Why People Use Steroids, Pros and Cons, and a Short History

Sometimes I just feel so small, and I think that my workouts are not giving me any great results and I think “What would I have to do to get big like Ronnie Coleman or Arnold or any professional body builders? ” A lot of men of all ages, especially college age, want to gain muscle and be in good shape. Some of these men are even willing to take drastic measures by putting their health at risk and even their freedom. They put these things at risk by using steroids. Many people might not even know exactly what steroids are, the history of steroids, and how they can be administered.

We all know the pros of taking steroids but I will reiterate those, along with a view of the negative side affects and consequences of taking steroids. But to understand more about steroids and the people that use them, I will also discuss why people use them, and talk with a few of my friends who have used them. So now it is time to learn a lot about the world of steroids, first by actually learning what steroids are. In the 19th century, experiments provided evidence that showed a hormone in the testes was the reason for puberty changes.This hormone was named Testosterone, and in the 1930's it was “discovered, isolated and later synthesized.

” With the synthesizing of this testosterone we created what we now know as Anabolic Steroids. After the synthesized testosterone became more developed, some discovered other purposes besides speeding up puberty. Some of these purposes were “increase of aggression in Nazi soldiers, elite-level athletics in the 1950's, and the very specific production for weightlifting athletes.So actually the first steroids were invented in Germany during World War 2, and the two Germans who did all the studies etc were offered a Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work, but the Nazi government made them decline the offer, which they later accepted after WW2.

Since anabolic steroids were discovered in Germany during WW2 they were obviously the first people to use them, and it is widely believed that they used them on Nazi soldiers to increase aggression and stamina.It is also believed that Hitler was injected with testosterone derivatives to help some of the ailments he was faced with, and they conducted experiments on inmates at the Nazi concentration camps, and steroids were later used by allies to treat malnourished victims that survived the concentration camps(Wiki). So after WW2, the Soviet Union and some other European countries pursued the development of anabolic steroids to produce better athletes for the olympics during the 1940's, and the United States' only way to combat that was to use them here also.Therefore in 1958 the anabolic steroid, Dianabol, was approved by the FDA. But, Dianabol was later banned in 1976 due to high numbers of atrophied testes and enlarged prostates.

Now that we know a little about the history lets go a little bit into the definition. Many people think steroids are just a drug people can take to make their muscles bigger. While that has some truth to it, that is not really what steroids are. According to medterms. com a steroid is a “general class of chemical substances that are structurally related to one another and share the same chemical skeleton”.This website also goes onto say that “many hormones, body constituents, and drugs are steroids”, also that some drugs used to reduce swelling, pain, and some other symptoms of inflammation and Vitamin D are actually steroids.

So that means anyone who takes vitamin D,essential nutrient, supplements are actually taking steroids. Testosterone and its derivatives are also steroids, but the difference between testosterone and the other type of steroids is the effect that they have on the body.Testosterone and its derivatives have anabolic effects “that can be used medically or illicitly to build up muscle mass. These are called anabolic androgenic steroids. Not a lot of people know what these things mean so I will explain them, anabolic means they promote cell growth(anabolism), and androgenic means they affect the development and maintenance of masculine characteristics(wiki). So now that we have a better understanding of the term steroids, we will look at how the drug can be taken.

Before, I thought anybody who took anabolic androgenic steroids was just sticking a needle in their body and injecting themselves with steroids, but that is not the case. There are many ways you can administer these Anabolic Androgenic Steroids like intramuscular injection, oral(tablet or liquid), transdermal(gel or patches), and subcutaneous injection(injection under the skin).One of my friends were trying to get me to take steroids at one point and he told me that he was using a cream that he just rubbed onto the skin, and that sounds a lot more appealing than the injection, I even onsidered it just because it seemed so simple. The thought of sticking a needle in your skin is disturbing to some, my friend even said that he hated going to the store to buy his needles and that it was embarrassing because he felt like a "crack head". So yes, there are multiple ways to administer steroids, some as simple as mixing it with a drink or rubbing a cream onto your body.

So now that we know a little about the history of AAS we should have a better understanding of the pros of using them, and why people use them.A lot of young people use steroids for various reasons like to get bigger, stronger, faster, more aggressive, faster recovery, peer pressure(even from coaches). These are the main reasons why people take steroids when not prescribed by a doctor. In high school a lot of athletes can be encouraged by coaches or teammates to use steroids, when I was in high school there were a few guys on the football team who everyone thought was using steroids, and most of them went on to play college sports where I am sure it is even more common.I currently work in a gym, and some guys that come in my gym I know for a fact are using anabolic steroids because they have told me.

I even have some friends who use them, they are not athletes of any sort, they just do it so they can look good. My friends have even tried to convince me into taking steroids saying how great it is and how I would get so strong and massive, also saying how cheap they could get it for. I thought about it quite a bit and was pretty close to buying it, but after really thinking to myself about why I should get it I decided that the possible cons outweighed the pros.One of the most interesting things I read was that if the anabolic steroids are taken at a young age it can increase the size of a mans penis, during a conversation with some friends somebody said to my friend that takes steroids that his testicles must have shrunk, but my friend responded by saying that his penis had actually gotten bigger from taking anabolic steroids.

With our country's fascination with sports and just power overall it makes sense that so many people want to use steroids.If a high school football player really wants to play better, steroids would most definitely do the job. Anabolic steroids make people more aggressive, increased bone size, and just all physical attributes making better athletes. A study back in 1996 found that 600mg of testosterone enanthate weekly would improve strength more than training alone does(wiki). So steroids can even replace going to the gym and working out. But as we know anabolic steroids don’t only have good side effects, or else they would probably be legal.

Anabolic steroids have quite a few negative side effects. Some of the well known side effects are reproductive system dysfunctions: impotence, testicle shrinkage, gynecomastia, decreased production of hormones, along with liver damage, increased acne, oily skin, elevated blood pressure, higher LDL and lower LDL, and about fifty other things. Albeit these negative side effects people use the steroids, most people just don’t think its possible for something bad for them to happen, like getting in an accident while drinking and driving.Even with the many know adverse side effects many users do something called stacking, where they take more than one type of steroid for a cycle of a about 6-12 weeks. Stacking is expected to give better results and highly reduce the chances of many of the known side effects while allowing your body to not get used to not producing its own hormones(About). So I guess most of the people that use steroids usually think they have the answer to prevent the adverse side effects of anabolic steroids, until their habits actually catch up with them.

Some people feel that the sport of professional bodybuilding is to blame for steroid pressures.After all, bodybuilding is a contradictory practice in name, method and ideals. Instead of building as the name implies, it systematically diminishes health by increasing bodyweight, wearing on joints, risking both chronic and acute injuries, and deteriorating one’s health. Although it does provide some mental health benefits like increased self-esteem, self-discipline and self-empowerment, these are greatly outweighed by the promotion of insecurity, shame, and the portrayal of unrealistic physical goals. (AASA)I completely agree with this statement and believe that this is just one of the many problems with not only the American society but a lot of society. Everyone is always told that they are not good enough, they need to get bigger, stronger, lose weight, smarter or whatever, but sometimes I wonder if this is more of a problem or a pushing factor for growth or development.

So should I be happy with who I am, or measure myself off of someone else's success?