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QUESTION: Do Oxygen tanks improve athletic performance? I see that IFBB Pro Shawn Ray is now endorsing one. What's your take? 

Gary Silver, Brooklyn, New York

ANSWER: We've seen old photos of Arnold and Franco using oxygen tanks between sets as well as NFL linemen breathing from them after a play!

Research done on oxygen "supplementation" in the 80s had shown that the rate limiting step in Oxygen utilization at the cellular level was not based on the amount of oxygen taken into the body (or lack of) with normal oxygen found in the air we breath, but rather the amount of hemoglobin in the blood which picks up the oxygen and transfers it throughout your body. Hemoglobin is found in your red blood cells. If you have more red blood cells, you have a greater amount of Hemoglobin which allows you to carry more Oxygen to muscle tissues. It is for this reason that endurance athletes have used EPO, Anadrol 50 and other blood building compounds and techniques to increase red blood cell count.

If new research has proven otherwise, we'll find out by asking one of our sports medicine experts for you Gary and we'll include it in our next issue of MUSCLE INSIDER which comes out in February.

I will say though that I've sat at those Oxygen bars you see outside clubs and sometimes inside clubs and can say they seen to definitely make you feel more awake short term! Whether or not this effect lasts or improves performance in a clinical setting is something we'll have to look into for you.