Joe Rogan - The Truth About Lance Armstrong — Transcript

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1. 0:00maybe these guys were maybe the people
2. 0:02who are drawn to those sports are the
3. 0:04ones that are you know or drawn to be
4. 0:06elite in those sports already had a
5. 0:08genetic predisposition that's sort of my
6. 0:10feeling is it's Lance Armstrong fight
7. 0:12doesn't have a very large heart I don't
8. 0:16know I think what Lance had that was
9. 0:19pretty unique even amongst the world's
10. 0:22best which is what he competed with of
11. 0:25course I think his lactate threshold was
12. 0:27a lot higher than most people
13. 0:29genetically yeah and then of course in a
14. 0:32in again you know I mean I know it's
15. 0:33such a controversial topic although my
16. 0:35view is I think that every single
17. 0:38cyclist at least from 1991 until 2011
18. 0:42was on highly highly you know augmented
19. 0:46programs so you know that Lance won
20. 0:48seven of those years in the in that
21. 0:52context just tells me that he was you
22. 0:54know training harder and being more
23. 0:57specific to the race I mean what people
24. 0:58don't understand is like I mean Lance
25. 1:00only peaked for one race a year like
26. 1:02everything that that team US Postal did
27. 1:04was geared for that one race and also
28. 1:09when you really look at how much doping
29. 1:11they did it well she wasn't that much
30. 1:13like you know when they were blood
31. 1:15transfusing it might have been two units
32. 1:17over the course of a race and I'm not
33. 1:19saying that that wouldn't help it would
34. 1:21help a lot but that's nothing compared
35. 1:24to what people were doing just a few
36. 1:26years before Lance came along
37. 1:27so Lance won I think his first one in 99
38. 1:30the guy who won before that in 98 was
39. 1:32Marco Pantani before that was again
40. 1:34Ayano Rick in 97 and before that was
41. 1:36gonna be Horne Reese Bjorn Reese's
42. 1:38nickname was mr. 60 because his
43. 1:40hematocrit was always over 60 that's
44. 1:44frickin state like how that guy didn't
45. 1:46die of a stroke I don't know is that for
46. 1:48me P oh yeah Lance never had a crit over
47. 1:5150 to my knowledge they would basically
48. 1:53always titrate with Ipoh and or
49. 1:56hemoglobin up to 50 which was the
50. 1:59trigger so you know but but I think and
51. 2:03again i i've never i don't know lance at
52. 2:04all so i certainly don't know anything
53. 2:06about him beyond like the little bits
54. 2:08that i have read over time but i do
55. 2:09think his lactate tolerance was
56. 2:11remarkable meaning
57. 2:14you know we measure lactate in athletes
58. 2:16swimmers and cyclists when they're you
59. 2:17know trying to figure out what their
60. 2:19performance is and as far as I can tell
61. 2:21there are seem to be these two
62. 2:22phenotypes there's the one phenotype
63. 2:24where people can tolerate staggeringly
64. 2:26high amounts of lactate and and again
65. 2:28it's not lactate per se that is causing
66. 2:30the pain that you're experiencing it's
67. 2:32the hydrogen ion that accompanies the
68. 2:34lactate so lactic acid the acid part of
69. 2:38that is the hydrogen ion and that's
70. 2:40actually what's poisoning the muscle and
71. 2:42preventing the muscle from having this
72. 2:44effortless actin-myosin
73. 2:46act you know contract release etcetera
74. 2:49but we use lactate as a proxy because
75. 2:51where lactate is high the hydrogen ion
76. 2:53is high and there are some people who
77. 2:55can just tolerate like incredible doses
78. 2:57I used to work with Olympic swimmers and
79. 2:59I mean there were just a couple of these
80. 3:02guys like they could actually be
81. 3:03standing with a lactate of 24 I mean
82. 3:06when I was competing if I had a lactate
83. 3:08above 16 or 17 I couldn't be standing
84. 3:11like that was just too much pain like I
85. 3:14was on the floor if I was over 17 I was
86. 3:16puking and and I saw dudes that could
87. 3:19stand there at 24 in fact I one of my
88. 3:22good friends he won a gold and a silver
89. 3:25medal in the Sydney Olympics and retired
90. 3:28from swimming in 2004 then came back to
91. 3:31swim masters so and was like he actually
92. 3:33was trying to make a comeback to make
93. 3:35the 2012 Olympic team and when he was
94. 3:37training for that like I would poke him
95. 3:39between races and I saw him get out of a
96. 3:41400 into the individual medley race
97. 3:42which is the hardest swim race of them
98. 3:44all the 400 IM is i mean you might as
99. 3:47well just shoot yourself it's so painful
100. 3:49he got out of that had a lactate of
101. 3:50eighteen two minutes later not two
102. 3:54minutes later maybe seven mins later
103. 3:55jumped on the blocks and won a hundred
104. 3:57breasts race you know came out with a
105. 3:59lactate of 21 that kind of thing so
106. 4:01there are those guys and then I think at
107. 4:02the other end of the spectrum the word
108. 4:05on the street is guys like Michael
109. 4:06Phelps or at the opposite end of that
110. 4:08where they are so efficient at shuttling
111. 4:12lactic acid out of the cell back to the
112. 4:14liver where this thing called the Cori
113. 4:16cycle actually turns lactate back into
114. 4:19glucose that they never have high levels
115. 4:21of lactate now again all of this is sort
116. 4:23of work you know speculation because I
117. 4:25don't I think they were very hush-hush
118. 4:26about Phelps his number
119. 4:27but I heard from reliable and reasonable
120. 4:30sources that he would rarely have a
121. 4:31lactate above 8.0 including when he's
122. 4:34breaking World Records whoa which for me
123. 4:37at 8.0 like I'm smoking and joking like
124. 4:39that's fine but for you know he was so
125. 4:42efficient at getting rid of it that yeah
126. 4:45he could you know set the world record
127. 4:46in the 400 I am and have a lactate of
128. 4:48eight again I don't know if this is true
129. 4:50but but I've mantilla plausible
130. 4:54mechanism by which it could be well it's
131. 4:56fascinating that this could potentially
132. 4:57all be engineered right that like
133. 4:59through use of CRISPR or something else
134. 5:01you could take all these various facets
135. 5:03of performance enhancing modalities
136. 5:06extend a person's ability in so many
137. 5:10different ways and create a super person
138. 5:11yeah of course it's interesting right
139. 5:13once you start genetically doing it good
140. 5:15does it become cheating in the same way
141. 5:17like would we would we does it if you
142. 5:19have someone like Phelps who has this
143. 5:21genetic predisposition to getting rid of
144. 5:23lactose lactate and you take someone
145. 5:26like me who probably has none of that
146. 5:28and you know you juice me up to his
147. 5:30level is that cheating I mean I don't
148. 5:34know I mean those are the questions I
149. 5:35mean this is why people like Daniel
150. 5:36Coyle who are so critical of Lance
151. 5:38Armstrong say because because on the one
152. 5:40hand you'll have camps that say look
153. 5:42it's the great equalizer like why don't
154. 5:44we just let everybody dope and that's a
155. 5:45steroid argument with them amazed well
156. 5:47well and and frankly it's more my
157. 5:49argument but if I have a different
158. 5:51reason for arguing that way which is I
159. 5:52think having done these sports and
160. 5:54nowhere near at the high level that
161. 5:56those guys do it I just know how
162. 5:58destructive they are like the Tour de
163. 6:00France is the most unhealthy thing on
164. 6:01the face of the earth I've heard that
165. 6:03it's healthier to do two Tour de France
166. 6:05on steroids than it is to do it off
167. 6:08sterile abso-fucking-lutely when those
168. 6:11guys finish the Tour de France they are
169. 6:13osteopenic I mean their bone density has
170. 6:15eroded their muscle they have lost so
171. 6:17much muscle mass I mean it is a
172. 6:19devastating grueling event now nothing's
173. 6:21going to completely ameliorate that but
174. 6:24like if we think that like watching
175. 6:27these guys kill themselves riding six
176. 6:29hours a day hitting peak thresholds of
177. 6:32you know six watts per kilogram if we
178. 6:35think there's anything physiologically
179. 6:36reasonable about that we're out to
180. 6:38[ __ ] lunch but is that the point I
181. 6:40mean is
182. 6:40the point is that you can push your mind
183. 6:42to do something your body absolutely
184. 6:44doesn't want to do so you should be
185. 6:46rewarded for for that you know and and
186. 6:49these guys are in a league of their own
187. 6:50I mean professional cyclists are some of
188. 6:52the toughest athletes out there I mean
189. 6:53obviously every athlete at the peak of
190. 6:55their game is remarkable and and no
191. 6:57disrespect to like the best running back
192. 6:59in the NFL but like you can't even
193. 7:01compare that to what a guy does for
194. 7:04workload for sure yeah for just the pain
195. 7:06like the absolute sheer discomfort and
196. 7:09the physiologic torture and the duration
197. 7:11of it and all these other things well
198. 7:13you see it in their faces too those guys
199. 7:15like when they retired they look like
200. 7:16they're 10 years older than they are
201. 7:18yeah yeah yeah I mean they've lost all
202. 7:20of the fat a lot of them you know they
203. 7:21just if you don't have fat in your face
204. 7:23I mean you age yeah matically they just
205. 7:25look exhausted too I mean it looks like
206. 7:27it's just drained them like they've
207. 7:29forced to live 30 years inside of ten
208. 7:32yeah so it's like what if we just say
209. 7:34guess what everybody's allowed to use
210. 7:36whatever amounts of EPO blood
211. 7:38testosterone to be at the 80th
212. 7:40percentile of what we consider normal so
213. 7:42everybody's allowed to walk around with
214. 7:44a hemoglobin of 14.7 or up to 14 point 7
215. 7:48or 50 would sheet that right wouldn't
216. 7:50they I mean if you allow people to use
217. 7:53but but I also think like the the
218. 7:56testing on this stuff is so like it's so
219. 7:59JV now there was this idea called the
220. 8:01biological passport then was introduced
221. 8:03many years ago which basically said look
222. 8:04we're gonna develop a signature for
223. 8:06every person and now if you deviate much
224. 8:08from your signature we'll that'll be the
225. 8:10trigger and the argument again by
226. 8:13certain people I think Daniel Coyle
227. 8:14argued this a lot in one of his books
228. 8:17that he wrote ripping apart lance was
229. 8:20the reason it's that the reason doping
230. 8:23is unfair because that everybody does it
231. 8:25argument doesn't hold water is because
232. 8:27if you're a person who naturally lives
233. 8:29at a hematocrit of 47 you're only
234. 8:32getting a slight improvement going from
235. 8:3447 to 50 if you're a person who
236. 8:36naturally lives at 43 you going from 43
237. 8:40to 50 you get a much bigger advantage to
238. 8:43which I say yeah but that's true on a
239. 8:46relative basis but an absolute level if
240. 8:49everybody's walking around with a
241. 8:51hematocrit of 48 to 50 they'd still have
242. 8:53the same oxygen
243. 8:54carrying capacity it does level the
244. 8:56playing field the concern though isn't
245. 8:58oh I would believe the concern is you
246. 9:00don't want people to think that the only
247. 9:03way to do this sport is to take drugs