The sports world has a plethora of products including pills, potions
and tonics that provide loads of promises to give the athlete that winning
edge. Their promises include improved performance, better endurance,
increased strength and better recovery. These can be achieved by reducing
body fat, increasing muscle mass and reducing chances of illness. These
temptations are often used as shortcuts to success in sports and have found
many takers in the sporting community. Nutritional sport supplements, many
of which are endorsed by professional athletes, are becoming popular,
especially among the adolescents. This age group is characterized by a
thirst for quick results and a total lack of concern for consequences.
The hard-core sporting fraternity is receiving the attractive
assurances of these products with such enthusiasm, since in elite
competition, minor differences can separate the winners from the rest of
the competitors. Sport supplements are not just for hard-core athletes
anymore. This craze has also taken over the non-elite and recreational
athletes, including the body builders and weight lifters. Women athletes
and weight conscious people are also falling prey to these shortcuts. Sport
scientists too are finding these supplements as an indispensable aid to
their strategies to enhance training, performance and recovery. (Sport
supplement and sport food, drugs and sports, beginners guide)
Athletes have used performance- enhancing supplements since the fifth
century, when they were known to ingest deer liver to improve speed and
lion's heart to increase strength. Today's scenario describes thousands of
products invading the market with such easy availability that even a common
man has access to them. A survey conducted on Australian swimmers indicates
that 99% of the...