The effects of performance enhancing drugs

Curious to hear a first-hand account of the effects performance enhancing drugs have on athletes? Outside Magazine sent an amateur cyclist on a mission to test the performance gains from your run of the mill hormones and enhancers designed and created to artificially boost performance and recovery time.

It had taken me a while to arrive at this moment. I was sitting in the San Fernando Valley offices of a physician whose identity I’ve agreed to conceal—let’s just call him Dr. Jones. For reasons I’ll explain shortly, my goal was to experience firsthand some of the banned performance-enhancing drugs that are often abused in the endurance sports I participate in, like cycling and cross-country skiing. The menu I had in mind included human growth hormone (HGH), testosterone, and some variety of anabolic steroid, all of which are used to increase strength and shorten an athlete’s recovery time by repairing muscle cells faster.

Any interesting read for anyone curious to know the types of enhancers accessible by amateur and professional athletes. One part that I found interesting was the fact that human vision can be improved by strengthening eye muscles with hormones.

How much compensation would you request in order to subject your body to such a test?