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Steroids are a
problem in bodybuilding. No surprise there, right?
Proliferation of drug use in the sport of physique is an
age-old debate. Two sources are often blamed for the
expansiveness of drug use in the sport: the federations
that conduct competitions, and the media (including
supplement companies in the form of ads used).
Physique
federations operate under guidelines they establish.
Given their rules, certain appearances will be the
victorious ones. The biggest, freakiest physiques win if
that’s what the federations reward. The federations
could just as well use criteria that would favor more
natural looking appearances and penalize chemically
enhanced proportions. And they could deter use of
dangerous and illegal substances by actually testing for
them too. But some don’t, including the largest
organization. Why? Does the appearance of freakier
physiques draw more attendance to the contests? That’s
commonly heard, but when I think about that, I wonder
who would place so much emphasis on attendance. The same
people do not produce all, or even most of, the shows,
and profits from each show are not very inspiring to
influence such behavior even if they were.
The argument
for citing the media as the culprit is that larger
bodybuilding publications commonly seen on magazine
racks use mostly drug-enhanced athletes to fill their
pages, which is claimed to encourage drug use by way of
providing media exposure for those who do it. From the
beginning, and for a long time, federations were also
publishers of the more prominent magazines, so maybe an
underlying reason for wanting the freakier physiques to
appear was to actually sell more magazines by having
that content in them. Does the appearance of freakier
sized physiques cause higher sales for the publisher?
Magazine
publishers often push supplement lines they manufacturer
in their publications too, so maybe the primary reason
for wanting the freakier physiques to appear is to
actually sell more supplements. Using gargantuan-sized
physiques in ads implying use produced those results can
achieve much success in the way of sales.
There seems to
be two things people seek the most in the sport of
physique: fame and fortune. Presently in bodybuilding
it’s be the biggest, win the top shows, get in the
magazines, become more recognizable, and get endorsement
deals. Fame… fortune. The problem is, in order to gain
what fame and fortune is available in bodybuilding,
competitors find themselves having to resort to use drug
use. The manner in which the industry operates
perpetuates the use of drugs. How is the cycle (pun
intended) to be broken?
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Aside from the
media and federation debates, there is another factor
that makes one wonder why drugs are such a big problem
in the sport; the law. Steroids are illegal to use, buy,
sell, or possess. Obviously the law is being broken if a
lot of people in the sport are using these substances.
Consider a drunk driver; A car swerves in and out of a
lane as it’s driven. A police officer notices what could
be a sign of driving
under the influence. The driver is pulled over and given
a sobriety test. If the driver’s reading from the test
shows a blood/alcohol level above a legal limit, he/she
is taken into custody. It could mean loss of driver’s
license, fines, or imprisonment.
Bodybuilders
who have the size that can only be achieved through use
of steroids and growth hormones display signs of
breaking the law. What if they were ‘pulled aside’ and
given a test, taken into custody if they failed, and
assessed fines and given jail time?
A highway
patrolman may monitor a highway if trying to catch
persons exceeding the speed limit. In similar fashion,
law enforcement officers could monitor untested
bodybuilding contests if trying to catch persons using
illegal steroids. Imagine a contest such as the Mr.
Olympia. Based on past participation, it would be
reasonable to suspect the gathering would attract the
presence of law-breaking drug users. What if, just
before its start, law enforcement officers showed up on
the scene, ran some tests, and ended up taking all the
competitors into custody? There would be no show. With
no show, there would be no show winners, no coverage in
magazines, and no stars to seek out to endorse products
(think any company would want someone arrested for drug
use to be associated with its products?). And imagine if
event organizers themselves suffered loss due to the
drug test failures, like an establishment that gets
fined for serving alcohol to someone under the legal
drinking age. That would get the right people’s
attention.
Some
federations allow non-tested shows and award appearances
that can only be attained with the use of illegal
substances. Many of those same people put those winners
in the magazines, and use them to sell more of their
product in those magazines. But they are being allowed
to do it. Ultimately, if steroid use in bodybuilding was
significant enough to the government, resources could be
appropriated to force change.
So what’s to
blame for the rampant drug use in the sport of physique;
the competition organizers, the media, the supplement
industry, all three of those intertwined and stemming
from the same source, or the government?
The examples
cited might seem far-fetched, but the point of this
editorial is to show that the government has, in its
power, the ability to clean up the drug problem in
bodybuilding. It just needs to find it significant
enough to worry with. Until then, the federations,
magazines, and supplement companies will keep doing what
they’ve been doing, because they make more money doing
it that way. And all the while, the number of
competitors who use steroids to try to get noticed will
grow, as will the number of cases of health
complications and early deaths.
Matt Shepley
Publisher, Fitness & Physique
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FROM THE
PUBLISHER