Why Do Athletes Use Steroids?

Decent Essays
Drugs such as steroids can help enhance the performance of the human body. Some athletes like Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, and Sammy Sosa use or used performance enhancing drugs such as steroids to try to get an edge over the competition. They use steroids to hit the ball farther, lift more, run faster, to jump higher, and to have more stamina. In most countries including the united states, using performance enhancing drugs is extremely illegal. The type of performance enhancing drug that athletes use to build their muscles is a type of steroid called androstenedione. Androstenedione is a type of anabolic steroid that is used by athletes who wish to build their muscles. People that take androstenedione misjudge the effect of what a large amount

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Imagine someone telling you they had a doctor prescribed drug that would increase your brain's capability of functioning, so your test results and knowledge would increase significantly in just weeks. Would you take it? Now imagine yourself struggling in the minor leagues playing baseball and providing too minimal of pay to support your family. Then, someone introduces you to a drug that will increase your fast twitch muscles and allow you to recover faster, hit farther, run faster, and several players in leagues above you are using it as well. Would you take it?…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Over the years, Player Enhancing Drugs have become very popular for many athletes. The risk is high for a higher return. Although there are many other ways to enhance performance, some athletes still tend to lend on these “drugs”. The history of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s) date back to the ancient Greek times (“Drugs and Athletes” Gale).…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They increase power, strength, agility, and speed. Athletes and body builders are able to improve their overall performance with the help of steroids. This gives them an edge over the competition, but it is also for his reason why performance enhancing drugs are banned from sports leagues and competitions. 3. They can give you a bigger and more muscular body.…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There are three main types of steroids: steroids produced naturally by the body in order to fight stress and generate puberty, medicinal steroids prescribed to treat diseases like cancer (Anabolic), and illegal anabolic steroids used by athletes to increase muscle mass and improve performance or appearance (Steroids 1). The official name for steroids is “anabolic- androgenic steroids.” Anabolic refers to muscle building and androgenic refers to male- sex characteristics (Anabolic).“Steroids are a synthetic version of the human hormone called testosterone.” This drug tricks the body into thinking it is producing testosterone, which leads to increased production of muscle mass, but stunts…

    • 1691 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Usage of Steroids Within the NFL and the MLB Steroids and performance enhancement drugs, PEDS, have been banned in the National Football League and in Major League Baseball since the early 1980’s and readjusted in the early 2000’s (Kelley). Players’ know about the stipulations of which exact drugs are allowed and which are banned within their league, but still ten NFL players were banned within the 2015 season for the use of PEDS (Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports Fast Facts). Recently, allegations from outside sources have been leading to many of the suspensions today compared to just the league’s drug testing and busting these athletes. The most recent allegation is against Peyton Manning who is a first ballot Hall of Famer…

    • 1638 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jose Canseco, a Major League Baseball (MLB) player who admitted to the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), once said, “I don 't recommend steroids for everyone, but for certain individuals, I truly believe, because I 've experimented with it for so many years, that it can make an average athlete a super athlete. It can make a super athlete incredible. Just legendary” (Bodley). PEDs promote muscle growth without the fatigue that comes with normal muscle building activities, allowing athletes to work longer, harder, and recover quicker. This is what draws many players in the MLB to performance enhancing drugs, the fact that they allow players to quickly become physical specimens beyond the capacity a normal person could ever achieve.…

    • 1172 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The purpose of performance enhancement drugs is to increase muscle mass, strength, speed, and most importantly bone firmness. With the bettering of bone firmness, athletes will become less prone to injuries and if they do get hurt, with steroids, recovery will go by in a heartbeat as to an athlete that does not take steroids. It is clear that with steroids and other performance enhancing drugs, the Major League Baseball will be a safer game for athletes at whichever position. Although people believe baseball to be one of the least injury prone sports because there is not as much physical contact, there is an endless amount of ways to get hurt on the field. Injures are unpredictable and can occur at any moment during a game of baseball.…

    • 1284 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Competition has the ability to make individuals more willing to do things they would not usually do. Athletes can perform exercises and drills to improve their skill and personal health. Other athletes cheat by using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) to improve their game with little to no effort. The use of steroids can boost your performance and statistics but should not be allowed at any level of baseball including majors, minors, college, and high school. On August 13, 2002 a drug program was initiated that would start testing athletes when less than 2.5 percent tested positive in two consecutive years combined.…

    • 368 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “30% of college and pro athletes use steroids” says one study by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Many people think steroid use is wrong, but there are many reasons why pro athletes should be allowed to use steroids, including the fact that most Performance Enhancing Drugs are legal, Its their bodies so it should be their choice and risk, and every athlete has great pressure on them to win. Most people caught using PEDs are using completely legal ones. Most likely athletes will use HCG or others that are legal in the US(Katz,2008). The only reason PEDs are bad is because the NCAA committee , and commissioners of pro sports are making rules that make them look bad.…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Male athletes have a high risk of developing traits and medical issues that can be avoided by the use of drug testing. As the use of drugs increase within male athletes due to rising standards from society and competition, many face the pressing issue of developing traits that are not common to men, such as the development of breasts and higher voices(“Drugs and Athletes”), as well as conditions that affect the body physically and psychologically. Although different drugs come with different side effects, many drugs share common side effects which “have the ability or potential to drastically alter the human body and biological functions… [which] can be extremely dangerous and, in certain situations, deadly” (“Effects of Performance-Enhancing Drugs | USADA”). These changes can affect their lives outside the realm of sports, which can ruin their career and their life if drug use…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Steroids and Sports Since the implementation of steroids in sports five decades ago, they have been a controversial issue. (WebMD Medical News) Steroids first became available to athletes in the olympic games and other major sporting events around the 1950’s. Walking into a gym nowadays it is easily seen that someone is using steroids or some kind of performance enhancing drug. Anabolic steroids are popularly used in high school sports to professional levels. For the past 50 years, people have been using steroids to gain muscle mass, or achieve the results they desire.…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Drug Testing for Athletes Some pro athletes take drugs such as steroids to have an unfair advantage in their sport. Steroids are a drug that makes you build up more muscle. When your muscles get torn down, steroids help build them up. This helps so you can build up muscle faster than usual.…

    • 407 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When athlete get older and can not perform like their youthful self and need that boost to keep up with the competition some go to steroids. Steroids also helps athletes recover from injuries faster. Plus, steroids are safe as long as they are not abused and you regularly have a physician checking hormone…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Since the beginning of sports competition, athletes have always wanted to get a better edge over their competitors and will do anything necessary to do so. They go as far as to injecting themselves with drugs and taking supplements to make them bigger, faster, and stronger. A method otherwise known as doping; a process in which athletes use prohibited drugs or training methods to surpass their competitors. These athletes; steaming from all sports, have been misusing these drugs, not wanting to spend the crucial time and effort others are willing to do. They desire a quick and easy route to these achievements through the use of the said drugs.…

    • 2223 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Performing enhancing drugs are any substance taken by athletes specifically to improve their athletic performance. There are many different performing enhancing drugs in sports such as anabolic steroids, andorostenedione, human growth hormone (HGH), erythropoietin, stimulants, etc. All of these substances have been banned by the NCAA. Doping has been around since Ancient Greece. Specialist in Greece were described giving athletes “nutritional” supplements to enhance their athletic and physical ability.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays