Recovery.
Why do athletes take performance enhancing drugs?
Recovery.
Why do athletes take performance enhancing drugs?
Recovery.
Got that? If you take nothing else out of this blog, remember that athletes use PEDs for recovery. That should be drilled into your head.
Let me first dispel the notion that dopers are lazy and would rather shoot up than work hard. Simply not true. Athletes dope so they can do more. In ESPN's 30 for 30: 9.79* documentary, Ben Johnson said that when he was on anabolic steroids, he could max in his lifts twice a day as opposed to once every 3 days when he was clean. Ask anyone who has tried to max-out a lift: it isn't easy, and it sure as hell isn't lazy.
So, here's how it works, the very crux of doping in non-skill sports (i.e., track and field, cycling, Nordic skiing, swimming...basically sports that don't involve a ball): say you have a 3 month long competition period. That means you have a 9 month out of competition period where 7 or 8 of those months are spent actually training. Testing is much more stringent in competition season--out of competition testing is largely lax (or sometimes doesn't happen at all; see end of article). The probability of getting caught out of season is on the order of magnitude of a fraction of a percent (I can't immediately recall anyone who's gotten busted for an out of season test). So, you dope up on whatever is the rage of the day, be it anabolic steroids back in the 80s, or EPO, HGH, and testosterone now. You know how long it will be in your system. You almost have to be stupid to get caught, seeing as anyone who can consult a calendar will know when to dose and when not to.
Let's take the case of a male distance runner. The bulk of off-season training consists of running a ton of miles. Run too much though and his body breaks down, he'll get fatigued and start displaying diminishing marginal returns on his training. But, take some PEDs (in this case, the big 3 of the modern day: EPO, HGH, and testosterone) and his body can handle more. Instead of running 90 mile weeks he can tackle 105 mile weeks like no problem. He can do his long runs a little bit faster. Instead of lifting twice a week he has the energy to lift three times a week. Pile this on for six-odd months and this athlete is going to be in the best shape of his life. By the time workouts start rolling around, he'll be able to handle higher volume and higher intensity in those as well.
Now it's time to race. Our athlete is what I'll call "currently clean"--that is, his urine won't trigger any positive tests nor is he on any sort of in-season doping regime--I hesitate to call him clean for reasons I'm about to explain. Nothing can take away the training that this runner has accomplished over the past year. All those extra miles, faster miles, extra lifting sessions, higher quality workouts, longer workouts are in his legs, his muscles, and his lungs. Because of this, he'll be able to smash his PRs in a drag race and be able to close like a freight train (this is what a freight train looks like) off of paces where he was previously hanging on for dear life. When asked how was able to improve so much, all he has to say is that he had a quality year of training at the highest level. And he isn't even lying.
Pretty simple, isn't it? Cycle on the drugs, train your tail off, cycle off, and reap the rewards. Now, the "currently clean" term I dubbed: the runner in my example is still dirty as all sin. His fitness level is a result of his drug use. Without the drugs, his year of training would have been marginally successful instead of wildly successful, all other things being equal. I would say that his fitness is dirty, even though his pee-cup is saying otherwise. Thus, he is currently clean, but he sure is not clean. It's hard to do much about it, except something along the lines of weekly testing out of season, which is near impossible to facilitate (find me the following in rural Kenya: a drug lab, means of sample preservation, certified testers who want to go to Kenya, etc.).
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Shifting gears a little bit, when baseball's "Steroid Era" was outed in the early 2000s, many pundits said that they didn't think pitchers were doping because they didn't need to be huge in the same way hitters did. While the part about being huge might be true--you can be as strong as you want, but if your fastball isn't moving, you're going to get hit--the part about them not doping is absolute baloney. We've established what doping is about (hopefully you remember), and a starting pitcher is a prime candidate for someone who needs to recover quickly. Every five days, a starter is charged with the task of throwing basically until his arm falls off. If his arm starts falling off in the third inning, his bullpen is in for a long night his team will be at a disadvantage for the next couple of games. Come the dog days of August when the pennant races are heating up, a pitcher might need a little help to be at his best each start. PED use would allow him to be effective through the late summer months and into the fall when the playoffs begin.
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In the five months preceding the 2012 London Olympics, Jamaican track and field athletes were subject to one out of competition drug test. Not one test each. Just one athlete was tested once in those five months by Jamaica's anti-doping agency, which is responsible for upholding WADA and IAAF codes. I'll let the readers make their own conclusions about this, but I will say that mine is not a particularly good one.
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| Asafa Powell, a 2012 Jamaican Olympian, was recently whacked for doping |
Why do athletes take performance enhancing drugs?
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