baseball and steroids
 

do you care?

I could care less. I might care when players install artificial super retinas, wired reflexes, and synthetic muscle fibers.

Athletes have been on drugs since there were drugs to be given to them.. IE: the 1970s...

The fact is, drugs don't make you stronger. Steroids will only help you recover faster and maximize the work that you do in the gym. Most of the athletes back in the day ate crappy food and worked out a couple times a week... Then vacationed the entire offseason... The were on high dosages of steroids, but it didn't show on most of them because they didn't work as hard as the modern athlete.

Barry Bonds, et all... They are in the gym everyday, eating 2 grams of protein for every pound of body weight, working on their game the ENTIRE offseason, and they are working their asses off. They take steroids in much safer dosages, and most of them have a cycling program that minimizes the ill health effects... There really isn't any reason why an athlete (or any citizen for that matter) who is being safe about using these drugs, shouldn't be allowed to use them.

THEY DO NOT MAKE YOU A BETTER ATHLETE!!!

I Dont know..I prefered the Mini-Bonds to juiced up Bonds

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...vis/index.html

I'm in the middle, I don't think it's good at all considering some of these drugs are illegal, but I honestly don't think it has as big of an effect on sport as people would like to make it out to be. All steroids does is speed up the process, I still think we'd get to the point where baseball players were all bulked up and in shape 100% of the time.... that never happened when Aaron and Mays played. You hear those guys talk about going on the old home run derby show in the offseason and how they wouldn't do as well as they didn't bother staying in shape in the offseason. Athletes are bigger, faster, and stronger and ballparks are smaller.... of course things like home runs are going to be far more plentiful.

No matter how juiced up a guy is, he still has to have the skill to put a bat on a ball.

Then why take them?

It's not so much the homers as it is being a realist. If you're getting your panties in a wad about baseball players being on steroids, I hope you're not a fan of college or pro football. If you could make yourself 10% better at your job by taking a supplement (legal or not) that has minimal health risks, you'd be silly not to.

They don't make you hit the ball, but they make that ball goes further. Which changes alot of doubles, and triples into home runs. Which changes who teams build around. Which changes how oppositions pitch. Which changes which team succeeds. Which changes which team wins...

oh wait.

Bonds still doesn't have a World Series Ring.

O.K. I'll just stop at... "they make the ball go further"

Because you can work out three times more often and twice as hard without being worthless all week long... They allow you to WORK HARDER, and the hard work makes you a better athlete.

I dare you to take steroids every day and sit around eating nachos and drinking beer... How much muscle to you suppose that you'll build? None!

Then, go to the gym with a friend of yours who is roughly the same size and build. You take a ton of steroids and keep him clean. Both of you do exactly the same amount of work in the gym and eat the same kinds of food. The only difference between your results at the end of the month is that you will probably be leaner than him (less fat due to higher metabolic rate) and will not be as sore (quicker recovery time due to high levels of testosterone). You will probably not be much stronger or bigger than him though...

Eh, I'd take issue with that last statement.

I agree, they only enhance your ability to be a better athlete.

One amendment and this statement is accurate...


"They only enhance your ability to BECOME a better athlete."

Take two exactly equal players and give one of them steroids, and the one that takes steroids gets an advantage. Period.

Why...

Muscles do not grow stronger or bigger relative to the amount of sexual hormone you have in your body. They grow bigger and stronger relative the amount of work (time under tension) that they are put through...


There are a couple other elements at play that might give a slight edge to the higher T levels, but not much. Mostly that's a nutritional issue. Higher levels of T will help you to metabolize fat better and turn that into energy as well, so you might get a slightly higher rate of growth, but I can't imagine it would be very much.