Why Do Professional Athletes Use Steroid?

For two straight years and possibly even longer, Alex Rodriguez spent over $12,000 a month for performance enhancing drugs (PED) to gain an unfair advantage over his competitors (Weaver). Professional athletes like him are subject to huge contracts and an incredible amount of pressure to perform at a high level. As a result of this, many resort to steroids as a training aid. It is difficult to keep regulations on steroids in different sports leagues. Some steroids can be undetectable in drug testing and some leagues simply do not have strict enough rules on steroid use. This is extremely unfair to players that work unquestionably hard to be a professional athlete while some athletes are cheating through the use of steroids. It also destroys the integrity of the sport because awards, records, and championships seem to be fallacious.

In order to better understand all aspects of steroid use throughout professional level sports, the counter side must be addressed. In many sports leagues we can see that steroid policies are being taken control of because so many professional athletes are being penalized for taking PEDs. The MLB is now issuing three times as many drug tests compared to 2003 and these tests detect steroid use up to two weeks prior to the testing. The NFL drug tests every player

It is unfair to to competing athletes that do not use PED’s and it is destructive to the the history of records and awards. Steroids being used by our role models and awe inspiring athletes, creates a falseness to the sports field as a whole. It disrupts the trust in all professional athletes. From a very young age, we are taught that cheating is wrong. As young children, we would not dare cheat because of the consequences. However, in this day and age, athlete seek greatness by using performance enhancing drugs, yet it only destroys the authentic feel to the sports we love and