MMA News: Strikeforce Houston Allows Portable Breathing Oxygen from Oxygen4energy.com at Ringside During Featured Fights

LAKE FOREST, CA, August 26, 2010 (Press-News.org) The MMA Blogs and message boards lit up after this weekend's Strikeforce MMA event in Houston, Texas due to two of the headline fighters, King Mo Lawal and KJ Noons using canned breathing oxygen at ringside during their respective fights. This could mark the first major sporting event outside of football to publicly have athletes using breathing oxygen.

Most bloggers and message board posters were under the impression that oxygen was a banned substance and that these fighters were illegally using the oxygen. However, that is not the case. The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA), the premiere authority on performance enhancing substances, reversed their original ruling making supplemental oxygen LEGAL as of January 1, 2010. (For confirmation, go to the 2010 Prohibited List and review Section M1 at www.wada-ama.org).

According to an inside source, the canned breathing oxygen provided to the fighters by Oxygen4energy.com
was presented to the Texas Fight Commissioner and both ringside doctors prior to the fight and granted approval for use before and during the fight. At ringside, the product was also presented to the referee Big John McCarthy, who proceeded to get confirmation from the ring side doctors that the oxygen would be allowed.

Anyone who has ever watched a pro football game has seen players on the sidelines using breathing oxygen. Using oxygen allows the players to recover faster after tough plays, control their lactic acid, and put forth their best possible physical efforts for the entire game.

So the question arises... would allowing breathing oxygen use in major Mixed Martial Arts events be good for the sport? There are two possible trains of thought:

1. Since most athletic commissions do not even allow anything nutritional besides water in the corner, breathing oxygen use should not even be a consideration. Period. If a fighter did not train hard enough during training camp and doesn't manage his lactic acid production during a fight, he should not be allowed the benefit of breathing oxygen to make up for his lack of training or fight management.

2. This view is definitely more interesting. Allowing breathing oxygen in corners during fights would lead to having fresher, more active fighters for longer periods of time. This would potentially make fights more exciting, which may lead to increased viewership and greater sport popularity. A classic example of where breathing oxygen in the corner COULD have made a huge difference in the outcome of a major fight is the recent Shane Carwin / Brock Lesner fight. Shane dominated the 1st round, but his all out effort to end the fight put him in lactic acid overload and left him completely spent. When he came out in round 2, it was obvious that he has nothing left in the tank and was not able to fight off Brock's submission. If he had breathing oxygen in his corner, he may have been able to recover from that 1st round and the end result MAY have been different. Although the end result of the fight would be pure speculation, it is not speculative to say that most viewers would have loved to see that fight go the distance. If it had, it would have surely been an instant classic.

Although there is no documented scientific proof that short bursts of oxygen enhance athletic performance, the theory behind canned breathing oxygen is that the ability to flood the body with oxygen at any time can:

1. make the muscles more explosive by allowing for greater ATP production (ATP is the main energy source for your muscles and is created with oxygen and glucose).

2. help delay the production of lactic acid in the muscles by delaying oxygen debt.

3. help the body metabolize lactic acid, resulting in faster recovery times.

Canned oxygen is a very new concept. Most people have never heard of it before. With breathing oxygen use in Pro Football so prevalent, it's only a matter of time before all sports start using some form of oxygen during competition and training. Can you imagine pro sports like basketball, tennis, hockey, and soccer implementing the use of canned oxygen? If oxygen does even HALF of what proponents claim, it's only a matter of time before this becomes a reality. There is just too much money in pro sports, and the ability to have players always performing to the best of their physical ability is much too valuable.

Important note: Neither MMA fighter was paid to create exposure for canned oxygen. Product was given to them and they decided to use it at the fight, believing it would be beneficial.

More information on 95% PURE canned breathing oxygen and how it can enhance athletic performance is available at www.Oxygen4energy.com.