Enhancement Drugs influence the career of professional athletes

1099 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: doping in sports edday

Will we be able to barricade ‘Doping’ from intoxicating the world of sports? The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) states that the term doping comes from the Africans word ‘dop,’ a concoction made from grape leaves that Zulu warriors drank before going into battle (as sited in Maxwell, & Melham, 2005, p.1). Today, many athletes worldwide have been found guilty of breaching the Anti Doping Act. Over the years, there has been an increase in the number of drug offenders in sports, as the need to win becomes priority and dope is relayed from athlete to athlete, directly and indirectly. Though not used by all, it is imperative for sports personnel to be educated and be made aware of the health issues such as cardiovascular disease and legal ramifications associated with the use of Performance Enhancement Drugs. The use of performance enhancing drugs improves the athletes’ performance; however, it may endanger the body’s natural mechanism. The body is an organism that is able to carry out its optimal function by how it is treated through the lifestyle, whether sedentary or active, nutritional habits, exercise and hygienic habits of the individual. These are altered by the use of drugs. Many athletes are oblivious to the reality of the grave effects of doping on the body and put themselves at risk for acquiring many potential illnesses, for example, “cardiovascular and liver disease, infertility in males and females and emotional instability – depression” (Maxwell et al., 2005). These reactions may be evident after prolonged use of drugs as athletes may become dependent. In contrast, enhancement drugs may “increase the athletes strength, speed, appetite and reduce fatigue” (Arnheim, & Prentice, 2002). These advantages add to the overwhelm... ... middle of paper ... ..., this would lead to chaos, indiscipline, a breakdown in social order and a failure in the ethics of sports. The World Anti doping Agency has joined with the medical team in order to maintain and monitor the standards deemed appropriate by the Anti doping Agencies, to promote healthy sportsmanship for all competitors. Works Cited Arnheim D, & Prentice W, Essentials of Athletic Training (2002) 5th Ed. Chapter 23, pp518-519. New York. Levy L. (2011). Steve Mullings Tested Positive, The Gleaner, pp1. Sec B. Maxwell J, & Mehlman J.D, (2005) Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports: http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com Retrieved: March 2, 2012 Sommerville S, lewis M. (2005) Accidental breaches of the doping regulations in sports: Is there a need to improve the education of sports people: Sports Med, British Journal of Sports Medicine; 39:512-516, doi: 10.1136

Show More
Related

  • Professional Athletes: The End of "Roid Rage"

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    Professional athletes, throughout history, have been exalted for their outstanding abilities and achievements in sports. Unfortunately, many athletes have turned to anabolic steroids in order to give them an edge, a boost their athletic performance. Starting with the 1954 World Weightlifting Championships, where the Soviets unexpectedly dominated their lifting classes with the use of steroids, it has become increasingly popular among athletes to cheat with the help of this drug. Although the appeal to steroid use is evident when observing how it increases someone’s athletic abilities, many users fail to consider the detrimental side effects of the drug. Also, in my opinion, athletes should be expected to perform based upon their natural abilities, opposed to abilities enhanced by anabolic steroids. Ultimately, anabolic steroids should continue to be illegal in professional sports due to their major health risks and the unfair advantage they serve players.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis: “The Real Scandal”

    1369 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the opening points of the article acknowledges the health and safety repercussions of taking performance-enhancing drugs. The authors include this information to inform readers of the severity of the drugs involved and the situation as a whole. For example, in 1997 cyclist Erwan Mentheour tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO), which, “increases the number of red cells in the blood and thus an athlete’s endurance” (Begley and Brant 1). This initially sounds fairly harmless until the authors later explain that the drug “can turn blood the consistency of yogurt” and that “EPO has apparently killed at least 18 Dutch and Belgian cyclists since 1987” (4). Th...

    Read More

  • Tour de France Drug Abuse

    4753 Words  | 10 Pages

    MacAuley, Domhnall. “Drugs in Sport.” BMJ: British Medical Journal, 313.7051, 7/27/96, 211. Online. EBSCOhost. 16 Nov. 1999. http://www.EBSCOhost.com.

    Read More

  • Andrew Sullivan's Article on Drugs in Sports

    935 Words  | 2 Pages

    The use of illegal substances in sports is a trendy topic in today’s society. In the last few years a copious amount of players have been under the spotlight of substance abuse, which led to a punishment for their actions. Andrew Sullivan wrote an article in the year 2004 called “In a Drugged-up Nation, the Steroid Sports Star is King”, in which he illustrates how these “pharmaceuticals” have revolutionized sports around the world but mostly in America. These drugs have had a large influence in the overall performance of the players, even if it the use of drugs is “often denied or simply overlooked”(Sullivan 1), it will lead to a lack of judgment in what is right and what is wrong.

    Read More

  • Should Athletes Use Anabolic Steroids

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    Athletes put their lives in danger by using performance enhancement drugs. They use these drugs to gain physical advantages for their sporting events. These methods have been around for thousands of years. According to research, “In ancient Greece, Olympic athletes would ingest huge portions of meat that contained testosterone and creatine before they competed. They would also consume large quantities of alcoholic beverages and lamb testicles” (“Steroids”). Today, sportspersons have a drug policy due to health hazards, violence and incapability’s of normal performances. From lamb chops to steroids, many athletes are willing to destroy their bodies to become “popular” legends.

    Read More

  • Effects Of Anobolic Steroids

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    You’ve all seen them, the enormously large muscle-heads at the gym, the participates of the World’s Strongest Man Competition, the amazing offensive tackles, and the lightning fast runners. They were all unnaturally strong, and looked like gods. You tend to obsess over how beautiful their bodies are, how strong they are, or how fast they can run. All you can think about is reaching that level of athletic excellence, and nothing will hold you back. At times like these some people tend to take the quick fit to get closer to their idols, in the form of steroids. But what individuals tend not see is the horrible side effects that accompany the use of these anabolic steroids. These powerful drugs have both positive and negative results from their use. Along with increased strength and size, users of steroids suffer from a wide range of sicknesses such as cancer, shrinkage of testicles, bad acne, hair loss, damage organs, intense mood swings, and impotence.

    Read More

  • Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports

    4514 Words  | 10 Pages

    Abstract:  Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always looked for some kind of an 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.  Shortly thereafter, the rest of the sports world did not allow anabolic steroids as well.  With the use of steroids no longer permitted athletes began to look for other alternatives.  On the rise is two substances called creatine and androstenedione, both of which are sold over the counter. These two performance enhancers have only had minimal testing done on them, excluding the long-term effects, simply because they haven't been around long enough.  Creatine and androstenedione have been said to produce results like steroids without the side effects.  The truth is they do produce side effects and irregular muscle growth. By banning the use of performance enhancing drugs, just like steroids, sports competition will have a much healthier and fairer environment to participate in.

    Read More

  • Performance Enhancing Drugs in Professional Sports

    2029 Words  | 5 Pages

    It is NFL Sunday and you are ready to see some of your favorite athletes to go head to head on the grid iron. However, you notice something a little different your favorite athlete seems to be more aggressive and his body has changed substantially. That famous athlete that you know and adore was caught for taking performance enhancing drugs that was the reasoning for your unanswered questions about his odd transformations. Bigger, better, stronger each professional athlete tries to achieve that when they are preparing to compete in their sport, but there are some that get a little help to be better, bigger, and stronger. These athletes use performance enhancing drugs; performance enhancing drugs are a man-made or synthetic version of testosterone. Someone who takes the performance enhancing drug illegally will likely gain weight muscle and get stronger. The athletes will love the result they are getting from taking the performance enhancing drugs and would want more and that is when this synthetic drug can become harmful. The performance enhancing drugs can cause many major side effects and the most severe is death. That is why athletes should think twice about taking performance enhancing drugs because strength, endurance, and energy is not worth all the side effects that come with taking the illegal substance. The athletes who risk their lives just to be better at their sport is not beneficial in the long run.

    Read More

  • Testing for Drugs In The Olympics

    1511 Words  | 4 Pages

    Back in 1904, American Thomas Hicks won the marathon fuelled by a combination of brandy and strychnine, a nerve stimulant (Corelli, par. 1).  Soviet weight lifters of the 1950's discovered the benefits of steroids (Cowley and Brant, par. 4).  The 1956 hammer-throw champion admitted to taking muscle-building steroids for the previous eight years (Corelli, par. 1).  But when an autopsy found amphetamines in the blood of Danish cyclist Knut Enemark Jensen when he fell and fractured his skull, the I.O.C. had seen enough of drugs in sports.

    Read More

  • Steroid Use By Athletes Should be Banned

    2039 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Steroids Essay

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    Anabolic Steroids or simply put, “Steroids”, is a medicine which has become increasingly popular in the last few decades, specifically in the world of professional sports and body building. In a literal term, the word anabolic means building of the body muscle and by using anabolic steroids, the potential user becomes stronger, sharper, larger and tougher than he would normally be. The consequences of these steroids could be much bigger to a human body and the usage of such illegal products could put an individual’s body at great risk (Haupt & Rovere, 1983).

    Read More

  • Performance Enhancing Drugs In Sports

    1571 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are many side affects for athletes using PEDs. These affects often are not immediate as players in the past have not seen any issues till well after they have retired from the sport. These athletes are well aware of the consequences they face when using drugs, but for a career and payday that will be remembered in history it is all...

    Read More

  • Essay On Performance Enhancing Drugs

    1230 Words  | 3 Pages

    Performance enhancing drugs are known to cause numerous diseases such as tumors, cancer, and can cause fertility problems. There are numerous cases of players dying or ruining their careers because they have gotten caught up in getting bigger and taking these drugs For instance in professional wrestling alone, 28 people have died because of PED’s (All of these people are died younger than 45 years old.) (wrestlinginc.com, 2010). There are hundreds of known PED’s. The most commonly used drug is steroids which gives you an increased risk of heart and liver disease. Players use this drug because it makes you have better endurance, it makes your blood flow faster and it makes you stronger. Another popular PED is Human Growth Hormone. This drug has been and still ...

    Read More

  • Athletes And Drug Use

    1679 Words  | 4 Pages

    Today, drug use in sport has reached enormous proportions in society and is destroying athletics from the ground up. Nowhere is the problem more serious than in professional athletics, where athletes, coaches and trainers misuse drugs in search of ways of ways to improve performance. Many athletes fail to take their time when making the decision whether to use drugs to their advantage. Unfortunately athletes may use drugs for therapeutic indications, recreatio9nal or social reasons, as muscular aids or to mask the presence of other drugs during drug testing. But the safety of the athlete's health is being neglected. Drug use has led to an increased number of deaths and suspensions of athletes. Also, if this continues all athletes someday will have to choose whether to compete at a world-class level and take drugs, or compete at a club level and be clean. In sports, athletes, coaches and trainers will try their best to find a way to reach the top level. They not only search for a way to enhance performance...

    Read More

  • Doping, Athletes and Sports

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

More about Enhancement Drugs influence the career of professional athletes

Open Document