TSAIBERTRON SAYS: The Real Education Behind Athletics

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Wesley
WESLEY TSAI
Staff Writer

If you’re a student who craves to be better in sports, say no more. Your answer is not performance-enhancing drugs.

According to Mayo Clinic, one in 20 athletes admit to using drugs that help an athlete’s performance. Some of the more popular enhancements used are creatine, anabolic steroids and steroid precursors. Creatine is a compound that helps your body recover after a workout, which increases muscle mass and strength. This supplement is prescribed over-the-counter and is very popular among athletes who participate in sports like football, gymnastics, hockey and wrestling.

However, anabolic steroids and steroid precursors have a more severe effect on athletes. Anabolic steroids are testosterone hormones that athletes take to build up muscle and strength. Steroid precursors are drugs that transform into anabolic steroids. Most steroid precursors are illegal without a prescription, yet many athletes still take it.

Athletes who use these drugs likely aren’t aware of the longterm hazardous side effects, which include blood-clotting, joint pain, high blood pressure, liver problems and mood swings, according to drugabuse.org. There are more injuries that athletes are unaware of that could cause serious harm to their body but to them, image is the only thing that matters at the moment.

Drugs are not only harmful, but unfair as well. Players should be suspended from games or cut from the team and/or because their team to forfeit for unfair conduct. It isn’t fair that players who can access these enhancers use them to their own advantage while other players work and sweat just to get to the same level. Those who take the drugs should also be put in health classes that emphasize safety and the dangers of taking supplements.

Not only would punishing drug users teach them the lesson that it is unethical to take these supplements, but it would also discourage them from using drugs again. We have to educate the players that just because society says that we are inadequately fit, it doesn’t mean that we have to take supplements to please society. There is a better way to get a better physique: doing it the natural way such as weight lifting and getting a proper diet, exercise, and adequate sleep.