Why some Paralympic athletes are self-harming to get an edge

By Brent Bambury (@notrexmurphy)

If you saw it happen, it would look bizarre: an athlete self-harming by punching themselves in the stomach or hitting their toes with a hammer. It's called boosting and it gives some para-athletes a competitive advantage through a rise in blood pressure and an elevated heart rate. The practice has been banned by the International Paralympics Committee and the IPC will monitor blood pressure and look for signs of boosting when the games open in Rio next week.

But one athlete thinks the IPC won't find anything.  

"They're just doing that to protect themselves - like they want to show that they're doing something about it," quadriplegic athlete Brad Zdanivsky told me. "But the feasibility of actually catching someone boosting with the blood pressure cuff, it's almost laughable."

Zdanivsky would know. He's been boosting for years.

Zdanivsky has been a rock climber since he was a kid. 22 years ago he injured his spinal cord in a car accident. He could no longer use his hands or feet, but he still wanted to climb. He set an ambitious goal — one no quadriplegic had ever climbed before. And he started to innovate.

Scaling the Stawamus Chief

In 2005, on his second attempt and after 14 hours, Zdanivsky became the first quadriplegic to climb the Stawamus Chief, a fabled 700 metre rock face in B.C. He and his team designed new equipment that would make that feat possible, including harnesses that helped Zdanivsky use his back and neck muscles to pull himself up. And part of his preparation involved the technology that helped him boost.

"I knew that I wasn't going to get to my climbing goals without some kind of extra help," he says.

Leveling the field

Quadriplegics often have what Zdanivsky calls "notoriously low" heart rates and blood pressure.  For the non-disabled, blood pressure rises naturally when they engage in physical activity. So by causing pain to part of their body, some para-athletes are able to jack up those rates. Zdanivsky used electric shocks. He rigged up a computer to monitor his response and attached electrodes to his body.

"First it was on my leg but then actually I had to go to zapping my testicles actually," he remembers.  "Because that's what works best."

"Did you feel anything?" I asked.

"Oh yeah it hurts."

"It's terrible. There were times I've been working out so much that, you know, I was giving myself shocks and I'd get blurry eyes. It feels like I'm about to have a stroke. You're pushing it."

Risking it for the result

The risk of harm is real. That's why the IPC banned boosting in 1994. But Zdanivsky is pretty sure athletes will still be boosting in Rio.  He says he'll know just by watching the games who's been punching themselves in the bladder to amp up their rates. And he doesn't blame them for doing everything they can to compete at an elite level. It's all about reaching the goal.

" If I was coaching athletes," he says, "I would be zapping them every day."