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The Benefits of Performance Enhancing Drugs Among Athletes Essay

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Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, performance enhancing drugs have become a religious practice in “the lives of some sport figures.” The use of these supplements have given the user an edge, an edge to perform at maximum capability. Most major athletes all agree on the fact that the competitive drive to win can be quite intense. Besides the satisfaction of personal accomplishment, athletes commonly pursue high hopes of attaining a medal, a college scholarship or the once in a lifetime opportunity to play on a professional team. In such an environment, the use of performance-enhancing drugs has become increasingly common (Athletes & Drug Use). For most athletes, winning at all costs includes taking performance-enhancing drugs. The …show more content…

When blood and muscles are full of oxygen, one's body can perform better than normal. An athlete who uses a performance-enhancing drug to get more oxygen to his or her muscles can perform for longer periods of time at optimum level. A third reason an athlete would choose to use supplements is to stimulate the body (Athletes & Drug Use). The reasons athletes need to keep their body stimulated are to reduce fatigue, gain assertion, and maintain aggression (Athletes & Drug Use). It is really not much different from a person drinking coffee in the morning to perk up. One final reason an athlete would use performance-enhancing drugs is to mask an injury (Athletes & Drug Use). For example, if a quarterback breaks his toe or sprains his knee during a game, there are two options: one, the quarterback can be taken out of the game or two, the trainer can give the quarterback an injection to take the pain away, allowing the quarterback to return to the remainder of the game. With the reasons for taking performance-enhancing drugs in mind, this essay should mention the many categories of performance-enhancing drugs available on the market today, including steroids, growth hormone stimulants, pain killers, and diuretics. Most athletes strive for success in the sense that motivation comes from gaining college scholarships to high-paying positions on professional teams or becoming an Olympic

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