Sunday, January 22, 2012

Steroid Usage in Sports


Everyone believes that steroid use is terrible and will lead to many negative side effects, like “roid rage” and heart attacks as well as shortened life expectancy. Although side effects like these are both true and false, professional athletes are still using steroids. Steroids/performance enhancing drugs are illegal and are frowned upon throughout the sporting community, but many athletes are willing to take the risk of using these drugs to make them a bigger, a better, and a stronger athlete. Now performance enhancing drugs are becoming more accessible to people seeking to use them.

Baseball is one sport that’s constantly under speculation for the use of steroids within the MLB, but other sports like football and hockey are seeing higher numbers of “Juice monkeys.” Jose Canseco made the use of steroids within sports very clear when he ratted out numerous professional baseball players. These professionals MLB players included great athletes like; Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Alex Rodriguez. These are some of the greatest baseball players ever within the MLB. The issue of steroid use is continually advancing within the baseball community; there has been an increasing amount of athletes testing positive and receiving suspensions from the league for using steroids.  Recently Ryan Braun, tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, and received a 50 game suspension for doing so. Former Tampa Bay Devil Ray player Manny Ramirez, tested positive for performance enhancing drugs for a second time, and received a suspension for 100 games, and proceeded to retire instead of serving his suspension.

After reviewing the baseball suspensions due to steroid use, my thoughts began to become curious about other sports. Football is another sport which is experiencing increasing amounts of steroid usage of the players.  The NFLPA (National Football League Player Association) recently agreed to tests looking for HGH (Human Growth Hormone) to the players. Human Growth Hormone is a steroid that isn’t detectable through human urine which makes it extremely hard to detect in a human. HGH allows a person to workout/be physical for a longer period of time, as well as allowing the body to heal quicker and easier. The NFL is the first professional sports association to accept testing for HGH. 

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