Quote:
Originally Posted by sp220  .
Whatever it is in an inhaler, it has a mild tranquilizing effect. If you dose yourself up on it, it has a calming effect, including decreasing the heart rate - which would decrease shaking. |
Sam
Please get your facts straight. Inhalers have in them several different types of medications for asthma. Primarily when asthma is mild occasional use of a beta-adrenergic drug is initiated. Should asthma become more of a problem inhaled steroids are used. These should be taken in combination with beta-adrenergic drugs and will be recomended to be used regularly for the duration of a prolonged or persistent episode of asthma.
Beta-adrenergic drugs can have no real beneficial effect in archery as they will inevitably speed up the heartrate. Furthermore they often cause shakes in the arms and hands. Inhaled steroids are principally glucocorticoids and as a consequence are unlikely to be beneficial, although they will be identifiable in a urine sample.
I'm always surprised that drugs that have no benefit to performance in archery should be banned. However, the reason they are banned in sport is because they will have an effect in, say, running, or swimming. Nevertheless, the lung capacity of most runners and swimmers is vastly greater than most of us mere mortals.
Now we come to the benefits of beta-blockers, which have the opposite effect to the beta-adrenergic drugs. The reason they were banned in shooting sports was that they were used in the 1970s extensively by the free pistol shooters. A steady hand, which if any of you know about rifle shooting, or pistol shooting, is essential. I have written elsewhere in the forum about ski-archery, and the ability of the archers to slow their heart rate at will. If your heart is pumping really hard after a circuit on cross-country skis, you will need to be able to squeeze off your shots with a steady hand. Beta-blockers slow your heart, and of course as you have noted are used for hypertensives.
Random-Guy is correct about the Therapeutic Use Exemption. Certainly, there are combined inhalers containing both beta-adrenergic drugs and inhaled steroids. If you look on the website
World Anti-Doping Agency you will find details of the various drugs that are banned within sport. Part of the problem is that there are no sports specific bans on drugs. If the body that decides this were more sensible they would realise that drugs used for asthma are of no benefit at all to archers, other than that they will stop and archer's asthma attack, and thereby allow him/her to compete.
As I mentioned above this has been covered extensively elsewhere in the forum.