Any Good Supplements/Performance Boosters To Improve Cardio?

[Xtreme J]

Howdy,

Wondering if anyone know of anything that will enhance one's cardio performance for a short time ( nothing long-term or permanent, just for an hour or so ). Anything?

[Guest]

Train.

[Xtreme J]

I was referring to supplements, and I think you already knew that.

[Ripley]

You could try a glucose drink with a lot of caffeine. I don't know what you have in the States, but 'Red Bull' or 'Shark' are loaded with sugars and stimulants. Be careful not to drink it too close to exercise, else it'll end up back on the floor.
I know short burst aerobic atheletes swear by an extra pint of their own blood put back right before competing. Personally, I'd stick to training.

[terry]

Yep, caffeine is one of the only stimulants that has been known to increase, albeit slightly, aerobic performance. Note: we're talking about 1 to 1.5% performance improvement, so if you're anything but a world contender in an aerobic sport it won't matter. Side effects of large amounts of caffeine include dehydration, which reduces aerobic performance fast, and in some cases heart palpitations.

Until caffeine was banned in anything but trace amounts you had Tour de France riders pounding down 10 cups of expresso the morning of an event. I hear that has been changed recently, so most guys can't even take an aspirin or drink a cup of coffee.

Removing your own blood was something that was used by olympic atheletes up until it was banned. The idea is to extract the red blood cells and then re-inject them. More blood cells means marginally more oxygen absorption rate and hence higher aerobic performance. But this has been illegal for 10 years or so and is referred in general as 'blood doping'.

T