Joshua Goraya Haydon School EPQ

I over the last few weeks I have done a lot towards my EPQ. Having weekly mentor meetings, finishing the book "The Secret Race", created a Gantt chart from my timeline and watched the movie "The Program". The book and movie helped expand my knowledge of the area of doping around the time Lance Armstrong rode. The Gantt chart has been useful for me as it is visual and I can see what needs to be done by when. Over the summer I will continue to research in further depth, after I read the book I found a section for further reading, over the summer I wish to read these texts.

I have just completed research on anabolic steroids, which are a drug that can increase muscle size and bulk and can also help with recovery, this is different to previous research I have done involving different types of blood doping. i was lucky enough to come across a study that showed that testosterone use could increase performance by 13%.

Over the past week I have looked into the other types of blood doping, this includes synthetic oxygen carriers and blood bags. After much research I unearthed a study from 1972 that showed the performance benefits to be over 23%, I also found a graph that matched it.

This week I have looked at the use of EPO and the effect it has on the body I have found it especially interesting to see how the performance benefits can be so high, 53% which in the cycling world is monumental.