Steroids in American Football

Steroids in the NFL date way back, in fact drug tests only started in 1989. Defensive Lineman Lyle Alzado is a big name when it comes to doping in football. He talks about it's addictive nature, rage inducing behavior. In his words, it made him do things only crazy people would do. Before it became illegal, everyone was using it. However, now it's a different story. There are drug tests, but like any professional athlete would do, they find loopholes.

Just like almost every professional sport, drug tests in the NFL are a complete joke. For some reason, testing is more strict in season. This is dumb because if anything, tests should always be year round and random to try to catch players by surprise. If they know it's coming they're going to work around it. The NFL doesn't even test for Human Growth Hormone (HGH's). This pretty much makes athletes recover in a crazy amount of time, get more protein, harder bones, better sleep, etc. It's an unfair competitive advantage if you ask me.

Eddie George started his NFL career in the mid 1990s and retired in 2005. He brought up a lot of great points about PED's in football and even described it's use as "rampant". He talked about colleagues adding 50 pounds of muscle in one year while also getting faster in that same year, and also how players suffered year long injuries yet recovered in 3 months. Yes, there is natural ways to gain muscle and yes there is natural ways to recover faster, but this is absurd. It's so obvious! 

People will tell you that a huge increase in athletes abilities is normal because comparing now to the 1970s and 1980s, nutrition and training has come a long way. The thing is, when you have a 306lbs man running 40 yards in 4.65 seconds, there are questions to be asked. It's just doubtful. Players in the 80s admitted to steroids and that was still unheard of, so how are we supposed to believe that a "natural" player today is bigger and faster than a doping player 40 years ago. 

So maybe I just broke someone's hopes and dreams, but let's be honest, these stars aren't getting huge off of quest protein bars and avocado subways! And as long as they keep getting their millions, they could not care less about getting caught. Who would want to watch slower, weaker and more injured players anyway? Yea they 're juiced but that's why people watch them!

SOURCE: http://www.si.com/nfl/video/2015/01/08/eddie-george-steriods-nfl

Steroids in MMA

MMA and similar combat sports prove to be some of the most intense activities an athlete can participate in. It is by far one of the most physically demanding and dangerous (weight cutting) sports out there. This is why a huge number of fighters use PED's (Performance Enhancing Drugs)  such as Anabolic Steroids in order to increase their testosterone levels. This makes them bigger and they weigh even less, it's perfect for them. Because this sport demands the perfection of so many different fighting styles (boxing, brazilian ju-jitsu, wrestling, muay thai, judo, etc), training is too intense for clean athletes. This is why a huge number of fighters resort to using steroids so they can train for long periods of time with minimal recovery. The only way a fighter can become great is to dedicate a huge amount of time to their training. In fact, Joe Rogan, a professional in the MMA scene, estimates that 50-60% of fighters use PED's.

The Nevada Athletic Commission started doing more frequent and random drug testing on the athletes. These fighters have been getting caught at a ridiculous rate. These findings have been  troublesome for the UFC because the huge majority of their fighters do indeed dope. Finding suitable punishments for the athletes has been hard because how can you differentiate the amount of doping one athelte used compared to ianother? Also, when half the league takes illegitimate substances, how can you punish them without damaging the name and sales of your organisation. 

The fighters being caught vary from veterans to rookies. On the right, we have Rafael dos Anjos, one of the biggest stars in Brazil, the current lightweight champion of the UFC. The first picture is before he became a significant contender in his division. The second picture is him as the champion. The final picture is him after the commission began their random drug testing. There is a noticeable difference in size. This sort of progression can be seen throughout the world of combat sports. 

SOURCE: http://mmajunkie.com/2015/02/ufc-commentator-joe-rogan-ufc-and-mma-in-general-is-a-steroid-epidemic.

Steroids in Bodybuilding and Strongmen

The most well known use for steroids are anabolic steroid's ability to get crazy muscle mass with almost no fat. Bodybuilding has come a long way from when it started, and I think it's wandering on the wrong path. While steroids were always necessary to be Mr Olympia, it seems that modern day bodybuilding cares less about an appealing physique and more about how huge competitors can get. 

What bothers me is people who are obviously juiced up yet claim not to be because it's illegal. I understand protecting yourself, but some famous names in the bodybuilding scene will preach about being natural when they're a text book example of an unnatural physique. Yes, I'm talking about Mike O'Hearn. You're not fooling anybody man! This guy is literally bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger who was known to be on steroids. Bodybuilding is one of those sports where unless you're using steroids, you will never win anything at the big stages.

Strongmen is similar to bodybuilding because the athletes use steroids to get to crazy levels. However strongmen competitions are about actually lifting weight, not how good you look when you're spray tanned, dehydrated and in a speedo.  Below is a picture of strongman Hafthór Júlíus Björnsson squatting a TREE. If that doesn't yell out steroids I don't know what does. Needless to say, strongmen take their name very literally. The competition seems to be dominated by Icelandic men. Do I think it's wrong that top athletes are using steroids in these two sports? Of course not. Steroids isn't magically gonna make anyone this strong. There is still insane levels of training and dedication. People act as if they could take steroids and perform like this. What these men are doing is still crazy, whether it was drug-assisted or not.

Steroids in Cycling

Cycling marathons such as the Tour de France requires rigorous training and a very high level of cardiovascular fitness. How would steroids help you ask? Well Erythropoeitin is a hormone our body naturally produces. Basically, it's in charge of the red blood cell production. This drug is relevant to cyclists because more red blood cells means more oxygen, and that means insane levels of cardio. The Tour de France is a 3500km race over 23 days, so to sustain their pace, many of these athletes turn to performance enhancing drugs.

Contrary to drug scandals in soccer, this is not speculation. There are multiple proven cases of doping in this sport. In fact - It's so common that a natural competitor will find it very hard to stand a chance. Professionals go as far as being donated blood just to raise their red blood cell number! Tyler Hamilton won the gold medal in 2004 and soon after tested positive for drug use. He was not stripped of his medal, then later got banned from the sport for being guilty of drug use again in 2009. Even Lance Armstrong admitted to using EPO's (Erythropoeitin Steroid).

EPO's certainly come with some costs. Increasing the number of red blood cells can clog veins and arteries. Thicker blood also increases the chances of getting a stroke or a heart attack. Around the time EPO's became popular, many cyclists died from heart attacks (7 in 2003-2004). But despite the dangers, cyclists continue to use EPO's because winning gold is their dream. There have been numerous scandals, but the biggest one happened in 2006. About 60 cyclists were found guilty and couldn't compete in the Tour. What's even crazier is that in the same year, the winner ended up getting stripped of his title because he was also doping but managed not to get caught. It seems that doping will always be an issue in cycling, unfortunately.

SOURCE: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/sep/24/tyler-hamilton-tour-de-france
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/39997062/

Lance Armstrong admitted to using EPO's during his training for Tour de France

Steroids in Soccer

Soccer is the most played and most watched sport in the world. This sport is a trillion dollar industry, making it one of the richest businesses in the world. Is it naive to think that professional footballers achieve their level naturally? The way I see it is  that there's no way steroids are as common in soccer as people seem to think. Think about it - there are about 265 million professional soccer players (male and female). It's INSANE to think that there's doping in this sport and they're all hushed up about it. HGH's (human-growth hormone's) are the suspected steroids.

Barcelona's Triple Title Winning Squad 2008-2009 (Domestic, League and European Champions)

Some players are more suspected than others. The most suspicious group of players is Barcelona's team from 2008-2012 and Spain's National Team. Not only has their coach, Pep Guardiola, failed drug tests more than once, but they broke records every year. This group of players (Iniesta, Xavi, Fabregas, Pique, Villa, Busquets, etc) dominated the international scene for 6 years as well as the club scene. It's so easy to blame their success on performance-ehancing drugs, but if everyone was doping why wasn't any other group of players dominating? Personally I think these players were just on a different level than everyone else and people needed an excuse for their teams underperforming.

You guys might be thinking: If soccer players are on steroids why don't they look like it? This is because people confuse anabolic steroids with HGH's. The latter is thought to be popular in soccer because professionals play 90 minutes (often running more than 8km) and then do it again 3 days later! Any athlete would know how exhausting that is, especially when they do it all year long. Some teams even participate in multiple tournaments on top of their league. I think that despite all that, soccer is too big of a sport for steroids to be an issue. I don't think doping is as common as people want you to think, but I do think that drug tests are too relaxed in soccer and should be inforced.

SOURCE: http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/8770/guardiola-sentenced-to-seven-months-for-positive-dope-test