Performance Enhancement + Sports = where is the line, and why?

[Osborn F Enready]

Where is the reasonable line on "performance enhancing products" in sports and national competition?


Today we are seeing huge divides in society over drug use, what to do about it, as well as how we deal with it as a society of law.

Performance enhancing drugs have been a pet issue of the media lately, as well as federal enforcement.

So, I am prompted to ask where this line on drugs came from, and how does it compare to other sports related items?

Shoes- Shoes have long been used as a "performance enhancer" by atheletes. Are the shoes today the same as the shoes worn in the first record setting days of the sports where we keep records and titles as holy grails of sports achievement? If not, why not? Can the shoes of today really be allowed if they give unfair advantage over athletes who set the original records using low-tech shoes, and if so, why and how does this compare to drugs in sports?

Food- Modern health food supplements, something I strongly beleive in. This is a new supplemental line of products specifically designed to allow athletes to fully control their bodily intake and exhaust of their biological engines, much like tuned port injection for an engine in your car. These supplements allow us as humans, and competitors, to do the absolute maximum our individual biological means will provide. How does this affect the validity of previous records in sports? How does this compare to performance enhancing drugs?

Am I the only one that sees the obvious answer here?

I think the obvious answer is that as a rule we champion the "performance enhancing" additions to our community and sports when they are available equally to all involved, and allowed to flourish based on their merit and value to the community. The answer in bodybuilding was to make a "natural competitors league" and a "standard league" leaving the door open to those who wished to use certain types of performance enhancing drugs, supplements and aides.

Why can't this be done with all sport, if our claimed reasoning is to protect the sanctity of the sport?

Why shouldn't individuals be allowed to push past their biological ability using drugs, as they are with other sports aides, gear, food?


I hope to see some reasonable debate on this issue, and I hope we can keep the obvious flames to a minimum, and keep debate reasonable and factually based.

I have underlined my major questions to draw out the logic used to build essential basis for positions on the argument from all sides. Please feel free to contribute to the debate, but please make an effort to answer the questions I have raised in your first responses to the thread.

Thank you,

Osborn

[ZNFYRH]

I would find sports much more entertaining if the competitors lived a "stock" lifestyle. They all get the same diet, live in the same conditions, etc. I think then we'd see games based on skill, and not on the better gear.

[loser]

It seems to me that you are overlooking the most widely used and by far the largest problem in performance enhancements in the world today: BREAST IMPLANTS!

It is totally unfair to naturally-endowed women everywhere to be forced to perform on the same platform as their hugely (and artificially) supplemented peers.

Lets give the flesh back to breasts and keep the silicon at the beach...IN the SAND (not ON it)!

[Deus_ultima]

I like my breasts natural and I believe in total ban of anything because it only gives advantage to the richest countries rather than to the top athletes.

[ZNFYRH]

What do breast enhancements have to do with sports? Could we try to avoid letting the random nonsense comment derail the thread?

[Milton Bradley]

I have to say, that shoe argument is solid.


There can be no debate about the fact that modern footwear plays a part in ncreased performance.


Kind of turns the whole premeise of banned substances on it;s head if you ask me.

[Kamehameha34]

I think that the regulations were set by the sports leagues so they would not lose the athlete.

Steroids are one of the few performance enhancers that pose a health risk, if not the only performance enhancer that poses a health risk.

Leagues, naturally, don't want to lose their athletes earlier than necessary, so they keep steroids illegal.


Apart from that, I think the usage of steroids makes a bastardization of athletics. Athletes are meant to be the quintessence of the healthy human - and I see sports as sort of a, for lack of a better word, "celebration" of that optimum health. Using steroids, and sacrificing your health to propel yourself through a sports career is like cheating off of your neighbor to pass a test in a university ethics class, to me.

[Pockets]

Osborne you stole what as going to be my first thread starter. This is a great one. I have a friend that loves to talk about todsys teams being better than yesterdays and therefore players more dominant. If you took their playing weights and left the comparison art that he would be right. I contend if football players at the dawn of the sport had access to the training techniques of todays athletes you would not see the huge gap. I mean look at speed. Deion Sanders still holds the draft combine 40 yd record time at like 4.28. He came through in 1989. In Track and Field, hold a record for one decade and you're a man among men. Holding a speed record for two decades? Almost unheard of. My point is it is slowing down. We are reaching our physical limit and everyone has the techniques.
Sports having two divisions: Juiced and clean? No. I thnk it would be immoral to dangle a carrot in front of someone to entice them to put their health at risk.
I definitely think there needs to be some education with regards to what is a steroid and what is not. Protein drinks, creatine, glutamine and many of the like are not steroids. Have Mark McGuire on tv with a bottle of Androstenadione and he becomes a cheater. That stuff was marketed as a precursor to steroids. The stuff was worthless. Unfortunately people started looking at all supplements as cheating
So I don't think you modify any recxord keeping procedures to reflect equipment changes. If you really wanted to make a case for it though, I would start with golf. Look at Tiger Woods bag and then look at Walter Hagens bag full of kindling at the PGA Hall of Fame. It makes old time basaeball gloves look like a Pentium
It really does depend on the sport. You can go through cycle after cycle of steroids. If it was so beneficial in ibncreasing home run output you would have had 10 guys hitting 60+ home runs in one seson, five of them would have been pure contact hitters. I'm positive they would not help you hit a curve ball.

[Osborn F Enready]

ZNYFRH said: I would find sports much more entertaining if the competitors lived a "stock" lifestyle. They all get the same diet, live in the same conditions, etc. I think then we'd see games based on skill, and not on the better gear.

That was going to be one of my counter arguments....

Next, will we see socialist styled sports here? Huge camps of specialized atheletes confined to an arena, so they can be assured equality in lifestyle, food, treatment and information?

I don't like the idea, unless of course it is of free-will, and other options exist.

Milton said: I have to say, that shoe argument is solid. There can be no debate about the fact that modern footwear plays a part in increased performance. Kind of turns the whole premeise of banned substances on it's head if you ask me.

I fully agree, especially if done in the name of "protecting the sanctity of the records, the recording body, the history of sports, and the nature of competition."

Running shoes, training equipment, braces and belts.... it is all performance enhancing gear that affects the results put in by the athelete for the positive.

Drugs, are an individual choice. A strength athelete is a strength athelete to MAKE THE MOST of their biological ability, to become fit, to master their body and mind in the sport on which they focus.

If an athelete can eat whatever they want, why may they not take sports enhancing drugs?

What logic is used, and is it even REMOTELY solid? I don't think so.

I am pleased of what has come of powerlifting, bodybuilding, and fitness sports. They have made "pure versions" where all atheletes are tested because that is "THEIR" choice, to compete drug free.

There are also non-clean versions of the sport, where some drug use is, has been and always will be part of the sport as long as there are individuals who believe in modern pharmacology to better the human structure, as opposed to the claims of "degradation" which have plagued the sport thanks to foolish abusers.

I wish all things in life took this avenue of choice, as opposed to the police state, nanny-state mentality that "gubbmint" knows best, because as time and history have shown, they obviously don't know best, lie a lot, and can't be trusted or efficient with tax payer monies.

Pockets said: Osborne you stole what as going to be my first thread starter. This is a great one. I have a friend that loves to talk about todsys teams being better than yesterdays and therefore players more dominant.

Didn't mean to steal your thunder.....

I saw Colbert cover it on his show last night, and he brought up some points in humor that are very valid arguments.

Pockets said: If you took their playing weights and left the comparison art that he would be right. I contend if football players at the dawn of the sport had access to the training techniques of todays athletes you would not see the huge gap. I mean look at speed. Deion Sanders still holds the draft combine 40 yd record time at like 4.28. He came through in 1989. In Track and Field, hold a record for one decade and you're a man among men. Holding a speed record for two decades? Almost unheard of. My point is it is slowing down. We are reaching our physical limit and everyone has the techniques.

I agree, we are nearing natural physical perfection without stepping up our control over drug processes in our bodies. This is exactly why I believe there is room for both classes, clean and non-clean.

No pressure, simply pick a field of your choice.

Pockets said: Sports having two divisions: Juiced and clean? No. I thnk it would be immoral to dangle a carrot in front of someone to entice them to put their health at risk.

I know you are going to cringe.... but what does moral have to do with individual rights among equals?

We own our bodies, we have charge over what is put in, and what is not.
Regardless of what is chosen, we should be able to pioneer and provide a need if a market is there, and let the market and the individuals choose.

Pockets said: I definitely think there needs to be some education with regards to what is a steroid and what is not. Protein drinks, creatine, glutamine and many of the like are not steroids. Have Mark McGuire on tv with a bottle of Androstenadione and he becomes a cheater. That stuff was marketed as a precursor to steroids. The stuff was worthless. Unfortunately people started looking at all supplements as cheating.

As usual, the press reports what it can use to put across the message its corporate advertisers want to spin in that direction.

I have used many legal forms of "supposed" steroids, and some when used properly provided better than average results.

Muscletech put out a combination of Andro, and Nortest which when coupled together on a high-protein diet provided fantastic results in lean muscle mass for me. I also used their product Hydroxycut, which was fantastic before it was changed because of all the dumbasses who abused it as "weight loss pill" thinking the more they took, the faster they lost...... what morons.

Point being, I personally have used and independently studied some of these myself, and I know for a fact some work, and some don't, on me.

I am rigorously anal in my testing to, so, yes, I do know it was a controlled study.

I know people who have used old style, REAL steroids, like anabol and others, but I never have, nor would. Why? Not because they are illegal, but because I know the facts about how they work, why they work, and their dangers, which are very real if abused.

Just because something is dangerous, does that mean it should be illegal?
I don't think so, for obvious reasons.

[Osborn F Enready]

Kameha said: I think that the regulations were set by the sports leagues so they would not lose the athlete.

They claimed that reason, but I am talking about the truth.

Kameha said: Steroids are one of the few performance enhancers that pose a health risk, if not the only performance enhancer that poses a health risk.

That is totally untrue, and on many levels.

A good for instance is something in most "wanna-be" weight-lifters bags, called a "lifting-belt".

The lifting belt serves a valid purpose in trained hands, but most people only use it as a crutch to artificially push where they shouldn't be, too soon, without proper strengthening of ab, back and torso muscles. Many squat injuries are from morons who rely on their belt too much, or completely.

A weight belt shouldn't be used for squats except in heavy max attempts, or max lifts. Why? Because, squatting is an exercise that works the entire body, from foot to shoulder. Due to this, all the weight rests on the entire frame of the body, and all the bodies muscles are used to balance, and support the weight. If a belt is used religiously, it allows the body to build non-uniformly, and makes it far easier to injure your back due to your "perceived" strength earned at the squat rack, when you try to lift that tv-set for your mom across the room and you throw out your back due to the fact that your back, abs and torso muscles have been neglected, and now cost you weeks worth of downtime, so all muscles will lose a bit.

Weight belts are not for amateurs, but neither are steroids.

No reason to outlaw either of them.

Kame said: Leagues, naturally, don't want to lose their athletes earlier than necessary, so they keep steroids illegal.

Leagues don't want government pressure, that is why they stand OFFICIALLY on the "make it illegal side" while they pump them in to their atheletes in the off season under any disguise they think they can get away with.

Kame said: Apart from that, I think the usage of steroids makes a bastardization of athletics.

I respect your opinion, but don't see that as a reason for illegalization for those who CHOOSE that lifestyle.

Kame said: Athletes are meant to be the quintessence of the healthy human - and I see sports as sort of a, for lack of a better word, "celebration" of that optimum health. Using steroids, and sacrificing your health to propel yourself through a sports career is like cheating off of your neighbor to pass a test in a university ethics class, to me.

Not all people who use steroids abuse them, nor do they always lead to "ill effects" if used correctly.

[ZNFYRH]

Osborn,

If and ONLY if it's of free will, then hell yes it they should be treated like slave gladiators.

[Osborn F Enready]

ZNFRYH said: If and ONLY if it's of free will, then hell yes it they should be treated like slave gladiators.

Word. I have no problem from a man (or woman) who wants to earn his (or her) keep as a warrior as opposed to desk jockey.

Free-will is the hang-up for me on anything, or I should say, the lack of it, is the hang-up.

[Eclipse]

Keeping things perfectly stable to draw a fair competitive line is near to impossible. Not only is equipment more fine-tuned but so are the various methods of performing/training and conditions of the playing field (in various sports). You also have environmental factors (ie crowds, jet lag, temperatures, weather etc). Perhaps it is best just not to compare to extreme extents and make bold claims. Sports would never evolve if they remain stable and in the end stale as they are not able to utilize new or unique techniques.

Keeping things equal and stable also affects the mindset of athletes. It's a thing anthropoligists sometimes call "magic". That routine unique to people for the purpose of mindset.

On another note, keeping things perfectly equal would be near impossible as well. People have different bodies and minds and thus different methods all around. People like the different feel or look of different equipment, whether it is technically more enhanced or not. People enjoy different foods and drinks.

I feel it is better to let things evolve as they do and see it as just that -- evolution in the sport. I've never been able to idolize one athlete over another purely because of their statistical ability. I've never been able to idolize an athlete purely because they don the best gear or consume the latest trend. Is it the athlete's world we have to change, or our perspectives?

When it comes to supplements I see nothing wrong with optimizing your own health. The problem I might see here is what optimizes and what eludes to be optimizing; that is, what becomes harmful. I'll give this some thought.

Sports are for fun anyway. Even if it is competitive fun. Competing to bring the best within us out and enjoying the time. If a sport loses this it loses sportsmanship with athletes and fans and the industry turns negative.

[Eclipse]

When it comes to optimizing supplements, I'm going to get rid of natural intake right now. Anything we naturally intake, protein, sugars etc, are not a problem. I see no reason to say that our intake of natural foods, no matter how we prepare it, is in some way unfair.

Hormones are another subject and I'll give that some thought

[Pockets]

As usual, the press reports what it can use to put across the message its corporate advertisers want to spin in that direction. I have used many legal forms of "supposed" steroids, and some when used properly provided better than average results. Muscletech put out a combination of Andro, and Nortest which when coupled together on a high-protein diet provided fantastic results in lean muscle mass for me. I also used their product Hydroxycut, which was fantastic before it was changed because of all the dumbasses who abused it as "weight loss pill" thinking the more they took, the faster they lost...... what morons. Point being, I personally have used and independently studied some of these myself, and I know for a fact some work, and some don't, on me. I am rigorously anal in my testing to, so, yes, I do know it was a controlled study. I know people who have used old style, REAL steroids, like anabol and others, but I never have, nor would. Why? Not because they are illegal, but because I know the facts about how they work, why they work, and their dangers, which are very real if abused. Just because something is dangerous, does that mean it should be illegal? I don't think so, for obvious reasons.

I ran a gym for a while. You would, or maybe you wouldn't, be amazed at how many people think all supps are cheating. Creatine supplements are high on the list 'substances of interest'. It is naturally occuring in the body. I know there are banned substances that occur in the body but those are not amino acids like creatine. If it works they try to take it off the market.
I'm sticking to my guns on the legal thing. It's one thing to legalize the substance, another to incentivize it.

[ZNFYRH]

The thing with creatine is that there are ways to naturally increase its production through a controlled diet and certain types of exercise. Mixing it into a drink is just as bad as shooting up steroids, in my opinion.

When I was big into weight lifting and working out, I controlled my body chemistry without supplements. As a result, when I eased off that lifestyle, I could cycle down those chemicals back to their normal levels.

[loser]

Steroids ARE dangerous drugs and the effects on mind and body are well documented. However, the issue of the use of steroids (and other chemicals/supplements) as performance enhancements is overblown. Barry Bonds may have bulked up muscle by using PED's but it was still his work-out regimen that produced those muscles (no pain, no gain) and his additional strength (by the use of PED's) minimally affects his ability to hit homeruns. It takes a whole lot more than strength to knock a ball out of the ballpark...you have to hit the baseball first!

Even in weight-lifting sports, where the benefits of PED's are most dramatic, there is still the matter of natural advantage: all men are NOT created equal.

Shall we ban all players over seven feet tall from playing basketball (it's an unfair advantage)?

Shall we ban all athletes from Africa from distance running or the Swiss from skiing?

Some cultures or environments are conducive to excelling in certain sports. There has NEVER been an equal playing field in any sport at any time and never will be. Not everyone can be a rocket scientist nor can everyone be an elite sprinter. Drugs, like work ethic, drive, and determination can only do so much...the rest is just pure natural ability.

Someone's using PED's to compete in sports events? BIG DEAL, SO WHAT!

Someone else somewhere else is using money to win an election...that's what should worry you.

[Kamehameha34]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready A good for instance is something in most "wanna-be" weight-lifters bags, called a "lifting-belt". The lifting belt serves a valid purpose in trained hands, but most people only use it as a crutch to artificially push where they shouldn't be, too soon, without proper strengthening of ab, back and torso muscles. Many squat injuries are from morons who rely on their belt too much, or completely. A weight belt shouldn't be used for squats except in heavy max attempts, or max lifts. Why? Because, squatting is an exercise that works the entire body, from foot to shoulder. Due to this, all the weight rests on the entire frame of the body, and all the bodies muscles are used to balance, and support the weight. If a belt is used religiously, it allows the body to build non-uniformly, and makes it far easier to injure your back due to your "perceived" strength earned at the squat rack, when you try to lift that tv-set for your mom across the room and you throw out your back due to the fact that your back, abs and torso muscles have been neglected, and now cost you weeks worth of downtime, so all muscles will lose a bit.

The misuse of anything can be dangerous. Can steroids not be a danger to your health, even if you're using them correctly?

Leagues don't want government pressure, that is why they stand OFFICIALLY on the "make it illegal side" while they pump them in to their atheletes in the off season under any disguise they think they can get away with.

Is that a fact or speculation?

I respect your opinion, but don't see that as a reason for illegalization for those who CHOOSE that lifestyle.

Sure, I have nothing against people who choose to modify their own bodies with steroids, but I think it should be illegal if they then demean sports.

Not all people who use steroids abuse them, nor do they always lead to "ill effects" if used correctly.

Nor does arsenic always kill a person, when ingested. Steroids have a large chance of sacrificing the user's health, which I believe to be antithetical to the very idea of "sports".

[Osborn F Enready]

Pockets said: It's one thing to legalize the substance, another to incentivize it.

I agree. That's why I am for sensible legalization, much like alchohol for lower substances like marijuana and sports supplements, to voluntary prescription use, through a doctor, after a screen and health warnings are covered for items like opium and steroids.

My point is, responsible people should not be affected by law, only criminals who abuse the rights of others.

Kame said: The misuse of anything can be dangerous. Can steroids not be a danger to your health, even if you're using them correctly?

Yes, but so can matches, and bic lighters, steak knives and swimming pools.

My point is that if a person can get it, if they want it, only after going to their doctor and being fully informed on the effects, health related issues, impairment effects and their bodies current condition, it should be the individuals choice.

If they are on something, and break a law, they can be held accountable for breaking that law. Why make the law affect the drugs, and not the individuals who abuse their power of choice, and the right we entrust them with as individuals?

Kame said: Is that a fact or speculation?

It's an observation, that goes all the way back to the start of the international olympics.

Kame said: Sure, I have nothing against people who choose to modify their own bodies with steroids, but I think it should be illegal if they then demean sports.

What is demeaning to sports, and where is it defined?

Wouldn't it be more demeaning to sports to disallow atheletes the opprotunity to pioneer into new areas, as sports has always been about?

Why can't seperation between pure and non-pure simply be used to protect well-established sports records?

Kame said: Nor does arsenic always kill a person, when ingested. Steroids have a large chance of sacrificing the user's health, which I believe to be antithetical to the very idea of "sports".

I understand your position, I just don't see where it has been defined that way except in the use of drugs in sports, and I think its exclusivity points directly to the flawed logic involved in the reasoning.

I think the same logic should be applied to all sports "aides", without descrimination based on the inanimate object, but instead, on the actions done that defy law by the individuals.

Blaming a substance for actions, is a misplacement of responsibility.

[loser]

Blaming a substance for actions, is a misplacement of responsibility.

I couldn't have said it better!

Osborn F. Enready: Are you ready? I'm aligned with you on this issue!