Tag: Performance Enhancing Drugs

Resources by Conor HeffernanAug 12, 20192:49 pm

Guest Post: Steroid Use through History

We all know how competitive humans are, especially when it comes to sports. Athletes are pushing themselves harder and harder every day to be the best and achieve what nobody has achieved before. Sometimes they resort to various substances to enhance their performance, but many of those substances are actually quite harmful and forbidden.

Still, this has been happening ever since people discovered that some substances help them improve their athletic performance. The ancient Greeks used sesame seeds, while the Australian Aborigines chewed the pituri plant. On the other hand, Norse warriors were fond of hallucinogenic mushrooms and we there is a lot of evidence that many other ancient cultures had similar traditions.

Drug-taking in Ancient Times

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Performance enhancing drugs seem to become more problematic every year. Athletes are getting bigger, stronger and faster. Spectators are getting curious, suspicious and concerned. Performance enhancing drugs have touched nearly every major sport at one level or another. It’s a modern problem right?

Well not exactly…

Resources by Conor HeffernanAug 13, 20177:45 pm

Friends to Enemies: Steroids and the United States

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Note: This article is about the legal history of Anabolic Steroids in the United States and not an endorsement or discussion about steroids and performance.

There is perhaps no other topic in sports that garners as emotional a reaction than the use of steroids or performance enhancing drugs by professional athletes. For some the ends justify the means, whilst for others, the use of any ergogenic (something that aids performance) goes against fair play.

I suspect that much of this debate is fuelled by the fact that anabolic steroids are an illegal substance in the United States, which is oftentimes the mecca of sports. With that in mind, today’s post looks at the history of steroids in the United States, specifically their first uses and when they became a banned substance.

Resources by Conor HeffernanAug 2, 20164:16 pm

‘Diuretics’, Muscle Builder, June 1961,

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The following article on diuretics comes from 1960s bodybuilding magazine, Muscle Builder. Though now a commonplace drug used by pro bodybuilders to ‘lose water weight’ and increase definition on the day of a show, diuretics were a relatively new phenomenon in the 1960s, hence the magazine’s admiration for the ‘wonder drug’.

Nowadays the drugs are synonymous with highly uncomfortable side effects and in extreme cases, death. Similar to our previous posts on steroids, the article highlight’s the sports initial naivety to the drug.

Resources by Conor HeffernanMar 14, 201611:36 am