[green.tea]

Just thinking about improving our medal tally in the future. Could we not transplant lab grown muscle into our athletes so they end up with more and always win? Theyre hardly gonna start dissecting our athletes to check for it. Would it be against the rules? They cant ban people whove had organ transplants surely and if someones muscle got ripped off by a shark theyd need a new one anyways so we could just say thatd happened if we got found out.

[Rtcw]

If the muscles looked out of the place and unnatural, then a simple and low power x-ray could be used to spot them.

[green.tea]

(Original post by Rtcw)
If the muscles looked out of the place and unnatural, then a simple and low power x-ray could be used to spot them.

We could modify the twitch speed fiber ratio so theyd work better without being too big. Or we could just say our swimmers were out swimming one day and got attacked by sharks so needed new muscles and we just happened to have these modified ones lying about from an experiment.

If its not against current rules we could at least get away with it for one olympics.

[MightyMe.]

way more to winning sports than big muscles. maybe something better and cooler would be if we could programme muscle memory to execute movements such as weightlifting, gymnastics elements and so on perfectly and with total consistency

[green.tea]

(Original post by MightyMe.)
way more to winning sports than big muscles. maybe something better and cooler would be if we could programme muscle memory to execute movements such as weightlifting, gymnastics elements and so on perfectly and with total consistency

It'd give trained athletes more power per weight tho. Surely when everyones trained to the highest standard thats what it comes down to?

[PeterJames69]

(Original post by green.tea)
It'd give trained athletes more power per weight tho. Surely when everyones trained to the highest standard thats what it comes down to?

Look at this swimmer with so called "Wings" :
http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8507896

He didn't win a medal, I think the most important thing is technique, but then again it depends on the event.

[MightyMe.]

(Original post by green.tea)
It'd give trained athletes more power per weight tho. Surely when everyones trained to the highest standard thats what it comes down to?

no... power isnt about muscle mass, well a little but mostly not
and it doesnt come down to that for most sports

[motobrock]

At that level of the game it mostly a mental game. If u have one tiny slip up in your mind cos for a mills second doubt come into your mind or u think oh I'm winning u will mess up and lose. Good example would be the daily kid and the diving they were in for gold then at the final stretch they buckled the tiny tiniest amount under the pressure made a little mistake and came nowhere

Your brain controls your.muscles if it falters u do

U could brainwash them maybe or user hypnosis to make then able to ignore the pressure..

A golfer said it best when he said.' There are two kinds of golfer. There are those that keep their cool and win championships amid those that don't'

At that level it is so much in the mind like lifting a weigh .. normally u can't lift it if it crushing u know it's gonna kill you there not much u can't lift... your muscles have the power to rip ligaments from bone but your brain won't let u.. if u can trick it into giving u that tiny bit extra u lift that extra 5kg and win gold.

And also u gotta get luck look at the swimming if felps stroke was just a bit later he wouldn't have had to glide the last foot and would probly got gold... but he didn't hard luck the other guy won ...

[NYU2012]

.... I'm 100% sure that the Olympics would disqualify the athlete for some form of cheating.


Besides, a muscle transplant would make the athlete weaker, not stronger - it would take months of physical therapy to adjust to knew muscles and the brain may not be plastic enough to adjust to a new muscle. It's just not biologically feasible.

[green.tea]

(Original post by MightyMe.)
no... power isnt about muscle mass, well a little but mostly not
and it doesnt come down to that for most sports

The fact that you see people of particular genetic heritage excel in some sports and not others shows that a lot of it does come down to the type of physiology that can be surgically altered tho. Unless good swimmers always lose their nerve when running for some reason.

[motobrock]

Something interesting to think on. There was a greyhound a can't remember it name that won loads if still a while back amid when it died they cut it open and it's heart was 50% bigger than normal .. if u applied the same kinda think to a human u could work... as in theory if u had a heart transplant of some super athlete cut down in there prime u would benefit from what would basically be better equipment.

I can see more than a few problems trying to implement this idea though lol

[green.tea]

(Original post by NYU2012)
.... I'm 100% sure that the Olympics would disqualify the athlete for some form of cheating.


Besides, a muscle transplant would make the athlete weaker, not stronger - it would take months of physical therapy to adjust to knew muscles and the brain may not be plastic enough to adjust to a new muscle. It's just not biologically feasible.

They cant just make up rules after an even and disqualify someone who wasnt breaking the rules as they were at the time.

I bet we could do it if we really tried. What would happen if we injected stem cells into existing muscle. We could put them in specific types of fiber to grow more.

[Joinedup]

Sci fi has the answers...
1. Download training into the athletes brain as per the matrix movies.
2. Genetically modified luck virus as per Red Dwarf.
3. Sit back and watch the gold medals roll in.

[NYU2012]

(Original post by green.tea)
They cant just make up rules after an even and disqualify someone who wasnt breaking the rules as they were at the time.

I bet we could do it if we really tried. What would happen if we injected stem cells into existing muscle. We could put them in specific types of fiber to grow more.

But the Olympics isn't uninformed when comes to ways athletes could cheat. If such a thing were possible, they would surely develop rules against it. There were no rules excluding intersex athletes, but they still managed to ban intersex athletes under the existing rules.

There even may even be a rule against it already, but I haven't read the actual rules - they may be ambiguous enough to exclude such things.

Injecting stem cells might make the muscle grow, but it's questionable how that would affect the athlete. Make the muscles too large, they won't function correctly. And again, the plasticity of the brain is important, because you're injecting something new, if you didn't allow the brain enough time to adjust, it would be detrimental to the athlete.

[green.tea]

(Original post by NYU2012)
But the Olympics isn't uninformed when comes to ways athletes could cheat. If such a thing were possible, they would surely develop rules against it. There were no rules excluding intersex athletes, but they still managed to ban intersex athletes under the existing rules.

There even may even be a rule against it already, but I haven't read the actual rules - they may be ambiguous enough to exclude such things.

Injecting stem cells might make the muscle grow, but it's questionable how that would affect the athlete. Make the muscles too large, they won't function correctly. And again, the plasticity of the brain is important, because you're injecting something new, if you didn't allow the brain enough time to adjust, it would be detrimental to the athlete.

Muscles work fine when they grow naturally by the process of cell division. Why would stem cells be different? We could try it in a gorilla first. It'd be piss funny .

[NYU2012]

(Original post by green.tea)
They cant just make up rules after an even and disqualify someone who wasnt breaking the rules as they were at the time.

I bet we could do it if we really tried. What would happen if we injected stem cells into existing muscle. We could put them in specific types of fiber to grow more.

To answer your question, yes the IOC could disqualify them:

http://www.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf

Page 68, Section II, Rule 40 eligiblity code
"respect the spirit of fair play and behave accordingly".

The IOC would easily use this clause to disqualify a competitor who used the methods you've proposed.

[NYU2012]

(Original post by green.tea)
Muscles work fine when they grow naturally by the process of cell division. Why would stem cells be different? We could try it in a gorilla first. It'd be piss funny .

Because you would be changing muscle at a non-natural rate; the new implanted cells would accelerate muscle growth beyond normal.

[green.tea]

(Original post by NYU2012)
To answer your question, yes the IOC could disqualify them:

http://www.olympic.org/Documents/olympic_charter_en.pdf

Page 68, Section II, Rule 40 eligiblity code
"respect the spirit of fair play and behave accordingly".

The IOC would easily use this clause to disqualify a competitor who used the methods you've proposed.

They wouldnt be able to tell the difference with the stem cells thing tho.

[green.tea]

(Original post by NYU2012)
Because you would be changing muscle at a non-natural rate; the new implanted cells would accelerate muscle growth beyond normal.

You could let them sit and watch telly while injecting the fibers that you want at a rate that would cause normal growth speed.

[NYU2012]

(Original post by green.tea)
They wouldnt be able to tell the difference with the stem cells thing tho.

True, but if they obtained medical records; or someone came out and said that they had such a procedure done; etc. they could be disqualified from competing. Or, if such information came out after the games, their medal would revoked.