Performance-enhancing compounds are still continuing to be that ultimate thing that has helped athletes and other sportspersons in enhancing their performance. The running performance is one of those things that people can expect to be improved with the help of right steroids. For example, Anastrozole, Androsterone, Boldenone, and more. And, it is a good time to know if steroidal compounds can enhance your athletic performance, have anyone got benefitted from these compounds, exactly which performance enhancers can help runners to achieve a better performance.

Can steroidal compounds really enhance athletic performance?

According to some professors of exercise and sports science, the answer is yes. “Considering available scientific evidence and overwhelmingly consistent anecdotal reports of athletes, we can conclude anabolic steroids are associated with increase in strength,” writes Yesalis in Anabolic Steroids in Sport and Exercise.”

As researchers say, anabolic steroidal compounds are synthetic versions of the natural hormone testosterone, which stimulates the growth of secondary male sex traits. When males hit puberty, testosterone levels increase, causing hair growth, sex organs to mature, muscles to increase and the voice to get deeper. The procedure goes on until testosterone levels start dropping off at the age of forty.

Sportsperson likes to use it as it can be very beneficial when it comes to increasing athletic performance. By taking this, you can elevate your testosterone levels and experience increased strength and muscle mass. When running, you will need strength and steroidal compound can offer you that.

No matter how much you concentrate on your exercise or maintain a strict diet, you will need the help of performance-enhancing compounds, to increase your strength. Definitely, they are no replacement for talent but to maintain your good performance and increase your strength to perform better, you will need steroidal compounds.

Boosting their strength is not the only reason why athletes turn to steroidal compounds. This helps them recover from workouts quickly. With steroids, it is for sure that a marathon runner can run longer and one can name several runners who were advantaged from performance-enhancing steroids. For example, Eddy Hellebuyck, Rashid Ramzi, Regina Jacobs. In sports, where stamina is everything, the capability to last longer during workouts and competitions is an important thing that steroids can provide you.

The problem is that some steroidal compounds come with serious side effects. In males, the use of performance-enhancing steroids can cause shrinkage of testicles, scarring acne, and early baldness. In women, notable changes may show up more drastically. The influx of synthetic testosterone usually causes a “masculinization” that comprises the growth of facial hair, deepening of the voice, and balding.

Despite the potential harm it can cause, several sportspersons are trying steroidal compounds to improve their performance. That’s because performance enhancers are extremely effective and the side effects are not always that severe. This is why several budding runners use these steroidal compounds for additional energy and speed muscle growth.

There are a number of people who think that just taking an effective steroidal compound will make them big, strong, and fit as a runner.  But this is not at all true. You have to do lots of hard work to enhance your athletic performance in addition to taking the appropriate performance enhancer. Steroidal compounds will allow your body to recover faster, which in turn will let you train yourself more.

Some available scientific studies explain that short-term administration of these steroidal compounds by athletes can enhance strength. This is very important for runners for increasing athletic performance.

There have been several studies regarding steroid use and its side effects. But, its use never reduced because of the amazing benefits it offers to athletes, bodybuilders, and fitness enthusiasts.

As stated earlier, Athletes definitely owe their success to lots of things. Their hard work and hunger for success are obviously a part of it. But they can’t ignore the fact that steroidal compounds have helped them a lot.  Some of them admitted it and some of them were caught in doping cases. The below passages will help you in knowing about some sportspersons who were benefitted from health supplements.

People who were caught for using steroids for improving running performances

As exposed by the recent news, almost every cyclist on the planet has either confessed that he/she has doped or accused somebody else of ingesting, injecting, or rubbing performance-enhancing compounds into their bodies. But, cyclists are not the only athletes who have used steroidal compounds when taking part in a competition. Popular Runners like Marion Jones, Ben Johnson, too, has had their fair share of doping scandals. Find out running doping scandals of all time in the passages below:

1. Marion Jones

You may know this famous sprinter from Los Angeles. He has become so popular after he won total five medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Those were two bronze and three gold medals, to be specific. She becomes the American media darling in those Olympic Games.

But all of these medals were taken away after he admitted to taking steroidal compounds prior to the Olympic Games in 2000. As a result, she was sentenced to and was in jail for six months. She also had to go through a two-year suspension from taking part in a competition in track and field. In 2007, she took retirement from track and field. She served her jail term in the middle of the next year.

2. Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is a Jamaican-born Canadian sports person who became the pride of Canada in his time (the mid-1980s). He was declared as the “pride of Canada” after setting world records in the 100m and 60m sprints, often lining up next to Carl Lewis in the event of100 meters.

After beating Lewis, Johnson created a new world record at the world championships in Rome, in the year 1987. But, there, Lewis cried foul play. At Summer Olympics in Seoul in the year 1988, Johnson was tested positive for steroidal compounds.

He also admitted that he took help of performance enhancers prior to setting up his 1987 world record. Both of his medals were stripped off and also, he was suspended from taking part in a competition for two years. His attempt of coming back in the early ‘90s was unexceptional, and he tested positive for taking steroidal compounds again in 1999.

3. Justin Gatlin

This famous runner’s history of steroids started early. In 2001, he was banned for the same reason from competition for more than one year after testing positive for amphetamines, but he claimed that the drug showed up in tests due to the medication, he was taking for attention deficit disorder since he was a child.

Gatlin won gold in the 100 meters sprint at the Summer Olympics of 2004. He clocked in at 9.85 seconds in that event. He got another medal of bronze in the 200 meters and a silver medal as a part of the 4×100 meters relay.

In 2005, he also won a 100m event at the Helsinki World Championships and created a record of the widest margin ever seen at that event. He tested positive again in 2006 for performance-enhancing compounds and was sentenced for this reason in late 2007 and got banned for 4 years from athletics. He started playing again in 2010 with unexceptional results.

4. Kelli White

The popular sprinter from Oakland, Calif, won medals in 200m and 100m events at the Paris World Championships of 2003. In the next year, she lost her medals for testing positive for taking steroidal compounds, and for two years she was banned from competition.

White’s doping linked her to the scandal of Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) like Marion Jones that involved several top US athletes who were taking steroidal compounds at that time, comprising fellow sprinter Regina Jacobs, and Barry Bonds, a baseball player.

5. Regina Jacobs

Regina Jacobs is probably the first middle-distance runner on this list! She was a former Stanford University runner from Los Angeles. She represented the US in 1988, 1992, and 1996 at the summer Olympic Games. This amazing player set an indoor world record in 1500 meters. And, 24 US championships were won by her in distances from the 800m to the 3000m.

In the year 2003, she was caught using performance-enhancing steroids and was suspended from competition for as long as 4 years. Though the silver medals she won in the 1500m in the world championships of 1997 and 1999 were not taken away from her.

6. Rashid Ramzi

This Moroccan runner won both the 800 meters and 1500 meters events at the World Championships in 2005. He became the first person who won both the events at that competition. Ramzi got the gold medal, running for Bahrain at the Summer Olympics of 2008, in the 1500 meters. And this was the first Olympic medal Bahrain won. But that gold medal was taken away from him after he tested positive for a complex version of red cell boosting drug EPO. He was banned for two years for this reason.

7. Eddy Hellebuyck

He is the only Olympic-caliber marathoner playing for the US who has been found guilty of using performance-enhancing steroids. In 2004, he ran his personal best of 2:15:36 at the trials of the Olympics in Birmingham, Ala. Alan Culpepper being faster than him (2:11:42) won the event.

The same year, he tested positive for EPO in an administered test while he was preparing himself for Olympic marathon trials. As a result, he got suspended from the sport for two years, but desperately denied any unlawful activity during the suspension. During an interview in 2010 with Runner’s World, he finally admitted that he doped.

8. Mary Decker Slaney

In the Early days, Mary Decker from New Jersey was considered a running sensation. When she was just 14 years old (“Little Mary Decker”) he won the 800 meters event at a US-Soviet meet. When she turned 16 in 1974, she made the world record in the 800m and 1000m events.

Throughout 1975, she was suffering from compartment syndrome. But, after that, she made a strong comeback in the 1980s and created six world records in 1982 in 10,000m distances. She was rewarded and known as the top amateur athlete in 1982 in the US, and in 1983, she was also declared Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year.

It was not until 1996, that Decker Slaney got into a doping scandal. After qualifying for the 5000m at the Atlanta Olympics, a test at the trials came up positive for testosterone. After that, she was banned from the competition in 1997.

Claiming the test results to be wrong, she fought with the US Olympic Committee and the IAAF. She said it could’ve produced a false positive because of the use of birth control pills, but the ban was sustained.

9. Leonid Shvetsov

Leonid Shvetsov is a Russian national record holder and a two-time Olympian in the marathon and a course record holder in the well-known Comrades Ultramarathon was blamed for using EPO by none other than Hellebuyck.

He not only accused him of using the steroidal compound but also of supplying it to other competitors in the Olympics 1996. But,  he denied any wrongdoing.

10. Ma’s Army

In the year1993, a Chinese group of female runners trained by Ma Junren won six out of nine medals in Stuttgart at the world championships. Afterward, China withdrew six of the runners of Ma’s team (in addition to other 21members of China’s Olympic team) from the Sydney Olympics 2000 prior to competing. That’s most probably because China feared that the runners may test positive for EPO.

Which Steroids does Runners prefer using?

Runners can be benefitted by using steroidal compounds. Actually, for those who take part in competitions of ultrarunning, It may be better to use a performance enhancer than not! You should keep in mind that all steroidal compounds do is allow your body to recover more rapidly.

To keep it simple, there are two kinds of runners short and long.

• Short – sprinters etc.
• Long – Marathoners etc.

Training types of both of these runners will differ.

• Sprinters will need a powerful body able to take explosive actions rapidly. Weight is not the first concern they have.
• For marathon runners, weight is definitely an important concern. A lean body with a big cardiovascular system will be great for them.

So, the type and amount of performance enhancers they need will be different.

Stanozolol:

Ben Johnson was fond of Stanozolol and has used it for enhancing his athletic performances. As we mentioned before, he was stripped of his Olympic medal, that’s because he doped with Stanozolol. But why did he consider using Stanozolol?

It was probably because Stanozolol has the following benefits it offers to runners:

• Offers Zero water retention, which means it helps in getting a lean body.
• It will improve the body’s production of red blood cells. This improves overall endurance and equals more oxygen.
• Stanozolol can be taken both orally and as an injection. If one takes Stanozolol orally there would be no marks of injection.

Side effects: Side effects of stanozolol comprises those signs that are commonly associated with anabolic steroidal compounds like acne, menstrual irregularities, atrophy of the breasts in women, and testicular atrophy, impotence, prostatic hypertrophy in men. Risks of strokes, heart attacks, liver damage, and psychiatric disturbances can also occur to both sexes.

Sustanon:

There are some other steroidal compounds that can help in making running performance better. It is advised that get a test of your testosterone level prior to embarking on a steroid cycle. Among other steroidal compounds Sustanon 250, 300, or 400 are definitely better. Get tested and know your current level. And converse with your health professional about the amount you should take and how often should you take it. Knowing the exact amount and dosage is important as it will avoid unhealthy side effects.

Sustanon is definitely one of the easier steroidal compounds to use:

• Sustanon has both fast and slow-acting testosterone’s.
• You can inject it up to 14 days apart. But the average time is between 5 and 10 days.
• And it is definitely the most suggested performance-enhancing compound.

Side effects: Sustanon also has some side effects. Just because a side effect is stated here, it does not mean all people taking Sustanon will experience those.

• Feeling sick.
• Headache.
• Mood changes, comprising nervousness, depression, anxiety, or irritability.
• Enlargement of the breasts, Breast pain.

Anadrol:

This anabolic steroidal compound is one of the most effective compounds on the planet for increasing stamina, so can prove to be helpful for runners. Anadrol is mainly used as it has rapid and radical effects on a person’s strength.

It makes use of a DHT compound for increasing nitrogen retention and also helps with protein synthesis. In addition to that, it also improves the formation of oxygen-carrying red blood all through the body. This enhanced oxygen retention is the main reason why it is so powerful as an endurance stack.

Though it has some side effects, most of them are not hazardous unless there is a pre-existing condition. Some of them can even be reduced with a combination of other medications.

Side effects: Common side effects of Anadrol comprise:

• excitation,
• diarrhea,
• restlessness,
• Breast swelling in men.
• trouble sleeping (insomnia)

Women taking Anadrol may sometimes develop male characteristics, which could be permanent if continued the dosage. Consult your medical professional if you see changes in menstrual periods, increased acne, male pattern baldness or hair growth, a hoarse or deepened voice while taking Anadrol.

Trenbolone:

Like Anadrol, this performance-enhancing compound is a premier device for building up speed, strength, and endurance. There’s one thing that sets it apart from its counterparts. Due to its capability of binding with cells in the body, it works faster.

This is perfect because the steroid cycle can be shorter while still getting the same effects, reducing the harshness of the side effects that may come with using it. Trenbolone has some of the widest changing effects when it is about how it can affect different people.

Side effects:

• One of the most irritating side effects of Trenbolone is making skin oily. it pushes sebaceous glands into overdrive, which makes them produce more oil than required.
• Have heard of ‘roid rage? It is that feeling where you may want to punch anybody who looks at you in the wrong way. Well, these periods of rage are more likely when you are taking Trenbolone.
• Another unpleasant side effect of Trenbolone is baldness. If you have family members who suffer from male-pattern baldness, Trenbolone isn’t the right thing foryou.

Superdrol:

Most of these steroidal compounds were created in the 1950s or 60s but not Superdrol. It was created in the mid-2000s. So, it definitely is one of the newest performance enhancers on the market. Though weight lifters and endurance athletes can be benefitted from this compound, it is not always the greatest endurance stack when long-distance runners are concerned. Though in comparison to some other steroidal compounds it is advantageous for runners.

Side effects: One of the most common side effects associated with Superdrol is hepatotoxicity, which means it is toxic to your liver. Regular use of it may develop some serious liver damage.

Some other less serious yet probable side effects include:

• Gynecomastia (man boobs)
• Acne
• Shin splints
• Decreased appetite
• Fatigue
• Roid gut
• Loss of libido

Anavar:

Any steroidal compound that starts with “Ana” is an anabolic steroidal compound, the type that is best designed for helping the performance of runners and athletes. This particular stack isn’t the most excellent one for helping build endurance and advance the cardiovascular performance, but it occasionally is a great component in an endurance stack as it has mild side effects.

Steroidal compounds with mild side effects work really well in stacks since the different supplements in stacks’ side effects add up and can turn out to be very severe. It is significant to check this when you will be designing your next endurance stack.

Side effects: after using Anavar, some side effects like vomiting, Nausea, skin color changes, headache, oily skin, increased/decreased sexual interest, acne, and hair loss may occur. If you notice any one of these effects is worsening, consult your doctor or medical professional promptly.

Halotestin:

if you research a while regarding the steroidal compounds that sportspersons use, you will see, a large number of runners list this performance enhancer as the most excellent steroidal compound for an endurance cycle. Its capabilities in this arena are famous and highly-realized by all who consume it. It is also considered one of the greatest oral steroids on the market. This effective steroidal compound is not anabolic in any way, making it perfect for endurance as part of a cutting stack.

All of Halotestin’s properties are undoubtedly androgenic. The main issue with this is that it makes it difficult for women as androgenic side effects can be much more severe for them. as this steroidal compound is so good, it is very costly and can be difficult to get.

Side effects: some Common side effects of Halotestin (fluoxymesterone) are:

• vomiting
• nausea
• skin color changes
• headache
• acne
• increased/decreased sexual interest
• hair loss, and
• oily skin

Consult with your medical professional if you experience these improbable but serious side effects: depression, anxiety, increased anger. Men must consult their physician if they experience side effects like difficulty urinating or breast tenderness/swelling.

Winstrol:

This steroidal compound is popular with athletes, because of its capability to enhance endurance and strength without causing water retention.

Unlike most of the anabolic steroidal compounds, however, Winstrol’s is famous among athletes because of its performance-enhancing qualities. Though it is illegal to use this compound now, people are still using it because of the amazing advantages it offers.

Winstrol has the capability of increasing the body’s production of red blood cells and this lets more oxygen to be carried to the muscles. As a result, users can work harder, longer, and faster.

Side effects: some Common side effects of Winstrol comprise:

• new and severe acne,
• having difficulty in sleeping,
• changing sexual desire,
• headache,
• vomiting,
• nausea,
• changing skin color, or
• Ankle swelling.

Clenbuterol:

• Clenbuterol’s capability of burning fat is what makes it so popular. Clenbuterol’s proved to boost the metabolic rate of the body in a procedure normally known as thermogenesis, which plays an important role in reducing excess weight. Thermogenesis is the procedure where your body’s temperature enhances. With your body trying to keep homeostasis, it tries to cool itself to normal.
• Clenbuterol is great in improving aerobic capacity and increases oxygenation, as well as transportation of blood in the body. With a better oxygen flow in your body, you’ll enhance your body’s muscular endurance. This is significant when you are training yourself at the gym, as it will help you in training longer.

Side effects: Clenbuterol can have some side effects too when misused or overused. These can comprise:

• rapid breathing
• increased heart rate
• chest pain
• heart palpitations
• electrolyte imbalance
• anxiety
• tremors

To conclude, the health supplements mentioned are very effective as well as very fast to show its effects. You just have to take the right dosage to attain its advantages. Yes, there are some side effects that may bother you but your doctor will solve the issue. More importantly, most of those issues are not severe.