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11/17/09
Anabolic steroids are known to enhance athletes’ performance. Since the 1960s, sports men and women have been using the drug to outdo their rivals. It started in the early sixties after an American medical practitioner gave anabolic steroids to some three body builders cum weight lifters who miraculously become world champions and broke records in weight lifting.
East Germany however was notorious for imposing anabolic steroids to its athletes sometimes without their knowledge and permission. Most notable of these cases of steroid over dosage came from female athletes in East Germany. The girls were given up to ten times more testosterone than their bodies produce in a day. These adolescent girls soon started developing masculine physiques and their voices broke.
But what made the situation raise concern were the more adverse complications such as depression, internal bleeding, inexplicable tumors, liver dysfunction and incidents of deformed babies. This attracted more research into the use of anabolic steroids by athletes. In the short races or sprints, the difference between the competing athletes is usually mill-seconds. So many sprinters enhance their performance using steroids in very small amounts over a period of time, such that when they have gained enough experience they can easily win the races.
Several sprinters have been stripped off their medals after it had been discovered long after the event that they are under performance improving steroids. Examples include Ben Johnson who was stripped off his 1988 Seoul Olympic gold medal in the one hundred meters. Most recently we have Marion Jones who was a double gold medalist in the 200 Olympics but had to be disqualified a few years later after confessing to using the drugs. Tough measures were put into place to ensure cases of cheating using steroids don’t occur again.
But with the sporting world becoming more competitive trainers no longer had to force the athletes to use steroids, the athletes willingly sought after the performance enhancing steroid even without the knowledge of their trainers and coaches. But with the people becoming more knowledgeable on the side effects of the steroids, athletes now take the drugs in reasonable doses which are sometimes even hard to detect during testing.
Intensive occur only when an athlete is suspected to have taken the steroids due to his/her exemplary performance. Actually the steroids do not miraculously increase ones performance per se, what they do is to makes it possible for the athlete to train harder and hence improve his/her performance. It is not a magical potion that makes one run like a bullet even without having to train.
For instance a football striker who is aging can take the drugs to enable him run long distances without being exhausted quickly and so it will enable him run for long balls but will never help him to score more goals. From the natural niche that has formed our natural environment. The world today has lacked that element that can be equaled to steroids, from the physiological dimension to common usage.
