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Performance enhancing drugs and their effects in society
Impact of performance enhancing drugs
Performance enhancing drugs effects on athletes
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In the last 10 years or so professional sports have been fighting a battle it seems won't end. The battle against performance enhancing drugs like Steroids and HGH. These drugs have created a major problem for sports like Baseball, Football, Soccer, Cycling, and Track and Field. Some of professional sports most favorited players have been found guilty of steroid use. New York Yankees 3rd Baseman, Alex Rodriguez has been found guilty of steroids on countless occasions. MLB home run record holder Barry Bonds has been found of guilty as well. Professional wrestler Chris Benoit also tested positive for steroids. With names as big as these it shows how much of a problem this is causing in sports.
The use of PED’s dates back to 776 BC. Ancient Greeks used PED’s in some of the first olympic games to have the upper hand against their opponents.The origin of the word 'doping' is attributed to the Dutch word 'doop,' which is a viscous opium juice, the drug of choice of the ancient Greeks. The first restrictions against drugs in a sport came in 1928. The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF), the governing body for the sport of track and field, became the first international sporting federation to prohibit doping by athletes.
Steroids are concentrated hormones. They are used to build large amounts of muscle faster than just working out the traditional way. Steroids can be taken by either being injected through a needle or they can be taken orally. Injectable steroids are longer lasting and can be detected in the body for a longer period of time opposed to the oral type.
There are many benefits when it come to using steroids. They are used to help your body to build more muscle. Or help you recover from exercise more qui...
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...ids now are a major problem in sports and the main solutions have been in increase in testing and major penalties such are banning and fine. But hopefully soon one will be found. I feel that of recent years sport rating have been on a downward spiral due to angry fans. Its not fair and even i as a major sports fan hope that a permanent solution is to be found one day.
Works Cited
Sally Jenkins "Winning, Cheating Have Ancient Roots," Washington Post, Aug. 3, 2007
International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF)"Drugs in Sport/Doping Control," IAAF Medical Manual, www.iaaf.org (accessed May 13, 2009)
Associated Press "Steroid, Other Drugs Found in Bodies of Wrestler, Wife, Son," ESPN.com, July 17, 2007
ESPN.com "Barry Bonds Steroids Timeline," ESPN.com, Dec. 7, 2007
David Epstein"Rodriguez Admits to Using Steroids," Sports Illustrated, Feb. 9, 2009
The first case of performance enhancing drugs in sports came before the discovery of anabolic steroids and is believed to be that of a British road bicycle racer named Arthur Linton. At the age of twenty four, he died during a race between Bordeaux and Paris in 1886. Controversy then soon arose when he was believed to have taken a stimulant called trimethyl at the time of his death.
The past fifteen years of baseball have contained dirty play by some of the best players to ever play the sport. Kids all over America look at these athletes as role models. The money hungry players proceed to send a terrible message to fans of the game by taking drugs to succeed. After commissioner Bud Selig cracked down on steroid use in 2005, several baseball player’s legacies have been ruined due to steroid allegations. Players are even being charged with perjury by lying to Congress over steroid use to protect their reputation.
People frown upon steroids in baseball because they say they are an unfair advantage even though they can be used as big advantage. Steroids have always been looked down on because people say that they are unfair and unsafe to use. So far players that have used steroids in Major League baseball have been healthy and the only side effects of them have been success. Steroids have become a huge part of baseball since the 1990’s. players feel like they need to use them to stay competitive. Steroids help increase muscle mass and help athletes train harder and faster. This results in better play on the field. Most steroid users in the MLB (Major League Baseball) are pitchers and homerun hitters. Steroids need to be legalized in Major League Baseball to bring more excitement into the game so that more people will watch, it will level the playing field for all the players, it will keep athletes healthy during the long season, and it will be more efficient since the consequences for using the substance does not keep players from using them.
Steroids have become an athletic advantage to those becoming the best. Steroids first used in the early 1990’s were used by players as an everyday supplement, providing a boost in their game. This has evolved into a daily habit for players and teen accessing a life destroying choices just to be the best for once. For steroids have developments in the scandal with “13 Major League Baseball players, including Alex Rodriguez- the highest paid player in professional baseball” (Woerner). Showing PED’s will destroy the things you love the most, but only “effective in the short term” (Woerner). Meaning that the little amount you took won’t last you a lifetime.
Every year high school, college, and professional athletes try to get just ?a little bigger,??a little stronger,? and to increase the amount of weights they lift by, ?just a few pounds.? To achieve these goals athletes often turn to anabolic steroids to aid them in achieving their goals. Anabolic steroids are a quick, but dangerous way to increase muscle mass, and they can carry many risks including some life threatening side affects. Years after taking steroids athletes can live to have serious heart problems, sterility, or possibly not even live, all because of foolish decisions they made in the past. These potentially fatal drugs are not widely known by young athletes at all, because they don?t know about the risks that can go along with them. In school, every student is taught about marijuana, cocaine,heroin, sex, liquor, and all those other health risks, but they?re never taught about ?roids? or ?juice.? (slang words for steroids) That should be changed, because it is known that student athletes often use steroids, not knowing the risks. Many times they take the risk because they hear about professional athletes taking steroids. But, despite their widespread use in sports, steroids can have more negative than positive effects on athletes of all types. Steroids are chemical substances that can be made naturally by the body or produced synthetically. There are many different types of steroids that are used for different things other than just athletes enhancing muscles. For example, there are types of steroids that can be used by women as birth control pills, and other types that are used for menopause treatment. The abuse of steroids is almost always found to be in the case of athletes, and that is the focus of this paper. ?All anabolic steroids are synthetic compounds whose molecular structure is similar to that of the natural male sex hormone testosterone. Testosterone affects development of the male body in two important ways: it has an anabolic effect - increases growth, especially of muscular and skeletal tissue - And an androgenic effect - increased development of male sexual characteristics. Anabolic steroids are constructed stythetically in such a way that they maximize the anabolic effect of testosterone while minimizing the androgenic effect.? The way that steroids work can easily be interpreted by a foo...
Steroids are ruining sports in the United States, and they are also going to ruin future athletes if the United States does not put a stop to it. Many young athletes in the United States are taking performance enhancing drugs because they see that professional athletes are doing it and getting results. These teenagers are using steroids because they want to look muscular and fit, but they are not aware of the negative effects steroids have on their bodies. Young athletes do not know that they are not only risking their careers but also their bodies. Steroids may make a person look muscular and fit, but at the same time, it is ruining their heart. Steroids also cause people to act differently and do foolish things like using other drugs. Parents can prevent steroid use by teaching their children about it at a young age and staying involved in their children’s sport lives. Steroids have ruined professional careers. They ruined Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, and Barry Bonds’ careers and almost ruined Alex Rodriguez’s career. Professional athletes use steroids to improve their performance which is cheating. The game is not fair if someone is performing better by using drugs, and everybody should be performing with what they got. There are many different ways to achieve what they want in fair and healthier way. Many high school athletes are using steroids in the United States. They are not doing it under a doctor’s supervision; therefore, they are ruining their bodies without them knowing. Many of these athletes are looking at the outcome only and not what there are doing to their bodies in addition to getting stronger, muscular, and fit. All governing sport bodies in the United States need to take steroid testing seriously and give at...
In the world we live in today, some college athletes take certain substances to boost their physical body in hopes of taking their game to the next level. These substances are labeled as PED’s. PED’s is an acronym for performance enhancing drugs which to this day are illegal for not only college athletes but professional athletes as well. An athletes’ usage of performance enhancing drugs can affect many people. For example, we know that enhancing drugs will affect the athlete using them but the usage of PED’s can also effect the athlete’s teammates as well as the coaching staff. Failing a drug test due to performance enhancing drugs can result in a loss of a full year of eligibility with the first offense (Disalvo). Failing a second time can
First of all, what are steroids? “Steroids are a group of compounds derived from testosterone or produced synthetically to stimulate tissue repair and body growth”. Although the word steroids automatically translate into a form of sports and physical fitness abuse in our brains, it is not always used for such and it is not always the case. Steroids are used in many ways besides physical endurance, strength, speed and the ability to perform longer. “In general society, firefighters and police officers use them to better handle the daily rigors of their jobs. Bouncers and military personal use them to better prepare their bodies for combat”. For daily life people steroids are helpful and can be beneficial for the type of career or job that they have. It can help them perform jobs that require their maximum potential in order to save the lives of other people.
There are three main classifications of drugs in athletics. The first class is performance continuance drugs, which is the only accepted class in athletics. This class contains such drugs as aspirin, ibuprofen, and asthma inhalers. The se...
Abstract: Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always looked for some kind of edge over their competitors. They will do whatever it takes to be one of the elite, and that includes injecting supplements into their bodies to make them bigger, stronger, and faster. Steroid use is probably one of the most common drug misuses in sports competition. Athletes found that with anabolic steroids, one could become a better athlete twice as fast. Not until 1975 was the drug first banned from Olympic competition because of the health risks it produced.
There are many different types of steroids being produced and used everyday in America. Steroids are any synthetic hormones that your body produces naturally such as birth control used by millions around the world and cortisone which reduces the actions of chemicals in the body that cause inflammation, redness, and swelling . Anabolic steroids are the ones that I will be talking about they are made for the male sex hormone called testosterone which tells the body to increase muscle size and strength, it also allows for faster muscle recovery. Anabolic steroids will not automatically make you the next Mr. or Mrs. Universe. Those who use Anabolic steroids usually train there muscle much longer and harder then those who don't. The Anabolic steroids only give them the ability to push there muscles far beyond what they would regularly be able to and recover much faster. This is not without saying that there are no side effects to such an amazing drug. In men steroids can cause shrinkage of the testicles, decrease in sperm count (that can lead to being sterile), impotence, prostate enlargement, Gynecomastia (appearance of female breast on male), and acne which are all reversible when ...
Probably one of the most well known ways for using steroids other than for the building of muscle for competition is for it's quick healing results of inflamed or swollen joints after just a few days of use.
Steroids have been used by many athletes. They take them because they think that it will improve their playing performance. They also feel that it builds lean muscle mass and reduces fat. Some athletes sometimes take two or more steroids at a time. They believe that taking two different drugs will give them double the strength and muscle mass than just one.
In today’s society, athletes increase the testosterone production in their body through the use of steroids. A steroid increases the muscle mass of a person and strength, which benefits athletes to recover faster from injuries.
Doping is a practice that has been going on since the time of "ancient Greek athletes, who supposedly ate herbs, sesame seeds, dried figs, and mushrooms for this purpose" (Hoberman, 1992, 104). Likewise, athletes have readily consumed such drugs as caffeine and alcohol to improve performa...