StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
In the paper “Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs,” the author discusses a major concern in the sports that have been around for a long time – the use of anabolic steroids by athletes. Especially troubling is the increase in the use of drugs by younger athletes…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER93.5% of users find it useful
Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs"

Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs A major concern in the sports that has been around for a long time now is the use of anabolic steroids by athletes. Especially troubling is the increase in use of performance enhancing drugs by younger athletes. Young people look at athletes as if they are their supermen or people with special powers rather than normal human beings. “Physician-guided education is vital to the creation of an effective intervention program” (Cheatham et al., 2008). The most common performance enhancing drugs are Creatine, Anablic steroids, and Steroid precursors (Mayo Clinic, 2010).

Creatine is a compound that occurs in the body naturally and also is sold as a supplement. The major use of Creatine is to enhance the recovery post workout and expand the muscles’ volume. Athletes playing football, hockey, and gymnastics commonly use Creatine. Side effects of taking Creatine include nausea, kidney damage, and weight gain. Anabolic steroids are hormone testosterone’s synthetic version (Helmenstine, 2013). Anabolic steroids are used to increase muscle strength and build muscles.

Weightlifters and football players commonly take Anabolic steroids. They use can cause damage to liver and heart, halt growth of bones, and cause permanent shortage in the body stature. Steroid precursors are substances that are converted into anabolic steroids by the body. Their effect is increased mass of the muscles. Although they are generally illegal, yet dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is generally available in preparations over-the-counter. Its side effects are the same as those for other steroids.

In addition to them, different kinds of stimulants, sedatives, and anti-nausea agents are also used to enhance the performance. Marion Jones was the first woman to be the winner of five medals in total during the Sydney Olympic games of 2000. Her titles were stripped off her after her confession about the use of banned substances (Menton, 2011). Roger Clemons who was once considered to be amongst the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball was accused of using anabolic steroids by the Mitchell Report between the late 1990s and the early 2000s.

Lance Armstrong was caught using performance enhancing drugs and he was deprived of his cycling trophies (Bucholz, 2013). People found it hard to believe that someone could even cheat them at a transportation method. Similarly, many other athletes have been caught using the performance enhancement drugs; Barry Bonds, A-Rod, Manny Ramirez, Ben Johnson, Floyd Landis, and Shawne Merriman to name a few. Athletes take the performance enhancing drugs for a variety of reasons. “Most serious athletes will tell you that the competitive drive to win can be fierce” (edition.cnn.com, 2012).

Murray, who is an amateur cyclist shared his reason in these words, “There’s an arms-race quality to performance-enhancing technologies in sport. I could probably do a four-mile climb much better with EPO” (Murray cited in Thompson, 2012). In addition to that, the satisfaction of personal achievement, of winning a medal while they are representing their whole country is one of the major drivers of motivation to take performance enhancing drugs. It is a choice between being an Olympic champion and a self-killer and a professional player playing by the rules and depending on fate (Freudenrich and Allen, 2013).

References:Bucholz, C. (2013, Feb. 24). 6 Performance-Enhancing Drugs More Common Than You Think. The Bucholz Discharge. Retrieved from http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-performance-enhancing-drugs-more-common-than-you-think/. Cheatham, S. A. et al. (2008, Oct.). Performance-Enhancing Drugs and Today’s Athlete: A Growing Concern. Orthopedics. 31(10). Retrieved from http://www.healio.com/orthopedics/sports-medicine/journals/ortho/%7B93d32e5b-a2c8-4c5c-8e0c-d600a3fee2b3%7D/performance-enhancing-drugs-and-todays-athlete-a-growing-concern. edition.cnn.com. (2012, Dec. 12). Performance-enhancing drugs: Know the risks.

Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/performance-enhancing-drugs/HQ01105.html. Freudenrich, C., and Allen, K. P. (2013). How Performance-enhancing Drugs Work. Retrieved from http://www.howstuffworks.com/athletic-drug-test.htm. Helmenstine, A. M. (2013). Anabolic Steroids. Retrieved from http://chemistry.about.com/od/medicalhealth/a/anabolicsteroid.htm. Mayo Clinic. (2010). Performance-enhancing drugs and teen athletes. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/performance-enhancing-drugs/SM00045.Menton, J. (2011, July 25).

Top 10 most shocking athletes caught using performance enhancing drugs. Retrieved from http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ycn-8859875. Thompson, H. (2012, July 18). Performance enhancement: Superhuman athletes. Nature. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/news/performance-enhancement-superhuman-athletes-1.11029.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/social-science/1618197-athletes-and-performance-enhancing-drugs
(Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words)
https://studentshare.org/social-science/1618197-athletes-and-performance-enhancing-drugs.
“Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/social-science/1618197-athletes-and-performance-enhancing-drugs.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Athletes and Performance Enhancing Drugs

Should Performance Enhancing Drugs Be Legalized

performance enhancing drugs should be legalized.... They will just become sophisticated in hiding the use of performance enhancing drugs to avoid detection.... Athletes are very competitive and they will always seek for ways to improve their performance whatever it takes and that includes taking performance enhancing drugs.... This explains why it is virtually impossible to stop the athletes from taking performance enhancing drugs no matter how harsh the penalties would be....
3 Pages (750 words) Essay

Drug Use in Sports

According to the text, it has been an ongoing practice on the part of the governing bodies of athletic regulations to exert extra effort to control the use of performance-enhancing drugs.... Performance-enhancing drugs may come in the form of dietary supplements, prescripted medication, or illegal drugs (Gomez, 2005).... The author of the paper "Drug Use in Sports" focuses on the use of drugs by sportsmen.... hellip; 'Doping' is a term pertaining to the use of illegal athlete performance drugs....
5 Pages (1250 words) Research Paper

Sports Nutrition

performance enhancing drugs may lead to off-field trouble and injury including unusual anger, which could lead to suspension (Shore, 2008).... A Timeline of performance enhancing drugs in Sports.... For a long time now, many people who are engaged… These performance-enhancing drugs include steroids, cretins, androstenedione, erythropoietin, amphetamines, stimulants, peptide hormones, human growth hormones and Sports Nutrition SPORTS NUTRITION This essay is about popular enhancing supplements, whether I would implement the plan for an athlete, the regulations governing the use of these supplements and the way I would counsel an athlete that is using a banned substance....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

What should happen to athletes who use PED'S (performance enhancing drugs) Why

In the field of athletics, the use of performance enhancement drugs has become a controversial issue that has attracted the attention of many experts.... While others feel that all athletes should be banned from the use of PEDs, others say that they should be allowed to use them… History proves that those athletes who have previously used these drugs have by far much outperformed their expectations.... This is a clear indication that the drugs can help to enhance speed and provide better athlete world results....
4 Pages (1000 words) Essay

Athletes Drug Use - Doping and Related Issues in Professional Athletes

In reference to Lowinson (2005), the use of performance enhancing drugs (PED) has a history which dates to as back as 1904.... Restrictions pertaining drug use in sports Covered in the subsequent paragraphs are types of drugs abused by athletes, reasons as to why they abuse drugs, associated effects, policies and punishments and finally, possible solutions to the problem.... This is the main drive behind use of drugs by some athletes, just to ensure that they emerge winners and land their hands on the gold medal for their country while at the same time ensuring personal accomplishment satisfaction....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Why the East Germany Female Athletes of 1970s Should Be Stripped off Their Medals

These athletes were treated as experimental guinea pigs for performance enhancing drugs and were dropped if they were not productive (Kremenik et al, 2007).... Because of their greed for East German's magnificence, they lied to the athletes and eventually led to the deterioration of the health condition of numerous athletes.... The use of drug enhancing substances not only puts the health of the athlete in danger but also risks losing his or her medal....
10 Pages (2500 words) Essay

The Use of Drugs in Sports

If, for example, among all the athletes taking part in a race, one athlete has ingested performance-enhancing drugs while the rest have not, it is obvious that the drug-using athlete has an extremely high chance of winning that race.... Although some athletes, coaches, and trainers support the use of these drugs, parents, sports officials and many others argue that these drugs should not be used due to their harmful effects on athletes and society as a whole....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Doping Is Not Dope

The use of performance enhancing drugs was brought about through the pressure that society puts on athletes to win and perform to their best ability at all times.... This paper "Doping Is Not Dope" is concerned with the issue of performance-enhancing drugs, specifically focusing on the argument against the use of doping amongst athletes.... The use of performance-enhancing drugs may be able to improve an athlete's ability to compete better but there is always life after sports....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us