Steroids In Sports Essay

1575 Words4 Pages

Steroid use can be traced all the way back to Ancient Greece when they had the original Olympic Games. Some of the athletes were known to ingest animal testicles before their competition, and the testicles had in them what is known as testosterone which is the foundation of all anabolic steroids. I doubt the athletes knew what they were putting into them, but they were on the right track. Who knows who ever thought of the idea to eat animal testicles, but if there is ever an advantage to be had, people will always find a way to have it. So if we really look deep into steroids in sports, it’s been going on for thousands of years and is still big today. The next breakthrough in steroids didn’t come until 1848 when a German man, Arnold Adolph, who removes testes from a bird. What he concluded was that after removing the testes, the bird lost all of its male characteristics common to the species of that bird. This experiment led to a better understanding of the importance of male testicles. His experiment did not really shed light for what was to come of steroids, but it was the first step towards understanding. The next breakthrough in steroids came in 1931 when a German chemist, Adolf Butenandt, found a way to pin point the hormone androstenone, which is another steroid but is found in sweat and urine. Over the next few years’ anabolic steroids really evolved. Many Other breakthroughs in anabolic steroids came between then and now which help us understand them better and many other things. While understanding steroids might sound all good and dandy, at the same time they were being used in bad ways. After word got out about the effects of steroids, athletes everywhere started to use them. By 1967, anabolic steroids were already ... ... middle of paper ... ... Major League Baseball. (Steroids in Professional Sports, Working Group 11) This quote specifically shows how sports how sports can be terribly affected by steroids. Baseball was just one of the biggest sports to get hit by steroids. Other sports like football, soccer, and mixed martial arts have all encountered problems with steroids. Baseball is just the biggest sport to be picked on because the MLB has more rules on steroids and cracks down harder on players who use them. The NFL (National Football League) also has had issues with anabolic steroids. “In American football, the issue is not as much shattering records but surviving. The human body is not designed to be 300 pounds, seven feet and agile as a cat. The sheer magnitude of abuse and pain football players put their bodies through is unfathomable” (Steroids in Professional Sports, Working Group 11).

Show More
Related

  • Anabolic Steroid Use in Professional Sports

    1264 Words  | 3 Pages

    Anabolic steroids have become an epidemic amongst athletes since the 1950's when a Swiss company by the name of Ciba Pharmaceuticals introduced what was to become the most popular anabolic drug for athletes called methandrostenolone. “By this time, the era of the steroid athlete was well underway and world records were being shattered and re-shattered with remarkable regularity.” (Oklobdzija & Weyrauch, 1989, para 3) From then on, there have been many cases throughout professional sports where athletes are reported or caught using anabolic steroids.

    Read More

  • Informative Speech: Anabolic Steroids

    1462 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to the reference text anabolic steroids in sport and exercise 2000, Experimentation with synthetic steroids on animals and castrate men began as early as 1911, and by 1935, the hormone testosterone had been isolated, chemically characterized, and the basic nature of its anabolic effects had become clear. It was shortly here after that oral and injectable preparations were made available ...

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Steroids In Baseball

    1738 Words  | 4 Pages

    “We have to make some radical move to get the attention of everyone. Cheaters can 't win and steroids has put us in the position that it 's OK to cheat” (“Steroids Quotes”). Unfortunately, baseball has been plagued with the assistance of performance enhancing drugs to lengthen players careers, to boost statistics, and create an extraordinary ballplayer out of an average player. Contrary to the steroid abusers’ beliefs, steroids are not positively influencing any aspect of their game or personal life. The credibility and dignity of baseball has decreased due to performance enhancing drugs, which is not only cheating, but it also leads into a even

    Read More

  • Anabolic Steroid Use by Athletes

    3175 Words  | 7 Pages

    Steroids are used as much in sports now as they have ever been in the past, even with stricter testing and knowledge of the harmful side effects. Olympians are especially prone to use these drugs because of the great pressure put on these athletes, but it is becoming wide spread through all sports. For the most part, the athletes get away with steroid use because of new technologies and using patterns which make the steroids undetectable to the tests.

    Read More

  • Steroids in Major League Baseball

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    Testosterone use goes back as far as 1889. Pud Galvin, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys used a testosterone hormone derived from animals. The first hormones came from mostly pigs and dogs. “Even Babe Ruth, a legendary New York Yankee, tried to inject himself with extract from sheep testicles in 1925.” (Joshua Z.) The use of steroids was not common until the 1970’s. It was estimated that every team had at least six to seven players using. It was the 80’s when Anabolic steroids blew up the market. Anyone from future Hall of Famers to new up and comers were using amphetamines. The use of amphetamines as stimulants became very common and was a problem for the game which began raising suspicion. “By the 1990’s, steroids had become an epidemic.”(Joshua Z.) In a spend of three years, three players including San Francisco Giants Barry Bonds, St. Louis Cardinals Mark McGwire and Chicago Cubs Sammy Sosa hit sixty homeruns a joined seven times. Before that from 1927-1998, only Babe Ruth and Roger Maris had hit more than sixty homeruns in a season. It’s only a coincidence those three players have steroids in common.

    Read More

  • Athletes, Performance-Enhancing Drugs and Anabolic Steroids

    2477 Words  | 5 Pages

    There are many types of steroids abused by athletes in order to increase their muscle mass and strength. Though steroids have a negative reputation, there are some that can be beneficial to athletes and certain patients. There are types of steroids called corticosteroids that have more medical uses to them and another type called anabolic-androgenic steroids that have a more limited medical use. The anabolic-androgenic are usually the steroids that are being abused by athletes (Bigelow, par.10). The use of steroids goes back to the end of World War II around the 1940’s. Doctors were giving the freed prisoners from the Nazi concentration camps that were at risk of death anabolic-androgenic steroids to help gain back their muscle mass and weight faster. From this knowledge, steroids began to be used by body builders and athletes to get more fit than they already were. It is believed that the abuse of the steroids started in the late 1940’s by weight lifters and bodybuilders, and by the 1950’s, it was spread to the Olympics (Bigelow, par.11). Any type of steroid should not be used if they are only going to be abused by being used in large doses with the intentions of increasing lean muscle mass and strength (Bigelow, par.11). After years of abuse of anabolic-androgenic steroids in the Olympics they were added to the list of banned substances and random testing of athletes were announced to start taking place (Bigelow, par.35).

    Read More

  • Effects Of Anobolic Steroids

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    Anabolic steroids are a group of muscle building chemicals, which are synthetic versions of the male hormone, testosterone. Developed in the 1930’s, they were prescribed to aid in muscle tissue repair by those who had undergone surgery or had degenerative diseases. Now the patients do not only use them but also athletes. Starting in the 1940’s steroids were introduced into sports. Steroids were one of the main reasons that Russia’s 1952 Olympic weightlifting team came out with pile of medals. With these results other nations thought their competitors should have the same advantage, and the use of steroids spread like wildfire.(NIDA pg 2) But now steroids are illegal to use if not prescribed by a physician, and have been banned by nearly all-athletic organizations, both professional and amateur.

    Read More

  • Steroids in Sports

    2035 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Effects of Anabolic Steroids

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    Steroids (anabolic) are a drug that was discovered and made by medical scientists in the last 1930’s to help with medical problems. The drug was made to help with many medical problems such as testosterone, growth, sexual functioning, and other medical problems such as helping people with HIV to help grow musical. It also helps with many other diseases. Like any other drug on the market people learn that the drug can be used for many other ways. Steroids can enhance athlete’s performance as well as bodybuilders and is used in almost every sport out there. The use of steroids has become a widespread problem. Steroid use has caused many help problems with the misuse of the drug and has caused the drug to be illegal for people to use them in any kind of sport. Steroids are only prescribed for people that need them for medical problems only.

    Read More

  • The Future of Steroids in Sports

    966 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many controversies today on what should be allowed in sports. Many people have many different opinions about those controversies. The most important controversy would be whether or not steroids should be allowed in the sporting world. All sports have included tests that are mandatory for all players to participate in randomly whenever they are approached. The side effects of performance enhancing drugs are very serious and should never be ignored. As long as with the boost in performance that players experience when they use these medications also. The sport would never be the same and they would have to deal with a significant number of extra problems with the players and their health. Steroids make people perform way past human expectations, suffer from severe health problems that come from Side effects, and the sport will permanently be effected and therefore should not be allowed to be used.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first reason why I think that steroids should not be allowed in professional sports is because it can be very dangerous to the athlete’s health. Athlete’s that use steroids are more likely to have heart attacks, liver cancer and have high levels of “bad” cholesterol. The use of anabolic steroids can weaken the immune system.1 This shows that athletes are not going up or down. At the same time they are working hard and maintaining their healthy body they are also risking their lives. The athlete worked hard their whole life to maintain their health and body and when they take steroids they are putting all the hard work to waste. “As part of a 2010 NIDA-funded study, teens were asked if they ever tried steroids-even once. Only 1.1% of 8th graders, 1.6% of 10th graders, and 2.0% of 12th graders ever tried steroids.”2 This statistic shows that as a person gets older they are more likely to try steroids. Furthermore it also shows that at a very young age some people begin to try steroids and start risking...

    Read More

  • Steroids Essay

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    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

  • Argumentative Essay On Steroids In Baseball

    829 Words  | 2 Pages

    Steroids where originally made back in World War I as an aid for soldiers who suffered from any sort of weaknesses to being stronger. Steroids have been a known substance for increased performance in anything physical for the past 100 years now. Steroids have been looked upon and even banned all the way back in the 1910s in the Olympic games. The Anabolic Steriod Act was passed in 1990 which placed steroids in the same class as other illgal drugs such as amphetamines, methamphetamines, opium and morphine. It was then finally banned in Baseball on June 7, 1991. “Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent said, The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players or personnel is strictly prohibited... This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids” (Farrey). And ever since the banning of steroids, its usage has still been high and everything is done in order to stop it.

    Read More

  • Steroids Essay

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    With all the lights and cameras, of course, athletes want more attention than the others and for them steroids is the answer. Steroids not only affect your body physically, but your brain emotionally and that’s why there is a higher risk than thought when it comes to the decision to use steroids or not. For your body, you are essentially quickening its deterioration and actually weakening it while you are trying to strengthen it. It’s a domino effect of future health problems. From

    Read More

More about Steroids In Sports Essay

Open Document