Should you use performance enhancers?

The widespread use of steroids has caused most of us to feel cheated and deceived when we think about our favorite athletes. As a result, all work out enhancers have become suspect. But, is this really necessary or even in our highest good?

With all of the uproar over steroids, it has become questionable whether you should use anything to help with your fitness program. It is as if these are cheating, as it were, something that should not be allowed either for oneself or others.

Supposedly if you use anything even as innocuous as green tea capsules, you have no right to feel proud of having completed your workout or possibly lifted more weight or run a faster three-mile. It is as if the performance enhancer did it, not you. Does this really make sense?

When thinking about performance enhancers, one first needs to identify what he or she is really talking about. Does this mean an anabolic product which may have serious side effects down the road? Does it mean green tea capsules, which have an anti-oxidant effect  in addition to an immediate elevation of one's energy levels? Or, does this extend to vitamins, which can be used to compensate for nutritional demands made more severe by  strenuous daily workouts?

Clearly, steroids have been banned from sports for a number of reasons.  One of the most important is that they cause long term negative side effects. Thus no one should even want to take them. But green tea capsules are not bad for you, unless severely over done. And vitamins,except for a few instances of extreme mega dosing, are not either.

There are other products besides these. Guarana is one. Yohimbe is another. Some weight lifters have even been helped by a gram dosage of caffeine and aspirin, something your local pharmacists will cringe at and your MD will caution you against. These have all helped to make workouts more pleasant and more productive.

Ought they to be considered acceptable? That is a question which you have to answer for yourself. You may be a person who thinks that three meals per day with a possible cup coffee is all that you and everyone else should find sufficient.

Far too many of us are overweight and should therefore cut back on the number of daily calories while stepping up one's workout. Then too most of us have jobs which drain our energy, making it all too tempting to miss a workout. That is something that should never be. Mild performance enhancers help in both of these instances.

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