Steroids Shrink What!?!?!?!?

-David S.-

Now that I have your attention, don’t go running, but I’m posting my school research paper on Steroids, including a bibliography.  Being my first research paper, it may not be perfect, but I sure learned a lot and want to share this knowledge. So here it goes….

People hear of steroids all around sports.  Almost every day you can find a new Major League Baseball player being caught using these drugs.  These players often take these Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s) without knowing the consequences.  Taking steroids is definitely not worth the risk.  Why and how do players take them?  What actually are steroids?  Why ruin your body, entire career and reputation? Although steroids may improve performance, these drugs have so many physical and psychological effects that have the potential to destroy your body.  All of these substances can even be fatal.  You should absolutely not take steroids unless prescribed for a medical condition.

What Are Steroids?

The general public doesn’t seem to know what steroids are.  Most think they are just drugs that give you enlarged biceps and muscles which is partially true.  Steroids do much more than just intense muscle-building.  There are two types of steroids, corticoid and anabolic, but they were developed for medical usage only at first.

Corticosteroids aren’t the type to build muscle. These have been used for mostly medical purposes.  Most commonly in a football game you’ll see a player go down. A doctor will use a Corticosteroid called Cortisone to treat this injury.  Cortisone is used to reduce swelling and inflammation (Philipkoski).

The most common steroids are anabolic steroids (Quinn).  If you would have a certain disease like cancer for example, anabolic steroids were invented to help you regain your muscle.  Another medical treatment is for late occurring  puberty.  Sometimes young adults seem to never hit puberty and need a boost in growth.  This substance is made of synthetic testosterone (Philipkoski).

What is testosterone? It is the main sex hormone in a man.  The reason for the usage of testosterone is because of muscle building.  Your bone mass and muscle mass can increase rather rapidly when taking excess amounts of testosterone.  Your energy level can be maintained while giving you a great sense of mind or type of “high”(Mandal).

How do Players Take Steroids and Why?

Steroids are extremely addictive.  Usually addicts take 100 times more of a dosage than is normally prescribed by doctors.  This makes unbelievably successful results at building muscle.  Users become extremely addicted and feel confident with their body image, while even obsessing over it.

When people work out, they create micro tears in their muscle fibers.  A muscle then regrows, like scar tissue and comes back larger than before.  If you use anabolic steroids, this cycle gets faster and better.  People can work out more often, as well as get stronger quicker (Philipkoski).  Fatigue is delayed, and you feel a sense of absolute great joy.  Basically, players take these substances to improve their performance (Quinn).

There are various techniques of taking steroids.  Steroids can be ingested by a pill, injected with a needle, and also can be rubbed on your skin with a cream.  Another method is called cycling.  Cycling is most commonly used with body builders.  This form has the individual taking the drug in certain time cycles.  Most commonly, they are taken in 6 to 12 week cycles.

Another way is called stacking.  You put the substance in to your body by both pill and injection.  This isn’t scientifically proven to work, but is meant to double muscle growth.  Pyramiding is another common way to take steroids.  It is just like cycling, but slightly different.  In your first cycle you take a low base dosage.  Then each cycle you keep increasing your dosage until you hit a peak.  Then you gradually decrease.  (“Steroid Users Enjoy Cycling Stacking and Pyramiding”)

Physical Side Effects

The usage of steroids has some disturbing effects on your body.   Harsh damage to your liver and kidney can occur.  Joints will lose flexibility.  Your immune system can become very depleted.  If this happens, you are very susceptible to disease and infection.  Random nose bleeds, headaches, and stomach aches happen.  Your face may have an absolute breakout of acne (“What Steroids Do To a Body”?). Your tendons can rupture. Increased LDL cholesterol, decreased HDL cholesterol will occur. High blood pressure and heart attacks happen because your heart rate can rise.  Diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDS, and hepatitis can also occur. (Quinn)

There are many sexual side effects that are just horrific.  You will have an increased sex drive due to the testosterone increase, but have a decreased sexual performance.  Men can actually see breasts start to form.  Also, testicles can shrink up (“What Steroids Do To a Body”?).

Psychological Effects

Usage of steroids can cause an individual to be very paranoid while becoming edgy and impatient.  Users can become extremely obsessed with working out, monitoring what they eat, and obsessing on how your body image is.  Another common side effect is depression with various mood swings.  (“What Steroids Do To a Body?”).

Quitting steroids is no easy task by any means.  If you try to just quit and stop right now and there, a feeling of mass withdrawal occurs.  You’ll feel fatigue, irritability, a loss of appetite, insomnia, and aggression.  Even suicide can happen. Another dangerous type of side effect is severe aggression known as ‘Roid Rage’ (Quinn).

‘Roid Rage’

‘Roid Rage’ is a very commonly tied with the aggression factor of steroids.  It is commonly referred to as a psychotic episode.  The term first appeared in the 1980s; bodybuilders were committing extremely violent crimes (Dhar).

According to various studies, there are obvious connections between testosterone and aggression (Dhar).  This doesn’t occur for every case. ‘Roid Rage’ usually occurs in people with previous signs of violent or hostile behavior.  Steroids can just put them over the edge and turn them into totally violent criminals.  Incidents of violent physical attacks, suicide and murder have all been attributed to “roid rage.”

Cost of Career

Taking steroids to improve your athletic career may eventually be the thing that destroys it.  One dose of anabolic steroids can ruin your career.  Your entire reputation is shot as well.  No one will ever look at you the same.

For example,  consider Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees.  Also, reflect on Barry Bonds, former outfielder of the San Francisco Giants.  At one point, I’m sure everyone admired their athletic accomplishments and adored them. Some may have even viewed them as the best of the best.  Both, eventually tested positive for Performance Enhancing Drugs and look at them now.  According to Tony Bosch, Alex Rodriguez wanted to start an 800 club. The 800 club is referring to 800 career home runs.  Tony Bosch is the man who personally injected him at the biogenesis clinic in Miami.  They are viewed as absolute villains now.  We should view Barry Bonds as the greatest hitter of all-time, but we see him under a cloud of suspicion.  The public hates him.  PEDs are keeping him and many other players out of the coveted Hall of Fame.

Steroid usage for anything other than a medical condition should be avoided.  The physical side effects are horrific, disgusting, dangerous, and possibly fatal.  Psychologically individuals are diminished.  Users may end up in jail or even murder someone. Why do you need to ruin your career?  Everything can and will be gone.  Steroids will ruin your life.


Works Cited with a Bibliography

Dhar, Michael. “Does ‘Roid Rage’ Really Exist?” Live Science. TechMedia Networks, 24 July.

2014. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.

Mandal, Anya. “Testosterone-What is Testosterone?” News Medical. N.p., N.d. Web. Feb

28. 2014.

Philipkoski, Kristen.  “What Are Steriods?” Gizmodo. N.p., N.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.

Quinn, Elizabeth. “Steroids, Anabolic and Androgenic Steroids in Sports.” Sports

Medicine. N.p., N.d Web. 23 Jan. 2014.

“Steroid Users Enjoy Cycling Stacking And Pyramiding.” Free PLR Article Directory. N.p.,

N.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2014.

“What Is Roid Rage?” WiseGEEK.  N.p.,  N.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.

“What Steroids do to a Body.” Region of Peele.  N.p., N.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.


Nice paper. I named my fantasy baseball league roid rage, not knowing it was a real thing. That would explain some of Barry Bonds’ aggression towards the media. You can also see frequent aggression in David Ortiz…….. Very interesting.

Thank you. Bonds was aggressive, but have you seen the before and after steroids pictures? WOW! Do you think this “steroid era” is coming to an end? Or are there more drugs being made to pass the test?

Another thought; there is tons of joint damage…steroids kill joints. Is there something there?

Thank you, quite great article.

Thank you! What did you find most interesting?

Amazing blog! Do you have any helpful hints for aspiring

Any ideas? Thank you!

Thanks! For aspiring writers, keep on writing. You need to have a passion about the topic that you’re writing about. Be patient because views and followers don’t appear overnight. Be social with other bloggers around the community. It’s ok to start over if you think an article turns into junk. Read a lot, It will open your mind to new ideas, facts, and topics that can translate into a post.

I’ve only used the free WordPress platform, and I would recommend it highly. Don’t pay, you can still write and get much viewership with a free blog. WordPress is very useful and I have had a good experience with it.
Hope I’ve been helpful!
-David S.

Pingback: Best of Bleacher Boy « Bleacher Boy

Thoughts? Comment here!


You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s


Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,311 other followers

%d bloggers like this: