drugs”–does it includes things for (I’m guessing here) better oxygen usage? Temporary Hulk-like strength? There are other non-illegal-steroid classes of chemical cheating?

Yes, there are a few types of performance enhancement out there. There are drugs that someone can take to amplify their body’s oxygen usage, such as erythropoietin. There’s also “blood doping” – basically giving oneself red-cell-rich tranfusions of one’s own blood – that’s done in endurance sports expressly for the purpose of increasing one’s aerobic capacity.

Another type of chemical cheating involves drugs that increase alertness, increase reaction time, and such. Amphetamines have used for these purposes for several decades – Benzedrine and “greenies” back in the 1960s-70s, and drugs like Adderall in modern times. Amphetamines can also increase muscle strength, though I am unclear on the physiological mechanism by which strength gains take place. I don’t believe it to be “Hulk-like strength” – but against closely-matched competition, even a modest gain can make a lot of difference.

Or is “muscle repair” the name of the game–the definition, in fact, of steroids’ purpose, and is basically the “doping” that anyone cares about in athletics?

Muscle repair is the name of the game when it comes to steroids. Fundamentally, that’s all steroids do – allow one to work out longer and more strenuously and with the ability to fully recover between workouts (avoiding overtraining). Without steroids, an athlete may be able to train, say, up to 2 hours a day and recover fully in time for the next workout a day or two later. With steroids, the same athlete may be able to work out twice a day for two hours each session, and still recover in time to train the next day. Or the athlete may be able to go from working out three times a week to six times a week.

As far as caring about “doping” … I think people sometimes do throw all chemical cheating into the same bucket and call it “doping” (along with blood doping, which strictly is not ingesting a chemical to increase performance). But make no mistake that organizations like the IOC do indeed care about other kinds of performance-enhancing methods besides steroids.