With all of the reports of how many athletes are getting caught using performance enhancing drugs, it begs the question- just what are these athletes using?  An article produced by Health and Science tackles this very question.   According to the author (Bonnie Berkowitz) the drugs fall into the following categories:

• Muscle-Building Steroids
• Hormone enhancement
• Drugs that hide other drugs
• Calming Beta Blockers
• Asthma drugs
• Recreational drugs
• Anti-inflammatory steroids
• Other

As you can imagine with this many ways in which an athlete can obtain a substance to enhance performance, regulating these is extremely difficult.  What could be seen as a protein shake to some could actually be considered a performance enhancing drug by the organization and can get an athlete banned from competing.  A simple medical condition such as asthma requires the use of steroids to handle flare-ups so that has to be heavily documented for any athlete that is getting tested for performance.

Now there are drugs that are actually used to calm a person down to help improve performance in accuracy for competitions such as shooting or archery.  So, not only are they testing for drugs that speed up performance, they are now testing for drugs that calm.

Some athletes have a condition known as Attention Deficit Disorder that requires them to take medication that could falsify a urine test taken for doping.  This is one of the many conditions that have to be documented by physicians to ensure they are not abusing the drug and so the athlete can take the medication they need to focus while knowing if they went into a random drug test, it could fail the NCAA standards.  It is all about documentation and balance.

As you can see there are many drugs that are listed on the “Performance Enhancing Drug” list that actually are prescribed to an every day person for medical needs.  It is when someone else, who doesn’t have the disease, abuses it that there is an issue.  Navigating through those difficult waters could be overwhelming and costly.

Eric Walter

Source:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/what-banned-drugs-do-cheating-athletes-take/2016/07/29/52ff3242-4f84-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f5dcec0fd0cc

An article by Marquette University Law School discusses why the use of steroids and sports should not ever mix and the use of steroids needs to be enforced.  April Ashby wrote a blog discussing what she has found in her time as a lawyer for the law school.  In that blog Ashby discusses the frequency of athletes being caught using steroids and why it is essential for sporting industries to continue to outlaw the usage.

One of the points that she wrote in favor of banning steroid use is regarding the health of the athlete.  Ashby writes “First, doping threatens the health of the athlete”.  This line alone should be awakening to those arguing for the usage of steroids.  Just because someone wants to use something and is “ok” with the risk, the very fact alone that it has been proven to be harmful is all of the reason needed to continue to outlaw the usage.  Protecting those who cannot always protect themselves is a must.

I also agree with Ashby’s statement that the use of steroids affects the integrity of sport.  Playing sports is about so much more than just winning a title.  So much can be gained about perseverance, determination and teamwork that can be learned just as easily through losing as winning.  There is a huge ethical line drawn when athletes attempt to enhance their performances rather than work and improve through natural means such as endurance training and weight lifting.

Finally I really enjoyed her point in which she stated “The integrity of the game is compromised because it is no longer about which athlete has the best skills or talent, instead it is about which athlete has the best cocktail or the money to buy the best steroid”.  I couldn’t agree more.

Eric Walter

Source:

https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2010/10/20/why-steroids-have-no-place-in-sports/comment-page-1/

In the quest for the every evasive college scholarship, the students in high schools around the country are now becoming tempting to dabble in the usage of steroids or performance-enhancing drugs (PED) to try to stand out in the crowd.  Colleges only have a limited number of positions available on their sports teams.  There are millions of high school athletes vying their way to get the attention of these coaches through any means possible.  Some athletes enter fields of extremely high competition.  In addition to the sporting aspect, the athlete must also perform well in the academic realm as well.  This pressure to succeed pushes these students into sometimes impossible situations.

Healthline did a report on the usage of steroids with high school students.  They found some alarming rate of usage in the student body.  What they found the most interesting is that in many instances, steroids were not being used to perform better in an athletic contest.  These students were using the steroids to enhance their personal appearance.  Boys were using these PEDs to gain muscle and strength.  Girls were found to use more  diet pills than PEDs.  The study found that one of the most overused substances that kids used at an alarming rate was caffeine with an alarming rate of 73% of students consuming caffeine on a daily basis.

The other issue is that these kids are taking supplements and there is not FDA oversight on the product’s content.  In their quest to be bigger, faster, stronger, thinner- they are consuming products that could be extremely dangerous.  They literally have no idea what is in the products they are consuming because the government hasn’t tested it or regulated it.  This is a very dangerous path for these students to be on.  It is also how illegal drugs are created by combining different supplements together to get a high or low depending on the need.  Students need to tread lightly on the nutrition supplements they consume and parents need to be vigilant in checking on the “protein shakes” students could be drinking.

Eric Walter

Source:

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/performance-enhancing-substances-rise-in-high-school-sports#1

The National Public Radio released an article discussing the hypocrisy in the management of steroid usage in 2008.  In this article the author (Jeffrey Katz) points out that the entire society lives in a world in which if you have an ailment, you go to the doctor and get prescribed a medication to treat it until it heals you or makes you better.  As such, why are athletes punished if they want to use medication to help fix their ailments such as weakening muscles or muscle strains?  There is a very fine line of information as to whether something is being treated as an injury or if the athlete is using a Performance Enhancing Drug (PED).

Track stars, cyclists, swimmers etc. have all been caught using PEDs and cost people their metal, title or win.  When people argue about the PED usage, there are points to be made on each side.  Why can people be allowed medications for some things but not others?  Why are some cremes OK and others not?  Who decides what is ok?  Most medications come with some warning, risk or side effect that can harm the person taking it while it heals another.  Are steroids that different?  I can see how the argument can work both ways.

The article discusses how there were 6 experts on steroid usage that debated this very issue on a TV series called Intelligence Squared U.S.   Three were in favor of PED usage and three were against it.  According to the article, the audience was then polled before the debate to see who was for it and who was against it.  It showed 63 % of people were against steroid usage.  That number changed to 59% after the debate.

This isn’t a very big jump but it does show that some people can be persuaded to accept the usage if given the correct point of view.  For me it is very different if someone is taking medication to heal a real issue such as an infection as opposed to injecting something in their body for the purpose of performing better.

Eric Walter

Source:

https://www.npr.org/2008/01/23/18299098/should-we-accept-steroid-use-in-sports

Years ago the use of steroids was typically taken in a pill form or a cream.  This meant that there was usually some form of medication or something found that would catch an athlete using dope.  Now things have become much more complex and causes the associations that regulate sports to scramble when trying to define exactly what constitutes a Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) and what doesn’t.

Many athletes that are caught using PEDs today are found to be using Supplements for nutrition.  These supplements are sold over the counter at nutrition stores and sometimes the athletes have no idea they are consuming an illegal substance.  It is easy for a trainer to slip a supplement into a nutrition shake such as a protein shake and the athlete would have no idea they were technically doping.

Ignorance is not a defense however if they are found to fail a drug test.  Athletes put a certain level of trust in their coach and trainers and those people can either help the athlete perform to the best of their ability or they can sabatoge the athlete’s peformance and cause them to become disqualified.  The use of suppliments is extremely dangerous.  These are not heavily regulated and checked by the FDA so there could be extreme damage caused by misusage.  The risks are not always known as to what the suppliment can and cannot combine with.  Even caffeine stimulants can be extremely dangerous on the heart.

Bottom line is that any time an athlete wants to discuss nutrition and vitamin usage, they should do so with their doctor or nutritionist.  These trained professionals can guide them through the path of suppliments and ensure they are not damaging themselves to get ahead.

Eric Walter

Source:

https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/1210/

With all of the discussions surrounding Performance Enhancing Drugs and the dangers, it begs the question- what if everyone was allowed to use these drugs to “level” the playing field and reduce the infractions that athletes would receive?

Now I don’t believe that athletes should be allowed to “cheat” to get ahead but I do enjoy a game of playing “devil’s advocate”.  Hypothetically, if all athletes had restrictions against doping lifted, essentially everyone could train how they wanted, eat or drink whatever nutrients or hormones they wanted to in order to develop quicker, faster, stronger etc.  Sounds good right?

Wrong.  There is a very defined issues with any athlete taking PEDs for an extended period of time that has lovingly been referred to as “Roid Rage”.  CBS News did a story on roid rage fact and myths.  A professional athlete named Chris Benoit was found dead in his home along with his wife and son.  This murder-suicide was believed to be tied to the steroids that the authorities found in the home. This article goes on to say that steroid usage causes the athlete to lose impulse control and become overstimulated to situations.  So essentially they are having a hyper response to a stimuli that causes them to respond out of character.

Now take this potential and put all of the athletes on a football team that are traveling to a location to play another team full of athletes that have the same lack of impulse control.  Things could get very dangerous very quickly.  There is a reason that regulators have chosen to restrict the usage of these drugs.  Even though there are some athletes who do not experience the rage presented in some of the cases, even one athlete unleashed on others with this kind of out-of-control thinking is too many in a heightened athletic event where people are competing for wins.

Eric Walter

Source:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facts-and-myths-about-roid-rage/

While researching the benefits and risks of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) and how it affects athletes, I came across an ironic site- the Benefits of Steroid Use produced by Livestrong.  On September 11, 2017, the Livestrong organization produced an article showing the benefits of athletes using steroids.  This is a huge contradiction to most sport management organization regulations. Livestrong is the organization created by Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who lost all sponsors and most of his winning titles from the Tour de France when he was found to have used PEDs.  How ironic that his site would produce an article showing athletes of the BENEFITS of using steroids.

The article begins that there are sport figures who are willing to risk their health, employment and freedom to gain an “edge” according to Tomas Linnaeus who wrote the article for the site.  (Yeah one of the most famous athletes caught “doping” was the creator of the foundation!)  He goes on to discuss the muscular benefits of PEDs, increased strength and healing rates.

Thankfully he goes on to discuss that there are risks associated with the usage of steroids such as unwanted libido and aggression (roid rage) and disfiguring acne and hair.  He also touches on a critical risk to the athlete with steroid usage which is cardiac effects and damage.

I am not sure what exactly he was hoping to accomplish with the article but it is a very ironic piece.  Having an organization created by an athlete who has been punished for steroid usage, create an article that discusses the benefits of steroid usage definitely seems like a bad idea to me.  It can cost a person their entire livelihood.

Eric Walter

Source:

https://www.livestrong.com/article/143749-effects-steroids-body/

 

What causes an athlete to forego all of the rules and regulations placed in front of them and decide to use performance-enhancing drugs (PED) such as steroids?  What causes these individuals to reach the point in which they believe that is the only option to gain the improvement in the timeline or method they need to get it?  We have witnessed many athletes lose all of their reputations, skills and livelihoods when they are discovered to be using PEDs.

The Mayo Clinic has published many different articles about the dangers of PEDs and how it can impact the health of an athlete both in the short-term as well as the long-term.  According to Mayo Clinic Staff, the main usage for PEDs is to enhance the testosterone production in the body.  When more testosterone is produced, the faster, stronger etc. the body can become.

Although testosterone is a hormone, the imbalance of the amount of testosterone in the body can have damaging effects when prolonged.  According to the Mayo clinic, the athletes work out harder and stronger and recover quicker from workouts so the athlete’s experiences less damage during a session.

Clearly with any hormone there are advantages and medical reasons that something could be taken.  Doctors prescribe hormone treatments to treat many ailments, however if a person is an athlete and their levels are increased, they will have consequences to pay when caught.

Eric Walter

 

Reference:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/performance-enhancing-drugs/art-20046134

The essential basis of being an athlete is the idea that one is capable of taking care of and training your body to perform at a higher level than your competitors. A formula for success would typically involve being healthier than those you’re competing against: whether it be mentally, physically or both. The “unfair” playing field that performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) creates, however, is an issue that sports has essentially been facing forever. The irony here is the fact that, while PEDs can alter the bodies state to a point where one is physically superior to their competitors, the risks associated with many of these drugs is not only unhealthy, but life threatening.

The use of PEDs like anabolic steroids and stimulants are nothing new for the sporting world and the “benefits” of these drugs are no secret to athletes. Steroids build muscles and improve athletic performance. Stimulants increase focus, endurance, and speed. Each of these, however, presents the risk of serious detriment to ones health. These PEDs are capable of increasing the risk for high blood pressure, an enlarged heart, irregular heart rate, heart attack, stroke, dangerously high body temperatures, and intense anger or paranoia.

These drugs may enhance their performance at the time but speeding up the process in which your body recovers would in turn alter the process in which your body normally functions to recover. This would effect ones body later on in life as well as make these athletes addicted to the results they were getting rather than concerning themselves with their health. While many of the athletes that decide to use these drugs are perceived to be top notch athletes who represent the ideal form of health, they are instead trading the temporary benefits of PEDs for the risk of lifelong impacts on their body’s health and function.

 

• Jacob Groat

Young kids today appear to be highly influenced by professional athletes in many ways.  According to Psychology Today a Role Model is defined as “a person whose behavior, example or success is or can be emulated by others, especially younger people”.   There are many amazing athletes with amazing athletic ability.  When so many people are watching and imitating what an athlete is doing, the pressure to do more and “be better” is intense.

While there are many athletes that do positive things for the communities they participate in, unfortunately it is the athlete with unusual behavior that gets put into the spotlight.  Tantrums and fights make news quickly and drama heavy.  Trash-talking each other to make headlines isn’t uncommon.  A parent has to decide exactly what characteristics are important for their child to see and emulate.  Before buying the latest jersey or sporting gear, maybe research about the character of that athlete and decide if that is what your child should look up to.

Fans put these athletes on huge pedestals and expect them to react a certain way and when they don’t they get angry or disappointed.  If the athlete can continue to perform the way they need, they get tempted to “short cut” training and look at possibly using illegal substances to improve their performance.   Unrealistic timelines, performance or expectations require the athletes to look into unrealistic assistance that they may not have otherwise pursued.

There are many athletes doing really good things.  One example that comes to mind is JJ Watt.  He gives back to communities in many ways when tragedy strikes.  He has given money to school shooting victims, flood victims and hurricane victims.  These gifts are usually given to people who are victims of some form of tragedy and in dire need of the money.  Compassion is a terrific characteristic to admire.   I agree with the statement made by Frank L Smoll when he states “Athletes ARE role models whether they take on that responsibility or not.

E Walter