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The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

The Student News Site of Palo Alto High School

The Paly Voice

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For strength and glory

Before school, during school, and after school, Paly’s weight room echoes with squeals and metal clanks from training machines.
Massive 100-pound disks rise and fall as an athlete’s muscles pump and strain under gym shorts and T-shirts reading "200 bench club" and higher, an indication of a students’ strength, as well as a veritable source of pride.

Yet given the latest controversy spanning from the Bay Area to the U.S. Senate involving anabolic steroids and professional athletes, BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative), and even Bay Area high school athletes, one wonders, just how much of that strength gained by athletic training is natural?

According to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s Web site, five to 12% of male high school students and 1% of female students have used anabolic steroids by the time they are seniors. While Paly athletes may not be or may not admit to taking anabolic steroids, a common and trusted aid used by athletes are supplements. Sold at many nutrition stores, supplements range from simple protein powders to more complex creatine substances.

Jack, a Paly senior and varsity football player who asked that his identity not be revealed to peers, is one such customer. Experimenting with supplements since his freshman year, Jack has since settled on a routine of Alpha One, which he has been taking for the past season. Alpha One, sold by local Max Muscle stores, is a combination of maltodextrin, a carbohydrate made from cornstarch, dextrose, a natural form of glucose, "100% pure HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) tested crystalline Creatine monohydrate," and other substances, according to the ingredients list printed on the bottle.

"It helps repair your muscles after you lift so they heal faster," Jack says. "You can work them out more so then they get bigger…but Alpha One is nothing like steroids." Unlike traditional steroids, Alpha One does not include a version of the hormone testosterone.

Jack is not alone in his desire to become stronger and a bigger threat on the field. " [I started because of] football and my brother, and to be a better player and to get my body into better shape…there are about eight of us on the team [who take supplements] and we all did very well this year, so it [taking supplements] helps a lot to be strong." Jack continues, "there are others [who take Alpha One] and then other people take creatine…[I took creatine] freshman year but all it does is put extra water in your muscles." Creatine creates bigger muscles through cell-volumization by converting itself to phosphocreatine, a substance carried to the muscles by fluid (water), according to a Max Sports and Fitness Web page (http://maxmag.maxsportsinternational.com/columns/issue15/15col1.htm).

While improving during the season as well as in the off season is a common goal among team members, Jack feels that there is little pressure put upon those who do not take supplements by those who do, stating that taking supplements is not a big deal. "The other people [who don’t take anything] don’t care," he says. "It’s not a bad thing to take supplements."

There are players who not use supplements, although some refrain on account of personal choice or ambivalence on the issue, while others view any supplements as wrong. One such athlete who shares the latter perspective is junior Chris Reade. "It’s tempting [to take something] because it does have results, but it’s wrong, so I don’t," Reade says. "It’s kind of like cheating, but it is their decision."

Reade finds it frustrating that athletes who take additional substances for strength have an advantage over the "honest" participants. "It makes me kind of mad," Reade says. "They’re going to get the same results from doing the same amount or less work … but I’m not going to complain about it. If I wanted to take them, I would."

Another issue surrounding supplements is side effects. "I’ve heard bad things about them," Reade says. "Like, if you take too much there are really weird side effects … I think there are bad side effects and that the negatives outweigh the positives."

Indeed, the effects of such supplements as creatine are unknown in many cases. According to the medical community, supplements such as creatine aren’t always natural and may have hidden drawbacks that many users are unaware of. Benefits promised by substances are especially suspect, as well as the conditions under which the products are manufactured, according to Barbara Lippe, an endocrinologist at a local pharmaceutical company.

Lippe shares views similar to those of Emily Osborne, a family practice doctor at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s clinic, claiming "We don’t know how much more of each of these [supplements] is healthy and when too much can be toxic … in many cases there are no controlled studies to show that these substances really do any good."

Athletes such as Jack believe that the supplements they take are safe and natural. "Alpha One and creatine and that stuff don’t put all that fake stuff or hormones in your body," Jack says. "The stuff we take is natural and it’s already in your body, but it just gives you a little extra boost."

Osborne argues that some supplements are not simply "natural boosts" as many athletes believe. "Creatine isn’t ‘natural,’" Osborne says. "It is not natural to overload on creatine. It can lead to kidney problems, which can lead to kidney failure … Protein supplements are different. Those aren’t amino acids that are harmful to the body." Lippe agrees, saying "no one has done a good long-term trial looking at the safety of some of these supplements … manufacture is poor so what it says on the bottle about quantity is often just wrong …We don’t know if there are control substances for the substances that people are trying to supplement; they may be detected only at the tissue level, not in the blood, so a substance could be causing an imbalance, say in muscle and not be detected by any blood test, but could be doing damage."

In addition to medical concerns, steroids and supplements have been criticized by professional athletes, claiming that those who use them violate ethical standards and should be considered cheaters.

One such athlete opposed to all steroids taken for personal gain is Jeff DeLong.

A member of the Nike Farm team, which often practices at Stanford’s track, DeLong has become disillusioned by the controversy surrounding athletes. Currently a contender for Olympic trials and representing the United States in the 2004 summer Olympics, Jeff has considered the possibility of other athletes taking illegal substances, and then wrongfully filling slots in the trials, preventing him and other deserving "clean" athletes from moving on in the competition.

Recent investigations surrounding BALCO, including a raid by federal agents, grand jury indictments, and involvement by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, have created an inherently negative vibe around many sports figures. Athletes targeted in the investigations have been linked to involvement with tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), a derivative of the anabolic steroid gestrinone, according to a May 2 article from the San Jose Mercury News.

For those who stay clean, at any level, cheaters are undoubtedly frustrating. "With all this [testing incidents] you see how addicting winning is," DeLong says. His main reaction to the BALCO fiasco was "just shock." " [I] had suspicions, but it’s weird to have them confirmed … you never know who’s using it. If they’re smart they won’t tell you."

Running the 800 m in 1:46.23, DeLong hopes to improve to a high 1:44. "I’d be happy with 1:45, really," he says. In striving to improve while still recovering from knee surgery last year, DeLong finds that he cannot let himself be worried by distracting events such as recent investigations. "You can’t worry about things you can’t control," he says. "You could really drive yourself nuts…You can only worry about your self, and only hope that the authority is doing its job…I spent too much of my life worrying about things I can’t control."

Despite trying to ignore the controversy, DeLong is angered by those who compromise their health for glory. "People think, ‘oh, I’ll take the fame and get the side effects later,’" he says. "When this is all over, this season of your life, I want to be able to look in the mirror and say I did everything I could … I don’t know how those who cheated can do that."

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