|
 |
|
|
January 29, 2004
An Acceptable Risk?
For more on sports and steroids, be sure to check out the latest issue of Reason. First, Dayn Perry clocks in with an impressively researched piece that makes the case that steroids, when used under the supervision of a physician, can be both safe and effective. There's also Jacob Sullum's companion piece that takes President Bush to task for his mention of steroids in the latest State of the Union: One reason the president offered is that such drugs are "dangerous." Compared to what? Football players routinely get knocked around by 300-pound behemoths. They and other professional athletes frequently suffer injuries—pulled hamstrings, concussions, torn ligaments, busted knees, separated shoulders—that may force them out of the game for months or leave them with lifelong disabilities. If avoiding danger were their main concern, they would not be playing to begin with. In Major League Baseball, everybody knows that you run the risk of taking a 100 mph fastball to your skull everytime you step to the plate. In the National Hockey League, when you screen the goalie, you're most likely going to be subject to vicious checks from behind, delivered by defenseman paid to move you out of the way. And every defensive lineman knows that when they rush the quarterback, they run the risk of getting leg whipped, chop blocked, or worse. The one thing these situations all have in common is that these are risks that are intrinsic to the play of the game at just about every level. Using controlled substances to improve performance, the safety and efficacy of which are still in dispute, is not. I'm not going to pretend I come into this discussion as a neutral party. On and off for the last seven years, I've lifted weights with Bob Whelan, owner of Whelan Strength Training and proprieter of NaturalStrength.com. A former Air Force firefighter, Bob was a competitive powerlifter while he was in the service. Today, armed with a Masters Degree in Exercise Science, he runs his own gym in the basement of an office building in Washington's Chinatown. Bob has trained both college and professional athletes, as well as less talented folks like myself. (To see Bob lifting a car, click here.) Simply put, making people stronger without the help of steroids is the focus of Bob's mission in life. Furthermore, he especially enjoys training everyday folks who just want to get stronger, with the message that lifting weights to gain strength is something everyone can do -- male or female, young or old. Bob likes to say that muscle tissue isn't male of female, it's human, and everyone can take the potential that genetics have given them and push it to the maximum. To get a better idea where Bob is coming from, stop by his site here. It makes compelling reading. And with what you see Bob's clients do without the help of artificial means like steroids, you have to wonder why anyone would use them in the first place. POSTSCRIPT: Ben Domenech and Nick Schulz both have more.
Eric
12:22 AM
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: Listed below are links to weblogs that reference An Acceptable Risk?:
» Reason on Roids from Bendomenech.com Tracked on January 29, 2004 11:44 AM CommentsPost a commentThanks for signing in, . (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |