Sport For Health

Elite level athletes are not competing to "improve" health

The wear and tear accumulates

This is the final installment in the PEDs/Cheating series, which has become, frankly, tiresome but I had to ride it out. The full series is available to paying subscribers, while free subscribers should get the gist on this side of the paywall. I would rather there was a tidy conclusion but instead the series poses more questions than answers. I like questions. I like it when someone’s query sends me down a new rabbit hole and some aspects of this series, especially the current state of commercial guiding and climbing on the word’s highest peaks and the use of O2, dexamethasone and xenon as aids, made me review what I believe and how strongly. I can’t tell if I am more rabid on that topic than I was back in the day or less. Regardless, if the essays push people (myself incuded) to examine their positions as well as those of society in general then it has been worth the writing and discussion.

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I wrote about doping in sport, education, art and life in the "PEDs and Hypocrisy" essay and here I want to address the so-called "sport for health" issue (which I nodded towards in the "Death by Exercise" piece) that has come to define why and how we exercise. To reset the stage allow me to circle back to the doping topic.

There are plenty of arguments against doping in sport, many valid. My own reasons for being against it have more to do with how drugs redefine human potential and our reaction to it. If I know a particular human achievement is clean then I can realign my own definition of human limits in that context, and begin to work toward that newly established standard. If however, that standard was achieved with the help of drugs but it is communicated otherwise I might deem the gulf between my potential and that super-performance too great to bridge and cease working toward it. On the other hand, if you make a limit-shattering advance, in alpine climbing for example, and you admit that you used EPO and anabolics during training or on the day, at least I know the truth of the performance. I can choose how to respond. If I want to compete, and I have access to, and I am willing to use the PEDs then your standard might be within reach, given that we were on a roughly even field talent- and fitness-wise to begin with. If I don't want to compete for moral, economic, or health reasons, I can simply ignore your drug-assisted standard and get on with my own development. You might sign a bigger sponsorship contract. You might even take over mine. But the sponsor would also know you use PEDs and might not wish to associate with you. When I was climbing I always said, "I don't care what you do, as long as you truthfully say what you do." This would be a fine policy for doping … if honesty was in our nature.

I do not object to drug use in sport based on the pretense of caring about someone else's health because I don't happen to believe competitive sport is healthy in the first place. And I believe in personal freedom when it comes to taking drugs, prescription and otherwise (as long as responsibility is taken from start to consequences). However, some "altruistic" folks make their stand against PEDs on a platform of athlete health. In this context they presume dopers are ignorant about the consequences of using various PEDs so claim the right to save them from ill health. I don't think athletes compete, especially at the highest levels, to improve their health. The sport I practiced professionally is arguably one of the more dangerous so I surely didn't do it to improve my health or to live longer. Altitude above 26,000' is called the "Death Zone". Does that sound healthy? Do brain cells flourish in hypoxia? Is 1000-or-more hours of annual training volume healthy? Does descending a steep, winding road at 50mph with a half-inch of rubber in contact with - and a millimeter of lycra separating you from - the pavement look healthy? Is 200mph in a car healthy? Is the constant stress of G-forces and the proximity of death, sustained for 500 miles, over and over throughout a season of racing healthy? Is the impact of a wide receiver greeting the high-speed projectile of the free safety safe? 250-mile foot races? 21-day bike races? Sahara desert stage races? Baja 1000? Free Diving? Competitive shooting (lead exposure)?

If practicing the discipline itself is unsafe or carries significant risk we can probably agree that the athletes themselves are not doing it to improve health. In fact, while the theses regarding the origins of sport take a generally positive, uplifting tone, it should be noted that many sporting disciplines were a means of preparing for war (wrestling, archery, javelin, running, throwing stuff, jousting, chariot and horse racing, and [one might argue] rowing and sailing). My opinion is that the point of sport was and is to mimic combat: on one hand to prepare for it, and on the other to establish hierarchy, to learn who would win without anyone having to lose completely. Some sports enforce communication and cooperation, both being battlefield requirements. Sport unifies, and can weld a small group into a united competitive or fighting force. From this I accept competition as an analogue for war, or a duel. It is a means of proving oneself not only in relation to peers and competitors but, eventually, to oneself, which is how it becomes (or can become) a means of evolving consciousness.

The whole "sport for health" movement developed when increasingly sedentary lifestyles became the norm after the Industrial Revolution resulted in more leisure time and a reduced need for manual labor. Further technological advances virtually immobilized us so by the 1950s and 1960s inactivity-related health issues began appearing. Physical activity and education was seen as a preventative measure. Jack LaLanne's TV show debuted in 1951 and the President's Council on Youth Fitness was established in 1956 (although some criticized that a state-ordered fitness program was a bit commie or even fascist). Later, JFK picked up this torch and initiated several youth programs with health and fitness the main objective. He penned an outstanding article for Sports Illustrated in 1960 titled "The Soft American".

As physically active "health nuts" became more prevalent, the competitive, synonym-for-combat-like nature of sport changed. The experience of the public, recreational athlete became the norm, and diverged from the demands of actual competitive experience. To finish a marathon became an everyman goal but participating is a world away from actually racing. To illustrate this point I urge you to attend a major urban marathon as a spectator and when the leading group passes by sprint alongside as hard as you can to see if you can keep up for one city block. Do it and you'll understand what I mean. To run at that pace an average, elite level, male marathoner trains 750 hours per year. That's 15 hours a week if we give him a two-week off-season but he probably takes 2-3 months off/easy so let's call it 20 hours per week. This level of volume can compromise the immune system, cause overuse injuries, have negative effects on hormonal status, and, if combined with calorie restriction to maintain weight, it can produce long-term metabolic derangement, not to mention the enlarged heart, etc. Use this lens to examine basketball, American football, free skiing, etc., and it should be clear that - no matter the sport - elite level athletes are not competing to "improve" health.

If the "health protection" argument is taken out of the doping discussion, and we agree on the overall hypocritical nature of standards across not only different sports (needles are prohibited in cycling while court-side cortisone injections are [or were] OK in tennis) but in different disciplines, which may also be classified as expressions of human creativity and performance, as well as in daily life itself, then what do we have left? The fair play argument? OK, I'll play. Fair by whose standards? It's a snake pit of competing demands: the (paying) audience wants to see home runs, wants to see 40km/h (average speed) bike races not 25km/h plods, they want to see records broken and Ninja Warriors do the impossible; in short, to see human performance improved. Event organizers want to produce spectacles that entice media coverage and the advertising dollars that come with it. Sports organizations want to increase frequency because more games means more money. And finally, the talent, the athletes, what do they want? To fulfill audience and organizer expectations? To be equal to the excruciatingly difficult challenges concocted by the promoters? To push the absolute limits of human potential thereby expanding overall human capacity? Obviously, the best clean guys only want to compete against other clean guys, on an even playing field but we might want to consider that the best doped guys want a similarly level field, to have access to whatever their doped competitors have, and then to compete on that field — after the get bored of stomping the shit out of the clean racers, of course.

Perhaps an athlete wants to fulfill his maximum potential using the totality of means at his or her disposal. José Canseco offered this, "If we, as a society and as a species, are constantly striving to become better, smarter, and live longer, then why are steroids so bad?" I think the life-extension fantasy should be removed from his question because it is clear that, “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long,” (a quote mistakenly attributed to Lao Tzu and popularized by Eldon Tyrell). Intensity is the inverse of duration. I see that as a good thing — at least a good thing to know. Because it makes me understand the consequences of supernatural performance, and also makes me want to see the same, which allows me to excuse someone whose white hot flame is ignited by a combination of talent, mindset, unimaginably hard work, and performance-enhancing drugs. I don't expect that individual to be healthy, or to live past 40. Maybe even 30. Plenty of my friends, incredibly good climbers, died young. While they were alive though, they illuminated my life, they inspired me, they broke down barriers the rest of us had voluntarily accepted. The lifestyle wasn't necessarily healthy while they were living it and certainly not at the end but it was intentional, and served a purpose.

While the torch they burned only lit the way for those who had their eyes open, looking in that direction, it showed they were willing to sacrifice health and longevity in order to push the limits of human performance, and experience. Their path steered them far from that trod by those who plod through daily exercise hoping to forestall age-related decline, or more likely, the disastrous results of having eaten too much and badly, of having sat there watching instead of doing, of stress and pressure, and the inability to assimilate it. The more isolated those who push the limits become — by way of the marginal disciplines they pursue — the more susceptible they are to, and the more they attract, intervention and regulation. Rules are written to subdue and protect them, or "interpreted" to mean whatever outcome is desired, e.g. using the "Aerial Delivery Rule" to prevent BASE jumping in National Parks.

OK, I understand (and agree) that if you choose to play certain sports for which rules have been written then you consent to abide those rules and to accept the penalty for breaking them. However, I disagree with arbitrary regulations, and with a consensus drummed-up in the name of health and fairness and "access" that ultimately limits, or prevents the overall evolution of human consciousness and performance. Think about it: do you exercise to improve your health? Will you accept greater health risks in order to be stronger, or faster, or to endure more? And if you will do so, then why won't you allow those not averse to doping or to risk do the same? More importantly, do you limit your own effort or performance - consciously or not - based on the influence of others who are outside of your experience? Do you accept their "no" or do you find your own? Your rules or theirs, and how far do you allow those rules to extend into your life?

I believe there is a fundamental misunderstanding of competition and its relationship to so-called health and it hasn't only to do with doping or risk. It manifests in the mundane too. For example, take a look at the difference between eating for health, eating to perform, and what most people do. Or consider how an Olympic athlete or movie star training for a specific outcome differs from someone training to improve health or longevity, which is not at all like what most people do; if improved health is the goal then eating and exercising to look like the Spartans in "300" is not appropriate or sustainable. But it is attractive. Contradictory expert advice fuels our confusion, and that, combined with the desire to improve our condition, means we are easily seduced by current trends, newly discovered "secrets", the evidence-based this or that, and whatever promises to work quickest.

Health, however defined, is achieved through the tedious utility of daily movement, consistently executed dietary choices, stress reduction, and good sleep habits. Hard, genuinely high-intensity effort is incredibly satisfying at the point of execution and can certainly deliver the appearance and performance outcome we so desperately desire but sustained across years, decades, it is likely detrimental. That is a price some are more than willing to (consciously) pay. I was willing. And I do pay.