Performance Enhancing Drugs

Performance Enhancing Drugs

        According to medical-dictionary.com, a performance-enhancing drug is “Any drug used to gain an advantage in sports. Such drugs may improve endurance or strength or accelerate healing after injury” (TheFreeDictionary.com). Athletes everywhere, whether they are here in the United States or overseas, are susceptible to injuries.  Some sports may be more likely than others but all are still prone to injury. Every sport whether it is golf or baseball you are involved in some sort of physical activity. For baseball, a common injury is Tommy John Surgery. As a baseball player myself I understand the difficulty of overcoming an injury, specifically arm injuries. The first sign of an arm injury is typically identified by soreness in a specific spot in your arm. When one feels this soreness, they should immediately stop what they are doing and go see an athletic trainer or doctor. Typically, what will happen is the trainer or doctor will tell you your arm is fatiguing and either needs rest or strengthened more. Individuals will then go through a rehabilitation process in which will typically sideline the player for a week or so. During that week of being sidelined, players will begin an arm care circuit, which is a rotation of exercises meant to help the healing process. Throughout this circuit, players will do a variety of exercises but the most common is band work. Band work strengthens the arm through repeated exercises that use band resistance to build and repair muscles.  After that week of immobilization if the arm is still not fully recovered, you will typically go for an MRI. An MRI, also known as Magnetic resonance imaging, is a technique that uses a magnetic field and radio waves to create detailed images of the organs and tissues within your body (U.S. Food and Drug Administration). If the doctor comes back with news that you have torn your elbow ligament and need Tommy John Surgery to repair it, you had better be ready for countless hours spent in the rehabilitation room. Although most performance enhancing drugs are banned from major sporting organizations, I will argue that when an athlete is injured it can be extremely beneficial to use these drugs to speed up your recovery time and get athletes back on the field.

        The use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes has been acknowledged as a problem since the 1960s. Over the past couple of years there has been more and more athletes testing positive for some type of performance-enhancer. There are several different types of performance-enhancing drugs. A few of the well-known PED’s are stimulants, human growth hormone, supplements, and of course anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids are synthetic substances that stimulate proteins that help build non-fat muscle mass, helping an athlete become stronger and able to train and play for longer periods of time (Petchesky). Studies have shown that performance-enhancers like anabolic steroids are proven to shorten athlete’s recovery time. So why are these drugs made illegal by most major sporting organizations?