"Rafael Nadal Treats His Back With Stem Cells"

[Front242]

^ You clearly didn't read the link I posted about stem cell treatment. There's much to be suspicious of if you actually did read it.

 

[Kieran]

I don't read all the links you post when it comes to Rafa, to be honest. I like you as a poster - but on this, your bias is transparent. Rafa is using a legal treatment, and you're still at him. That's just unfair. If all legal treatments are under suspicion, then all players are too. You can't have credibility if you loudly insist that WADA should be the regulating body on drugs, but when they say something is legal, you go against it - just because it's Rafa.

It's actually pretty boring and predictable, at this stage...

 

[GameSetAndMath]

^ You clearly didn't read the link I posted about stem cell treatment. There's much to be suspicious of if you actually did read it.

I read the article in the link. It was informative. Basically, it raises two concerns.

1. A doctor potentially use HGH while doing Stem Cell Therapy and if he does,
it is very hard, if not impossible, to detect.

2. Leaving aside HGH, it raises the interesting question of where does restoration
stop and where does enhancement begins.

But, as the article says it is highly unlikely that they will ban the treatment considering it is allowed for general public and it seems unfair if they do that. Perhaps, they should require that these treatments should be done in presence of some WADA doctor who will be able to figure out if anything fishy is done during the procedure. But, I don't know whether that would be logistically and financially feasible.

 

[DarthFed]

I don't get your point, if one blows out a ligament, you think they shouldn't use replacement cadaver parts..come on Darth, it's his on cells,

And blood doping uses a person's own blood too...

It's not really an answer to the point AP is making, though.

I'm sure that WADA look at every therapy to see if it's giving players unfair advantages, helping them in ways which shouldn't be allowed.

This therapy is, however, allowed.

And so long as it is, then any players using it are doing nothing wrong...

Nah AP's point seems to be that since it is from his own body it is considered a "natural" procedure. I'd say that's a leap of faith. And there are and will always be some things that may enhance performance that won't and shouldn't be banned.

A procedure like this should be under heavy scrutiny and it's good that they are reviewing it. Yes it is of course performance enhancing but that alone shouldn't cause it to be banned. Is it deemed a safe procedure with no long-term risks/side effects? To me that's what should determine whether something is banned or not. And again I will repeat that Rafa isn't doing anything wrong since this isn't banned in tennis. It's up for the ATP to lay the rules.

 

[Kieran]

Not only the ATP, but WADA - which is the body Front and the rest of us have been begging to take over the whole shebang, regarding drugs. Well, they've spoken on this one, so the rules are clear.

Here is WADA's own Theodore Friedman, on stem cell treatments:

"The most likely outcome is that if you put stem cells in places that are unfamiliar to them, like a knee or shoulder, most of them will just die."

WADA, at the time of the article, were not in favour of doing anything, because there just isn't enough evidence that these treatments work.

Now, I know we have no geneticists on the forum, but we have expert googlers. Google is the bible of the gullible, and the insane. Because it's Rafa, we can predict how things work. He uses a legal treatment, so obviously the treatment should be banned. :laydownlaughing

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Not only the ATP, but WADA - which is the body Front and the rest of us have been begging to take over the whole shebang, regarding drugs. Well, they've spoken on this one, so the rules are clear.

Here is WADA's own Theodore Friedman, on stem cell treatments:

"The most likely outcome is that if you put stem cells in places that are unfamiliar to them, like a knee or shoulder, most of them will just die."

WADA, at the time of the article, were not in favour of doing anything, because there just isn't enough evidence that these treatments work.

Now, I know we have no geneticists on the forum, but we have expert googlers. Google is the bible of the gullible, and the insane. Because it's Rafa, we can predict how things work. He uses a legal treatment, so obviously the treatment should be banned. :laydownlaughing

Are not they wrong, at least as of now. If it does not work why do people go for those treatments.
Their statements were made just three years ago and they were clearly way behind in knowing
the promise of these treatments.

 

[Front242]

Yup, they clearly work as per the link I posted. I think Rafa's team researched enough to go for a treatment that works instead of doing it for nothing. Technological advancement in 3 years is huge.

 

[Kieran]

Well, the article is 3 years old, and Front's article is over 2 years old. My point was to show that we can all wage war by Google, since none of us are geneticists. We don't look clever when we do this.

And we all cried out for WADA to take charge of things, well - their verdict on this so far is that tennis players may use it, so good luck to Rafa, let's hope he has a full and healthy 2015. He's played only 3 majors in each of the last 3 seasons - but in that period, he's won more majors than anyone. It's still a huge gap in his career, to miss so much tennis, and if he has ambitions to catch Federer, we can see where his main problem lies...

 

[Billie]

But wouldn't you say that his style of play and his pushing too hard is what causes Rafa to get injured and miss tournaments? He could probably take it easier on his body, but would he win as much as he has? Unless a player twists an ankle, falls hard or some unfortunate accident like that happens during a match or training, their injuries are mostly the result of pushing and stretching their body too hard over and over again. Right?

 

[Kieran]

It's hard to say, Billie. I think there's maybe an element of this, plus I think he'd have been wiser to rest last December instead of going to South America with Nole (both of them affected at the Oz Open, in my opinion). My wife reckons he's just hyper and can't settle. The appendix isn't from his style of play, and the right wrist being injured is most likely from a mistimed shot, because his left wrist would be more in danger from his style of play.

The worry is that his whole system is rebelling and he would have a worse season injury-wise next year. It's been fairly brutal, because essentially he's become a part-time player these last 3 seasons. He can't afford many more like these...

 

[Billie]

Kieran, obviously appendix wouldn't count as a result of Rafa's style of play, that was just unfortunate. But knee issues, back issues, wrist issues, those could be attributed to his style of play.

I have had many conversations with my fellow Nole fans who felt that Nole perhaps doesn't play as much as he should. But seeing how things have developed in the last 3-4 years, I stopped questioning his reasoning for playing or not playing a tournament. As long as he takes care of his body, I don't mind him skipping or losing some of the tournaments. The best thing for any athlete is to stay healthy as long as he/she can, at least when they compete they give themselves a chance at winning.

I agree with you about both Rafa and Nole being affected by the exhos last December, but only because they battled so hard till the last match in London. Nole additionally had that heart-breaker of a DC final. It was an exhausting year for both of them and the letdown was, unfortunately, inevitable. Often mental exhaustion can be as bad as physical. I think this year Nole will be OK with those matches for that make-up league/exhibitions (I forgot the name already):lolz:

Let's hope for both of them being healthy and competing for many more years.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

The wrist injury happened during practice, if I remember right.

 

[tented]

The wrist injury happened during practice, if I remember right.

Yes, that's correct.

 

[Kieran]

The wrist was a fluke of bad timing. The appendix, another sort of bad timing. The back was bad timing in another way, but I'll stand before Zeus and Apollo and insist that this was because of over-playing in that stoopah exo in South America. I hope he's sleeping in his bed when his buddies are holidaying in India...

 

[brokenshoelace]

^ You clearly didn't read the link I posted about stem cell treatment. There's much to be suspicious of if you actually did read it.

Oh Jesus. Not this again.

 

[brokenshoelace]

Slavery was considered legal too once; just saying.

So when the hell do $hitty analogies become illegal?

 

[brokenshoelace]

Front, do you concede that this procedure is legal right now? The answer has to be yes because that's not up for debate.

So what's your problem exactly? It's banned in some country? Who's to say who's right then? The country that bans it or all the others that don't?

Do you actually have any concrete thoughts on why this shouldn't be legal other than Rafa is doing it? And no, "it's dodgy" is nothing concrete. Give me facts and explanations, please.

 

[Front242]

^ I've already posted a link, Broken. In much the same way as PRP stem cell treatment is open to major abuse with HGH. Of course that's not saying people always use it together with banned substances but my comment that's it's dodgy is based on that. It's on the first page but here's the link again anyway http://www.tennisfrontier.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3177&pid=147473#pid147473

The key word is undetectable.

 

[Front242]

[split] Nadal-Djokovic H2H: will it turn around?

A lot of it stems (cough, pun intended) on how much difference Nadal's miracle treatment will make for him next year.

 

[Kieran]

RE: Nadal-Djokovic H2H: will it turn around?

A lot of it stems (cough, pun intended) on how much difference Nadal's miracle treatment will make for him next year.

Are you cracking up? You taking some meds yourself? This is beyond a face-palm moment. It's actual stupidity. I mean, I like you as a poster, but I told you before what you become when you post about Rafa...