Why fitness is messed up: Yes, it's steroids, but it's not what you think
We keep hearing that the fitness industry is messed up. This refers to bad trainers, bad advice, dangerous recommendations, impossible programming. And this is all because of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs).
It’s not because of PEDs per se, but because of our reluctance to admit their use. Major athletic meetups supposedly screen randomly selected athletes before and after competing, but the screening only covers certain substances, and by up to two weeks of PED use. It is logical to assume that all elite competitors have used them in their training, otherwise PEDs would be useless.
Because we are a society with zero self-accountability, we play the “emperor’s clothes” game, and we lie to each other, knowing full well that we lie to each other, about the reality of sport and fitness. By pretending that PEDs are the exception, and not the rule, we get some extremely bad science.
If studies on human sport performance are tainted with bad data due to our dishonesty about PEDs, we get inaccurate conclusions, and therefore, bad practices.
We get bro science tips that don’t work.
We get supplement overuse because of “expert” recommendations.
We get overtraining or people giving up, depending on “expert” recommendations with unrealistic expectations.
We have dangerous programming and nutrition recommendations that work for steroid users, but not for normal people who just love to train, and not to compete.
A lot of these sport studies have flawed conclusions because the samples of athletes they used are tainted by performance-enhancing drug use. And we can’t factor in the degree and type of PED use because they are illegal for athletes, which is the motivation behind this common lie. So, naturally, athletes taking part in sport science studies don’t divulge their PED use status. In essence, the government provides an incentive to lie, and directly distorts the science of human physiology.
If PEDs were legal for competitive sports, then we would have more honest sport science studies. We would know that, what applies for PED users, does not necessarily apply to natural athletes, and definitely not to casual fitness enthusiasts.
And yes, I believe that all competitive athletes use PEDs, otherwise they wouldn’t be competitive. If they pick the odd athlete here and there for PED use, it means that all other athletes on their level have also used PEDs at some point in their training. If they hadn’t, then it means you can reach elite performance without PEDs, which makes PEDs useless, and therefore, a silly high-risk low-reward strategy for athletes. The fact that athletes risk everything (their career and health) to use them means that PEDs do indeed help their performance; a lot.
I am not an advocate for PEDs; I am an all-time natural fitness enthusiast, and I believe in fitness for health and quality of life. I am for legalization of PEDs for competitive athletes as a calculated health risk for them to take, knowing full well that risk. It is not government’s job, or anyone else’s, to dictate what people do or don’t do with their bodies when that affects no one else.
Our propensity to lie about PEDs is why we have so much bad advice and dangerous practices in the world of fitness.
