Performance enhancers

[broncofan]

Yep. A fly ball to the warning track can be turned into a home run with more strength/bat speed making the ball travel an additional 20 feet or so.

These were all good players before roids but common sense says it makes a difference. 37 years between McGwire and Maris. Then the record went by 9 home runs. You don't have to have used the stuff to know that this is statistically unlikely without something changing. But I think almost everyone in the thread at least acknowledges they make a difference.

[amberskyi]

I agree with freedom - what is natural anymore? Are protein powders natural?

How about birth control for women - thats a steroid too. Did you know insulin is one of the most anabolic substances in the world? Steroids. Blah blah blah. Let them juice their fucking brains out. I don't want to see twigs running around playing fucking patty cake with each other.

so we should ignore all the adverse effects? like here take this,it will help you win but dont expect to live a long healthy life

[cadillac]

i understand your point ..but someone who cant hit the ball, can do roids forever ..it wont change coordination, timing etc..it helps recovery and strength...your 100% right..but these players have to put time in and work hard ..take roids on monday and your awesome on wednesday..thats not how it goes ..im not disqualifing anyones opinion,but unless you have used them {for long periods of time } its hard to understand how they work..i have very close friends in the martial art mma world who actively use roids ..and guess what. roid user vs. roid user with talent = roid user without talent looses to talent everytime but i do see your point and its valid and respected ..

[Dino Velvet]

These were all good players before roids but common sense says it makes a difference. 37 years between McGwire and Maris. Then the record went by 9 home runs. You don't have to have used the stuff to know that this is statistically unlikely without something changing. But I think almost everyone in the thread at least acknowledges they make a difference.

There's something special about baseball. It's sad and disappointing to me when guys like Hank Aaron and Roger Maris have to take a back seat to players willing to juice like Bonds, McGuire, and Sammy Sosa.

My all-time favorite player since I was a kid was Nolan Ryan. The Ryan Express was clean but was one fireball throwing intimidating gunslinger. Heard he was amazingly strong on leg extension for quads. Wonder if he squatted much.

Never fear a man named Robin.

[GrimFusion]

i understand your point ..but someone who cant hit the ball, can do roids forever ..it wont change coordination, timing etc..it helps recovery and strength...your 100% right..but these players have to put time in and work hard ..take roids on monday and your awesome on wednesday..thats not how it goes ..im not disqualifing anyones opinion,but unless you have used them {for long periods of time } its hard to understand how they work..i have very close friends in the martial art mma world who actively use roids ..and guess what. roid user vs. roid user with talent = roid user without talent looses to talent everytime but i do see your point and its valid and respected ..

Let's say both MMA fighters have the same amount of talent and both train for five hours every day. Match for match they tie up; one wins, then the other wins, on-and-on like that until one of the two fighters starts taking steroids. Six months later, the roided fighter wins every match while the fighter that doesn't take performance enhancers loses each match. That sounds like competitive edge to you? Sounds like cheating to me.

[giovanni_hotel]

Steroids should be banned in all athletic competitions because they give an athlete an UNFAIR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. Period.
I was a D1AA football recruit in HS, clean. If I had juiced in HS, I would IMO have been one of the top prospects in my state and probably recruited by most of the top 20 D1A programs.

I know I could have taken at least 2/10ths of a second off my 40yd dash time and improved all my natural power lifts, (squat/BP) by a minimum 100#.

Calling a glass of milk a performance enhancing supplement is like describing a sharpened pencil as a portable data processing device.

Steroids turn average athletes into great athletes, and great athletes into supermen.
At some point we're no longer watching sports anymore and it's all just another choreographed form of professional wrestling. All entertainment, no sport at all.

What's sad is that international track and field has been engaged in chemical warfare for decades and most fans just aren't aware of it.

I can't tell you how many former HS and college track athlete friends of mine who look at Usain Bolt's times in the 100m tell me no human being can run that fast naturally. Maybe Bolt is that one genetic freak the sport of track elevates as one of its true superstars, or maybe he's this generation's Carl Lewis/Flo Jo/Ben Johnson.

I would hate to think we legalize all PEDs and force athletes to compete at an artificially inflated baseline of performance just to keep pace with the juicers.

Sport ultimately is supposed to be a test of someone's ability to overcome and triumph over one's own mental limitations and physical barriers. The spectacle of a great athletic performance is the byproduct of an athlete's will defeating the weakness of his body and mind.

If everyone is one the gear, it would be like watching the X-Men movies. Cool powers and special effects, but none of it is real.

[freedom]

ok there appears to have been a breakdown in communication so I'll reiterate from first principles.

1. People cheat. The kind of "win at all costs" mentality that is required for an elite athlete means they will do what ever they can to reach the top. Normal people don't spend 8hrs a day training, but champions do.

2. Cheating is not caught. We need only look at the Lance Armstrong saga to realise that the organisations tasked with catching drug use are well behind in the arms race... Lance was able to dope on an epic scale for over a decade and only failed 1 drug test.

The corollary of these two premises is that there will be a persistent minority who use drugs to reap the greatest rewards and everyone else will be 2nd class. But they will do so in secret. Stop the prohibition and all athletes will be at an equal footing with respect to what they put in their bodies.

Again I point out that the doses for performance enhancement are well below the doses that cause long term harm. And a fortiori being in the open, physicians will be able to supervise.

My point is simply one of equality. Sport should be based on how's most talented and has worked the hardest, not on who has access to the best back alley chemist.

[Kevin Dong]

What people don't get is that EVERYONE is using performance enhancing drugs. Every player, in every professional sport - short only of soccer, MAYBE. Every single athlete in the Olympics is using, every guy in the NFL is using, NBA, even fucking Golf players take pills and get corrective laser eye surgery. I went to a Canadian university with a mediocre football program even for Canada's standards, and even there the whole team juiced. Division III football in the US? Juiced. Had friends on the team. Basketball in the USA? Players are taking IGF1LR3 , HGH, and clenbuterol. You are all kidding yourselves if you think there's anyone in professional sports not using something.

[giovanni_hotel]

Everyone isn't juicing. Too many are, but there are still genetic freaks who don't need supplements to compete.

People who think EVERYONE in sports is juicing are delusional.

[Kevin Dong]

Everyone isn't juicing. Too many are, but there are still genetic freaks who don't need supplements to compete.

People who think EVERYONE in sports is juicing are delusional.

no you're just uneducated on the subject as is the rest of the general population