Steroids: Breakfast of Champions

Abstract

Anabolic steroids (called "steroids" hereafter) have been used to enhance performance by athletes for almost three decades. Initially, they were used because of their ability to increase muscle size ("bulk-up") and were popular with football players who needed to increase their size and weight to compete successfully for line positions on a football team. Despite early scientific reports that steroids increased neither strength nor athletic performance, their use became widespread among nationally competitive athletes. Competition fosters all sorts of practices designed to enhance athletic performance. Many of them are valueless, including the widespread practice of taking amino acid supplements to build muscle size and strength. At least, however, amino acid supplements are harmless; the side effects of steroids can be fatal. The initial reports indicating that steroids were not performance-enhancing were controlled studies using average athletes in whom continuing weight-training during the period of study caused an increase in strength regardless of whether or not steroids were being taken.1 These studies were then repeated on elite athletes, who were already at their peak strength and in whom further weight-training merely kept their strength performance stable; these athletes did increase their muscle strength in response to steroids.2 There is no evidence that steroids increase aerobic capacity or endurance, however.