This article is a good jumping off point into the World of Doping. It provides a clear overview of what doping is, why athletes dope, and various ways to combat it. It provides helpful visual graphs breaking down the countries and sports with the most drug use violations.

The article ends with a list of substances with varying levels of prohibition:

Anabolic Agents

Peptide Hormones

Beta-2 Agonists

Hormone Modulators

Masking Agents

Stimulants

Narcotics

Cannabis

Glucocorticoids

Beta-Blockers

As well as banned methods:

Manipulation of Blood

Chemical and Physical Manipulation

Gene and Cell Doping

Although the article does explain the topic fairly well it does fall short in its depth. To thoroughly explain this topic to the class I will need to dig deeper into each of the various topics it briefly mentioned.

This might be more of a fun post, but I found this video very interesting when I came across it in my research. It details Messi's early football career and how despite his talent he struggled due to his short stature. He was later diagnosed with Growth Hormone Deficiency and had to directly inject HGH into his legs nightly for some time. This gave his body the boost needed to grow from a projected 4'7" to 5'7" in adulthood. I thought the video was well animated and edited, but what especially stood out was how Messi's use of Growth Hormones was not ostracized as drug doping, but instead a requirement to allow him to compete at an equal playing field. This shows how drug doping is a more nuanced topic than initially believed where the full morality of it is undetermined.

It also just shows that even the top competitors result to doping sometimes because of the intensity of the sport.

This article is great at explaining the certain common injuries in mens gymnastics and how it might play a factor into why doping happens in the sport.

1. Shoulder Instability

"Male gymnasts put a lot of stress on their upper extremities and shoulders. When performing tumbling skills"

this is something I can relate to as a person who does a lot of floor.

"research has shown that a gymnast can experience up to 16 times their body weight through their arms3. The shoulder joint relies on strong muscles, ligaments, and the labrum to provide stability for the wide range of motion that travels through the shoulder. Weakness in the shoulder muscles can contribute to laxity in the shoulder joint, which can cause pain and a feeling of instability when hanging or weight-bearing on that arm."

gymnast are prone to a lot of injuries. Doping is one of the ways you can recover really fast which is what im going to talk next.

It highlights how they work and what physical advantages it can give you. As a gymnast, one of the things that It can be beneficial for is endurance.

For example, floor routines are supposed to push you to your physical endurance limit. The way you can improve your endurance is be practicing more routines so it becomes normal and being strategic in your routine.

doping basically bypasses all of that.

one of the things they said in the article is that:

"For endurance, doping compounds generally work to increase the amount of oxygen you can carry in your blood. These range from drugs like erythropoietin, or EPO, that increase the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells that circulate in athletes' bodies, to transfusions, where you physically inject more red blood cells directly into an athlete's veins. This type of doping is more often seen in sports where athletes have to run or cycle long distances with little to no breaks during competition."

In the example of gymnastics, doping can cause you to be able to do harder and more intense skills with no problems.