Wow. Very well-written rebuttal to Hruby's article, Sal. I wish I had something to add, but you covered it all quite well. Great job.

Hmm. Maybe I'm confused.

I always thought Viagra was for people with a deficiency to become, temporarily, "normal" again. I didn't think it had anything to do with taking people who are already proficient at something, and making them a little bit better, in order to somehow "best" others in a public competition.

But, then again, I'm not a complete fuck-tard like Pat Hruby...

If doping becomes legal those who do not wish to use drugs that have many side-effects are going to be forced into using them also and the level in the playing field will become mostly due to the amount of money that someone has to spend on doping. This is, I think the most important point in the article and I have to agree fully with Marinello.
CIIR is as true today as it was before if you are to compare different players with different physiologies you will find that some, by birth, are more suited to different sports. The New England Journal of Medicine had an article about a naturally occurring mutation that wipes out myostatin production, making the person studied much more able in weight-lifting than his competitors, at least one of these is rumoured to be a European eight-lifting champion. Eero Mantyranta won 2 Olympic gold medals in 1964 because of a mutation that allowed him to have much higher red blood cell blood content than is possible with modern doping giving him extremely high endurance. In 2003 a study conducted in Australia to examine the frequency of occurrence of the ACTN3 gene in a group of male and female sprinters. Approximately 20% of people lack an active version of this gene that is associated with the production of a protein specific to fast muscle tissue and the group studied was found to have a higher than normal percentage of this gene.
"Hruby goes on to point out that Lasik and Tommy John surgeries are procedures that can help a player perform better" Yes, Marinello's argument is right but Hurby also said that altitude training give players an advantage others don't have, these aren't illegal and players do use them.
"This kind of equivocation blurs all lines of right versus wrong, legal versus illegal, minor issue versus major issue; kind of like equating a parking ticket with grand theft auto." Hurby is arguing for the side he believes is right, so that argument doesn't apply. Hurby is also arguing for making doping legal, so the legality is not an issue. However doping has much more serious consequences than altitude training so I would have to agree with Marinello on this one.
The point Hurby was making by mentioning Viagra and gastric bypass surgery is that people outside of sport use these methods to alter the odds in their favour much the same way that athletes alter them in their favour by doping in sport and if people in general are allowed use them then why shouldn't athletes be allowed also. On this I have to agree with Marinello because sport is designed to be competitive from the outset and if a particular person or team has an unfair advantage it's simply not as interesting to watch or compete.
The next generation of gene doping is going to be even less detectable, so allowing controlled doping looks to be one, possibly also the only, way of controlling competitive sport substance abuse.

vas:
thanks for taking the time to read the item and for your response.

your comment about the next generation of gene doping is right on the mark. there are serious issues that will need to be addressed as we go forward with this subject, issues that shouldn't be sensationalized or trivialized by those who don't know what they are talking about.

you guys dont have the first clue go workout then run your mouth you dont know shit..HONESTLY

the man:
thanks for your eye opening comment...i'm not sure what is more impressive; the incoherent run- on sentence or the all caps...bravo!

I personally do not agree with Mr. Hruby's choice of technique for this argument, but I do feel that performance-enhancement is a part of athletic activities. If one is to assume that the use of anabolic agents is unethical, then they might be able to construct a personal argument based on ethics not logic. Otherwise, there is no purely logical way to differentiate anabolic agents from other performance-enhancing supplements. However, if one wants to assume a set of ethical guidelines then so be it, but please do not pretend to be the crusaders of truth and justice. Everyone has a different opinion on what is ethical, but there is no absolute set of ethics to guide us.
Futhermore, anabolic agents may present certain health problems, but almost any sport has inherently many such health concerns that the player is willing to accept in pursuit of excellence. There is no such thing as a level playing field. There are only factors of natural ability, environment, and preparation, which determine each player's combined ability.
In conclusion, I agree with the incompetence of Mr. Hruby's argument, but any attempt to construct an absolute argument about ethics is inevitably fallacious.

This article does not define its boundaries or its intentions on revealing the negative attributes of steroids. Steroids are found in many forms and, the arguments presented within this article don't measure up in expressing what is exactly wrong with steroids. Steroids are still created today, still used in western medicine and will continue to be used. Although I myself do not use performance enhancing drugs of any sort, after much research I have come to my own conclusion that just like anything else; performance enhancing steroids can increase a person's level of physicality. Weather it be for strength or stamina. If used inappropriately, then obviously you will see negative side effects, but ethical and moral obligations on this matter should not sway the facts about steroids. Like any drug, if not taken with precaution and regulation steroids can be harmful. Although the author of this article points out ethical and moral concerns about the uses of steroids, it does not mean that there is anything wrong with the product. It's up to all of us as individuals to see if its appropriate for ourselves and not force a 'ethical' and 'moral' personal perspective on others.

Nice read, im a fellow athlete, here is another issue regarding baseball and anabolics, i read an article written in the 60's (or it was a ball player in the 60's) that said his teamates and even him had all tried and were doing several steroidal drugs, and that most of the athletes on other teams were doing them as well. I do not have the link but im sure i can find it. It was an interview done with a professional baseball player through espn. (i appologize for the spelling its late and i have no patience to type well)

Also i do consider drugs in sport cheating. I still do not believe that anyone (FDA included) knows enough about steroids to judge on safety. Most people that use those drugs have a mental illness somewhere that makes them believe they need to use drugs to be successful.

Your credentials are an obvious indication that you know more about fitness, athleticism and sports than I ever could. It is for that reason that I'm surprised that you argue so strongly against "juice".


It is as though you honestly belive that a drug exists that can give a mediocre athelete a marked competitive advantage. Is this true? Can I be a lazy athlete, pop a pill or stab a needle into my fourteen inch bicep and suddenly have twenty six inch biceps and forty inch quads?


I think your argument is a bit too vehement. Lazy athletes will fail and hard working athletes will succeed. I believe that in bodybuilding for example, all-natural atheletes are free to compete separately from the Ronnie Colemans. Why can't every other sport adopt that realistic stance?


My point is that no drug on the planet (that I know of) can make a lazy athlete superior. Even with juice, only the hardest working athletes get the most rewards and the highest accolades. Please don't insinuate that the reverse is true.


Finally, I belive that performance enhancing drugs should be legal. They're already in abundant use in all professional sports (as I'm sure you've witnessed). Instead of all this being done in secret, it would be more useful if it were legal and public. At least that way, the high school students who read your post won't walk away believe that a dose of Andro is all they need to become star quarterbacks.

bodybuilding - natural or otherwise - is a joke, and has no place in an argument where real athletes are concerned.

and besides most "natural" bodybuilders are far from drug free...this is just a semantical argument that isn't worth getting into. if a person is using insulin, testosterone or hgh they can claim to be natural and not be technically lying. and since there are no tests for hgh there is no way for natural bodybuilding competitions to catch those using. furthermore, most natural bodybuilding contests are not "lifetime" drug free competitions anyway. since there's no way to prove via drug testing whether or not someone used steroids 2 years before a competition, the concept of natural bodybuilding is even more farcical.

to say you believe performance enhancing drugs should be legal - and to say they can be useful -without giving any reasons indicates that you possess a lack of knowledge on the subject.

Lol.. you're right about one thing (as I said in my initial comment), I don't have as much knowledge as you do.


The merits or demerits of bodybuilding aside, my main question is this: can any given drug give a lazy athlete a competitive advantage over a hard-working athlete ceteris paribus?


(I know I sound naive. Feel free to educate me, point me to links, reference material, case studies, etc)

Small addition: My initial comment was badly phrased. What I meant to say was that it would be useful to legalize performance enhancing drugs not that these drugs are useful in themselves (I wouldn't really know).


Legality of drugs would "hopefully" force/enable transparency and prevent people thinking that these drugs are all one needs to be a champion. The evidence would be in the open, the effects publicly documented and results widely available.

NO:
Laziness is a bit of a relative term...but if we're talking about athletes at the same level of competition - which assumes a necessary baseline of talent in order to compete at that given level - a "lazier" athlete can certainly gain an advantage over all other athletes at that level. and as you go up the scale of ability, the more natural ability this athlete possesses the more the advantage will be. clearly we have examples of this during recent history; ben johnson, jason giambi, tim montgomery, marion jones, sugar shane mosely, roy jones jr, antonio vargas...there are others as well.

steroids won't turn a non-athlete into an athlete - that's why bodybuilders could never compete in real sports - however, these drugs do provide definite advantages.

without even talking about increase in strength, the recovery benefits of steroids should be the real reason - and provide the real advantage - for the use of steroids among professional athletes.

with regards to case studies and reference materials just do a google search for steroids in general, or specific drug names, and you'll get more info than you bargained for.

what i will say, is that the legit studies that have been done on these drugs are far and few between, and also deal in dosages that in no way represent the dosages used/abused by athletes. also, these studies do not take into account that athletes "stack" - use several of these drugs in combo - and don't just take one drug.

and here's a link to an item i posted a while back.
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/12/120454.php

The human genome is (for all intents and purposes) identical for all humans. There is a negigable difference between any person who has posted here, regardless of physical appearance. Gene doping will not be an issue.

Thanks for the quick response. I think I now understand your argument better than I did before.


Thanks also for the link to your previous post. For further detail, I've just started reading your personal blog which has valuable insights I hadn't read before.


Finally, thanks for not bashing a clueless commenter like myself into the ground. I know it's frustrating for you when less informed individuals state their misguided opionions.

Your blog is fun too, Nicholas. Where in Nigeria are you?

NO:
i'll never bash unless first bashed myself! and you asked good and valid questions...it's too bad more people that have the job/responsibility to report on this issue haven't asked the kind of questions that you have...thanks again.

with regards to the human genome and the next generation of "doping," that's an issue that is completely separate from this issue of steroids and their use.

Sal m: Thanks. I look forward to more of your posts on these issues.

Christopher Rose: I'm not from Nigeria. I'm from Kenya, in East Africa.:)

Nicholas: oops had a slight brainfart. Fully meant to say Nairobi, sorry.