uh, how does doping improve shooting performance (N. Korea stripped of medal)

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If you drink lots of coffee or soft drinks that have caffeine and attempt to shoot, you might find that it's harder to stay on target. This is because your heart rate has been raised and it's a lot harder to relax. The reverse will be the lower your heart rate the easier it will be to relax.
 
Odds are the guy didn't report that he was on any kind of blood pressure med, etc., so when he tested positive for it, fine. If you don't see how something like that will affect shooting, you -really- need to go back to your video games, or go tell your cube manager that you want to bother a different forum.
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He's North Korean. I bet you his handlers put him on the stuff. If you're a N. Korean citizen, its not like you can just nip on down to Walgreens for a prescription, even if you are on the Olympic team.

I wonder - would huffing O2 be legit for a rifle/handgun competition?
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IIRC, last year the IOC issued a ruling stating that they considered the use of oxygen tents to be an artificial form of enhancement and therefore illegal for use by competitors.

No ruling against training at high altitude though. (Good thing, given the location of the US Olympic Training Center.)
 
A lot of really good pool players like to have a drink before playing a serious game. Not to get drunk or even to get a noticeable buzz, just enough to take the edge off the nervousness and jitters. I can see how a couple of beers could steady the hand of someone who is high strung and nervous. Beta blockers have been used by some IPSC shooters for the same reason.
 
My experience with doping is limited to 30 ounces of Hardee's coffee before any early morning USPSA match and a good dose of multivitamins the night before. Works great! Beyond that I can see how anything that would take the jitters off would help greatly, I know I ski way better on one beer than sober. 3 or more, not so much!
 
Back when I used to throw darts for money, I found that I played better after two beers.

And maintaining, that basically meant six beers over the course of a longish evening.

More than that, performance dropped.
 
I've heard a lot of stories about how drugs improve or worsen your scores. Most of the people I shoot 3 position with say that they shoot better while sick with a light cold. It's hard to tell if they just block out stimuli easier or if it's the medicine they took.

A lowered heart rate would be a huge help, especially on prone, but with a properly fitting jacket, it's not a problem. Aside from the fact that you are cheating, the biggest problem with drugs+precision shooting is most drugs that mellow you out also destroy your ability to make good decisions fast enough. Almost all serious shooters don't smoke, eat or drink sugary foods, or eat heavy meals before shooting, but everybody has their own superstitions.

HB
 
Neither 50 meter Free Pistol nor 10 Meter Air Pistol matches involve anything in the way of fast shooting, but precise, slow-fire accuracy is absolutely important. Therefore in the matter of drugs, think of they're affect in this context. The winner is usually someone with excelent eyesight who is as steady as a rock, and can stay that way over the entire course of fire.
 
I thought blood doping was the procedure where you donated blood, they added more oxygen, then transferred it back into your system?
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Not quite. They don't add oxygen. The athlete does that after the fact. Your typical blood dopers are endurance athletes like swimmers, runners, cyclists, etc. What they do is, before a competition, they have blood drawn. They spin the red blood cells out in a centrifuge and store them until just before the competition. In the mean time, the body has replaced the donated blood so they have a "full tank". Just before the event, they inject the red blood cells back into their blood stream providing them with a higher capacity to process oxygen. Red blood cells contain hemoglobin, which is what the oxygen binds to, so more cells = more oxygen. Kind of like a supercharger on a car. More oxygen down the "throat" means more fuel can be burned at the same time (maintaining the same mixture ratio) so more power can be made. Combine the extra oxygen with the massive amounts of calories (fuel) they consume and they can go longer, harder, faster, etc. This is illegal because it's dangerous. The extra cells thicken the blood, thereby raising blood pressure. Combine that with the high pulse rates during the competition and people can and have "blown a seal" resulting in a heart attack, aneurysm, etc.

At first when they said "doping", I thought blood doping, but that would seem counterintuitive to shooting because it raises the blood pressure.
 
this is why we should just legalize pot, I don't smoke it personally though.
smoking pot greatly enhanched my learning to play guitar.
I imagine long distance sharpshooting would be a blast too if stoned.
 
They probably wouldn't allow pot smoking if it was legalized. A lot of the forbidden things they take/do are not actually illegal in the eyes of the law. It's the I.O.C. that makes the rules that can't be broken. Heck, you can be busted for having too much caffeine, testosterone, etc in your system. Nothing actually illegal about that or blood doping.
 
The handguns used in the 50 meter slow fire match are called "free pistols," because they are free of most design restrictions - other then being .22 RF and equiped with iron sights. Trigger pulls on these single-shot pistols is often set as low as 1 or 2 oz. That being the case I wouldn't want to be shooting with a competitor that was stoned, regardless of the substance that cause the condition. For that matter I wouldn't want to be on the same shooting range with stoned shooters. Playing a guitar isn't likely to get anyone killed.
 
He was caught cheating plain and simple.
If he really had a medical condition, he would be given a clearance for an alternative medication.
I've heard of some people eating a turkey sandwich (zins) before shooting.
I've also heard that some people eat Siberian Ginseng for some similar reason.
There is no shortcut to winning a precision shooting event. I imagine that this guy who had to train for a very long time, was doped by his coach. I don't see shooters at that level looking for ways to cheat.
 
The handguns used in the 50 meter slow fire match are called "free pistols," because they are free of most design restrictions - other then being .22 RF and equiped with iron sights. Trigger pulls on these single-shot pistols is often set as low as 1 or 2 oz. That being the case I wouldn't want to be shooting with a competitor that was stoned, regardless of the substance that cause the condition. For that matter I wouldn't want to be on the same shooting range with stoned shooters. Playing a guitar isn't likely to get anyone killed.
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Free Pistol Fun Fact: The rules actually state that the trigger must be on the gun. This was after some guy back in the 1960's rigged one up that could be fired with a device similar to the cable-actuated buttons you used to see for remotely shooting a camera.
 
Benzodiazapines would - but not the "doping" that they use in sports. Doping compounds are strength enhancing drugs and more of an upper than a mild sedative - which would help a shooter control shakes, breath control and allow he/she to make the shot.
 
*MANY* soldiers have been 'doped' in one way or another before battle. The methods and substances used are usually not as subtle. In our day and age, the drug of choice for troops has usually been an amphetamine of some kind; probably NOT of much use in olympic shooting but certainly might give a soldier an edge in reaction time and short-term energy.

But of course this comes with HUGE risks of negative effects in the short and long term so our military doesn't hand out dexadrine like it did in years past--but it *IS* an option still open to military docs--flight surgeons in particular.

I do not know about now, but during Vietnam we used to prepare "hi-flight" kits for flight crews deploying to SEA, usually a seconal to put them to sleep the night before the filght and a couple of dexadrine, one for take off morning, and one to be used just prior to landing. Some of the U-2 pilots received same treatment . There used to be stockpiles of stimulants in what they called war readiness materials....
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Doesn't really matter if the substance "helps" him or not. The governing agency says the substance is ban therefore he can not use it.
 
Hey, beta blockers work like a charm to steady a guy out. Helps for high blood pressure too, in my case.
 
Non-selective β-blockers like propranlolol can be prescribed to reduce essential tremors. They will reduce hypertension, cardiac output, heart rate, etc. For any sport that requires you to stand motionless, this would be a performance enhancing drug.

In terms of giving it to patients, if someone gets it that has a normal blood pressure, it can drop that pressure below a safe level... which is not good, hence the reason for checking vitals prior to administering it.

From what I just found, the Bronze medal in the 10M air pistol went to Jason Turner, of the USA.

Alcohol, in fairly low doses, also can effectively reduce tremors, which also improves some accuracy. It's also a performance enhancing drug in that context. It doesn't impair anything, but it does smooth out the tremors. It also metabolizes pretty quickly and unfortunately, it's also extremely easy to step beyond the point where it "helps" performance and into the realm where it impairs. The β-blockers don't metabolize as quickly and they're easier to control the dose and effects.
 
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Vitals can also vary quite a bit depending on the output load of the neurotransmiters. Anxiety, mood disorders etc. can all mess with HR and BP which is why benzos may be a better enhancement than beta blockers.
 
jkingrph--I've heard that is still true--in fact it's pretty much just flat-fact; there was a friendly fire bombing that involved Canadian soldiers not too long ago--and US pilots on speed. Unlcear whether judgment was impaired. Probably something other than seconal these days--but the still the Dexies--'go pills and slow pills'.

To loop back to shooting, if you're a regular coffee drinker--try drawing some nice and straght lines freehand (with your shooting hand) on paper before and after your first jolt of the day. Most people will get surprising results.
 
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