Honestly when I heard of YLI and signed up to go I was thinking 'what am I getting
myself into?' 'I can't believe I paid good money to go to a boring leadership camp. I won't learn
anything that I don't already know.' I can't tell you how wrong I was with those initial thoughts.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that during those 5 days I learned from some very
special people how to become a great leader and a great person, and I was also taught an
essential concept that I will use throughout my life: the Rotary Club 4- Way Test.
Picture this: you are going into your sophomore or junior year of high school. You love
soccer and it has been your favorite sport since you were a little kid. The fall season has just
ended and you are at the final meeting of the season. Your coach calls you over; he wants to talk
to you. He tells you that you need to start taking steroids. He says it will help out the team and
it will help you get a starting spot on the varsity team. As he says this, there is an implicit
meaning in his words that, if you do not agree, there won't be a place on the team for you next
year.
What should you do? What can you do? Do you go along with him, or tell him you
won't do it? This is where your true character is revealed. It's times like these when the rotary
club 4-way test comes in very handy. To use the 4-way test in this situation ask yourself, 'Is it
truth?' In this case it is not truth because steroids are illegal. 'Is it fair to all concerned?' Taking
steroids is definitely not fair. It is not fair to your other teammates trying out for the team and it
is not fair to the teams you play because you have an unfair advantage. 'Is it beneficial to all?'
No, it is not, because steroids can be harmful to you and to those who are close to you. 'Will it
build goodwill and better friendships?' There is no way steroids will build better friendships. In
fact, the side effects will do the opposite. They will hurt those around you. It's a tough decision
to make, but if you take the time to ask yourself these questions you will realize the right course
of action.
We all know that YLI is about
Many baseball athletes believe steroids will give them an edge on the game by making themselves stronger. This is true in the respect that it makes the athlete stronger and more superior but they also cause more problems then they solve.
Those who believe the use of anabolic steroids should be allowed in professional sports have numerous arguments for those in opposition. Professional sports leagues have tried to stop the use of steroids by drug testing players and punishing those who do not pass. A number of major athletes, such as Lance Armstrong, have been stripped of their athletic accolades due to discoveries of drug use. Despite witnessing the fall of great competitors due to “doping,” people continue to use. Because of unsuccessful attempts at banning the drug, many people believe “it may be time to head in the other direction: legalize performance enhancers” (Smith 1). No matter how many rules and regulations are made against the use of steroids, athletes will continue to abuse the drug in order to get ...
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...
First I will examine the dangers of steroid abuse. Steroids effects the body in many ways. First off it has physiological dangers. Steroids affects your mind and the way you think. It changes your behavior and can make you do or say things that you normally would not do if not on steroids. It also has gonad effects. Yes, gonad effects. I feel no need to elaborate on that at all. Athletes may also experience skeletal and/or muscular injury. Steroids also make your cholesterol and protein levels fluctuate up and down when you are on steroids. It can be very dangerous to have unstable cholesterol and protein levels. Steroids also do many different things to your heart. One, for example, is hypertension (high blood pressure). Steroids can also result in many different liver problems. Steroids also play a part in your psychiatric views. Many athletes noticed themselves being stressed or very aggressive towards things that they were usually not stressed or aggressive towards (Dangers of Steroid Abuse).
Americans today tend to believe that there are only a select few in sports who are users of steroids. However, according to Julian Savulescu, "20.3% of professional athletes said they have tried drugs or steroids to improve their performance in the game" (3). At this high percentage, about one in five athletes are considered "cheaters". Jacob Beck believes that "using steroids is not cheating if a whole generation of the best and most promising athletes have been doing it" (5). There is no reason to continue trying to catch steroid users when so many athletes take them. All major league sports are filled with steroid use to some extent. It is impossible to have a perfectly "clean" sport without eliminating a good percentage of its players. Since steroids already have a major presence in major league sports and there is no way to ever completely get rid of them, steroid use should be legalized. By legalizing steroids, athletes would no longer have to worry about unsafe or risky suppliers; with prescriptions from doctors, steroids would be safe for the athletes, and users would be less likely to abuse them. Also, the playing fields for all sports would be more equal than they have ever been in a long time. By creating an equal playing field, sport records would be more meaningful and there would be much fewer arguments for cheating or an unfair record. With an increase in muscle strength, there would be fewer injuries and more quality performances, which would make fans more inclined to go to a game knowing there was going to be a great display of strength and athleticism.
We all have seen a bodybuilders physic, whether it was in a magazine, the media, or in the gym. As we despise their freakish look we still wish that we had a body like them. But the reason we don’t look like that is because we know that the long term effects of steroids in will damage our bodies. Steroids have been a common use throughout human history since 1889. The fact that it’s illegal doesn’t seem to bother many users. Generations today are more reliant on this drug for various reasons, without realizing the consequences and long term effects that can result. Steroids are a way of cheating to reach your goals. Steroids are addictive, and over a short period of time they destroy the liver as well as the kidneys, affect personalities, and cause hormonal imbalances. Steroids present a higher risk than the person may understand due to their wide spread availability, and pressures to look perfect.
Have you ever imagined a game played with rules that were adjusted to one of the player’s likings and style and how unfair that would be to the other players? Alex Rodriguez was recently suspended for the entire 2014 season over accusations of taking performance enhancing drugs and having ties with the biogenesis clinic. Steroids have marked a low point in time for sport’s reputations as the steroid phenomenon carries on. Performance-enhancing drugs include any substance taken to perform better athletically. This term is referenced often and typically refers to steroid use in sports by professional athletes. Steroids are taken by swallowing or injecting into the muscle. Users take steroids on a schedule known as a cycle, in which they "stack" or "pyramid" their doses. Doctors may prescribe steroids to patients for legitimate medical purposes such as: loss of function of testicles, low red blood cell count, delayed puberty and debilitated states resulting from surgery or sickness. However, today athletes will go to many lengths to increase athletic ability, including: steroids, HGH, Amphetamines, and even animal or human organs. “The most common illegal source is from smuggling steroids steroid’s into the United States from the countries such as Mexico and European countries. Smuggling is easier because a prescription is not required for purchase of steroids”(Anabolic Steroids). Although steroid use has several great pros that make it seem like an excellent supplement to one's exercise routine, they also have some very serious side effects. For one, there are a great many psychiatric consequences involved in taking steroids. Many individuals report severe depression during and after stopping use (Chiras, 2005). ...
It is not a secret that some athletes use steroids to take short cuts or to go above their body’s natural limit on muscle mass. Since people that are trained by personal trainers, the public assumes that the trainer influence their customers to take steroids and chose not to tell them about the horrible and disgusting long term side effects steroids cause to the human body. I interviewed my friend James who works as a personal trainer at a local gym in Madera. The question was if it was true that personal trainers tell their customers to use steroids when they are at a point where their bodies can not grow no more muscle and cannot lose fat. His response was, “ I have never even thought of telling any of my clients to use steroids. If anything I have done the complete opposite of that! I tell them about the huge risks of taking steroids can do to their bodies and try to change their minds if they are planning to take any kind of steroid.” His response was not unexpected because he takes his job very serious and he always tells people that he wants what's best for them. Everyone should stop blaming trainers for the choices of athletes whether or not they chose to use steroids because it is not up to the trainer if the athlete is going to use body enhancing drugs because it is up to the
My issue over the concern of athletes have been struggling with the usage of steroids has widely spread among athletes and others; not only do steroids give an athlete a hard times but it’s also an unfair advantage to the other athletes and what they’ve accomplish. “Besides making muscles bigger, anabolic steroids may help athletes recover from a hard workout more quickly by reducing the amount of muscle damage during the session” (“Steroids in Sports”,2005). Now a days steroids are everywhere as an athlete. Many males and female young athletes preferably take it because they want to look and feel good when it comes to impressing someone and trying to become someone they look forward too. Young teens and adults try to cheat themselves in the career of their dreams. When it comes to a sport, teen athletes are not aware of what type of consequences may happen to them at the time. It may come to the time where it’s too late to take care of. In other cases, some athletes may like feeling the aggressive they get when they take drugs such as steroids. Athletes shouldn’t take steroids as the harmful health effects of the anabolic steroid in population wise. Many people have had their lives ruined by the use of illegal steroids and yet the desired effects are overwhelming that people tend to forget about the results and consequences that may effect. Athletes on steroids believe taking steroids will enhance their performance, strength, and size without having to put necessary work. These benefits, however, are associated with much short-term and long term risk.
In these following articles “We, the Public, Place the Best Athletes on Pedestals”by William Moller, and “Cheating and CHEATING” by Joe Posnanski, I found time to consider the use of steroids in baseball for the first time. In these essays, Moller and Posnanski tapped into the running commentary about performance enhancing substances and their relative acceptability in the baseball arena. “We, the Public, Place the Best Athletes on Pedestals declare that the entire steroid outcry is pure hypocrisy” [Moller, p.548], while Posnanski challenged “baseball in Willie Mays’s time, like baseball in every time, was rife with cheating and racism and alcoholism and small-mindedness” [Posnanski, p.556]. Both pieces seemed in agreement that substance use in baseball is typical, and I find it hard to believe otherwise, except in obvious rebuttal of the facts. But this line of thinking extends out into a more global conversation about when it is acceptable to use drugs, and when it is not. Rather than arguing the morality of drug use or the ethics of improvement, feel the greater issue ...
If being honest, ethical and trustworthy comes into question when it comes to playing a competitive sport, what is the point of playing that sport when all fairness is in jeopardy? Playing any sport on a professional level is a privilege and must be held with the upmost respect of the rules and regulations. And if this cannot be done or accomplished, then we should all feel shameful of the athletes and those in the sports that allow them to play.
The truth is that steroids are prescribed by doctors to patients with many health problems. They key use for steroids is for the use of steroids is to replenish testosterone and develop muscle. Testosterone is the male hormone that aids sexual development and controls virilizing characteristics (Connolly 55). If steroids were bad, why would doctors prescribe them to patients? “They have been tested successfully as a male contraceptive, and they are used routinely to fight the wasting associated with HIV and AIDS” (Yesalis and Cowart 6). From the late 1930’s until the mid 1980’s anabolic steroids was used to treat mood and mental disorders because the drug increases mental alertness, mood elevation, improves memory, and concentration. Also anabolic steroids show similar brain activity to those with amphetamines and tricyclic anti depressants (58). Many people do not understand the use of the drug, how they work, or why people would want to use them, so therefore many people have false thoughts and judgments of the drug. “Steroids are misunderstood because most users abuse the drug, are not mentally prepared, do not live a healthy lifestyle while on the drug, or a person does not know anything about steroids other than that they are illegal o...
With the concern of becoming bigger and stronger rising among athletes, the focus of the game has drifted out of sight. It is almost as if it is more important to be bigger rather than better than the other team. As more and more athletes use the muscle enhancing drugs and other forms of steroids, the athlete's performance and health comes into question.
Steroids are being used more commonly today in normal people's lives. They are also being used so athletes can become stronger, but they have many consequences that follow the advantages. Most people believe that steroids are a false measurement of an athletes ability, and others believe that steroids are good because athletes can become stronger and make their sports more exciting to watch. This is a very important issue today because athletes today are using steroids to gain an unfair advantage over the other athletes.
Steroids became an option to athletes in the Olympics and other major sporting events during the 1950’s. But this use of steroids among athletes only became widely apparent when Canadian sprint runner Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use after winning the gold medal for the one hundred-meter dash during the 1988 Olympics (Francis, 45). Now a skinny fifteen-year-old can just walk down to the local gym and find people who either sell or know how to get in contact with those who sell the drug that will make him envious of his friends. Steroids are an attractive drug. While steroids seem harmless to the unaware user, they can have a risky effect. Most of the time whether the users are new or experienced, they do not know the dangerous consequences steroids can have on their bodies and their minds. Though steroids cause a relatively insignificant number of deaths in our society, the banning of steroids is justified because steroids have a lot of side effects not known to the uninformed user.