Why are Athletes Turning to Performance Enhancing Drugs?
“One of the most exciting sports stories in recent years was the attempt to break Roger Maris’ single-season home run record [of sixty-one] in baseball. On September 8, 1998, Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals made history by hitting his sixty-second home run,” writes William Dudley. He also states, “However, many people believe that McGwire’s achievement was tarnished by a revelation some weeks earlier that he had been using androstenedione, a compound that temporarily boosts levels of the male sex hormone testosterone” (Dudley, 7). This drew attention to the serious problem of performance enhancing drug use in professional and amateur sports. The issue of performance enhancing …show more content…
Performance enhancing drugs –also known as PEDs, have caught the eye of almost every sports fanatic, athlete, or coach in the world due to the fact many professional athletes use them and get caught. Many know what PEDs are because the name explains itself, they are drugs –usually synthetically made, to enhance a player’s performance. PEDs come in many shapes and sizes; have different effects on the body and consequences if players are caught using them. Performance enhancing drugs are such a controversy in today’s society, but why are athletes using them in the first place?

Everyone that has anything to do with the sports world knows about performance enhancing drugs and how big of a role they play in sports. Although there is so much that goes unknown to the world about PEDs. PEDs are not for athletes specifically, one example is the pill, Viagra, which is used to enhance the bedroom performance. We all have seen the commercials, but performance-enhancing drugs are also used far beyond the bedroom. In sports, PEDs are used to improve an athlete’s performance in their chosen sport. In David Mottram’s book, Drugs in Sport, he defines PED’s as a …show more content…
Anti Doping Agency state that they have the “potential to drastically alter the human body” (USADA). During use, PEDs improve and enhance an athlete’s career performance, but athletes should work to improve performance by working hard. The effects of PED use build up over time and have varying effects “depending on the individual, dosage, and length of use” (Staudohar 2). Side effects of PED’s can range from acne, hair loss, cancerous tumors, and kidney failure to infertility in women and smaller testicles in men. Many of the side effects aren’t made clear when athletes begin taking performance-enhancing drugs with the more severe side effects being including heart damage, liver damage and an increased risk for blood clots. Steroids are mainly used aid with recovery from workouts by reducing and helping heal the damage to muscles that occurs during workout sessions, enabling an athlete to work out harder and more often while minimizing the risk of overtraining. Some athletes may also value the aggressive feelings that steroid use can lead to, casually referred to as “roid rage.” Emotional side effects can include rage, depression, and/or suicide (USADA). The short-term of using PEDs may seem like a good idea because they will improve performance, but the long-term effects are serious and should worry anyone that is thinking about using