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What effect, if any, does aspirin have on lifting? I once read that you should use aspirin to help thin out the blood to help reduce stubborn belly fat. The reasoning behind it was that the blood vessles leading to the fat in the belly were small and thus the fat was readily available. That got me to thinking of the following.

If you take a couple of aspirin before you work out, would it help, hurt, or have no effect? Theory number 1: The aspirin thins out the blood allowing the body to speed nutrients and oxygen to the muscles. Concurrently, the body is better able to eliminate the lactic acid build up. Ultimately you get quicker gains by being able to work harder and heal faster.

Theory number 2: The aspirin thins out the blood to the point where there is not enough blood cells/nutrients in a given volume of blood and thus all the above is negative impacted.

The only thing I remember about aspirin and playing sports was that it could potentially make cuts harder to stop bleeding and bruises more severe due to the thinning of the blood.

First off, does anyone know of any research on this? Second, if not, what is your opinion of either of the theories, or are the both crap and it doesn't do a darn thing other than be a great pain reliever?

Thanks.

I just know that people used to take ephedra, caffine and aspirin stacks to lose weight. I don't know if it worked though.

I have never heard of aspirin acting alone for fat loss. However, as ironman mentioned, it has been used in an ECA stack (ephedra, caffeine, aspirin-in fthe white willow bark form). The ephedra and caffeine are CNS stimulants (central nervous system), and work in conjunction with aspirin's blood thinning properties to cause the body to raise it's core temperature slightly, thereby (supposedly) raising the body's ability to burn more calories at rest. Also, due to the CNS stimulation thing, apetite suppression usually occurs along with it
I'm not sure what's up with ephedra these days, it got banned a few years back, then I heard the natural form was re-instated, but not sure about that. Most diet pills these days are basically caffeine with a white willow bark derivitive (form of aspirin) with some other added ingredients to "free up fat for metabolism" (usually things like l-carnitine, etc). These things do somewhat dull the apetite, and will get you wired like drinking multiple cups of coffee, but I have doubts as to their overall effectiveness. If you choose to try it, start on the low end, or you may find yourself staying awake all night.
Tim

I am more interested if there are any performance enhancing properties.

None that I've ever heard of.
Tim