Over the Top: Bodybuilding Supplements
In the sport of professional bodybuilding, a little edge can mean everything. In a competition where every muscle counts, where every cut or definition, every reflection or shimmer, can mean the deciding point with the judges, participants will do anything in their power to gain the upper hand. Sadly, while natural bodybuilding is the healthiest approach to the sport, in order to stay competitive, bodybuilders must take a number of bodybuilding supplements. While some dietary bodybuilding supplements are not necessarily harmful, many performance enhancing substances, relatively new to the athletic world, have yet to be studied extensively and may pose unknown risks.
One Too Many
Dietary bodybuilding supplements exist because bodybuilders must maintain a specific nutritional balance in order to continue to excel in their sport. Bodybuilders must continuously build muscle yet lose enough fat for those muscles to become defined; this means consuming enough calories to energize the body, but not enough to be stored. These calories must include enough protein to provide the body with the building blocks of muscle, but enough carbohydrates as well to fuel cardiovascular exercise.
Dietary bodybuilding supplements help bodybuilders achieve this balance without grocery store struggles. Different substances can increase fat burning, ensure healthy joints, prevent nutritional deficiencies and even accelerate muscle growth. However, many of the dietary bodybuilding supplements on the market that claim they can provide all of these benefits do not prove successful. Creatine is perhaps the most successful legal supplement available, as it provides the body with short bursts of energy for intense workouts; the rest is up to the body.
While dietary supplements are legal, most performance enhancing bodybuilding supplements are not. Anabolic steroids and prohormones are used frequently in competitions by athletes who hope to increase muscle hypertrophy. While the chemicals do increase the synthesis of muscle proteins, they also the increase the likelihood of side-effects, including baldness, acne and testicular atrophy in men. Human growth hormone, a relatively new product, is much more expensive than steroids.
This protein hormone is secreted from the pituitary gland, and it stimulates cell reproduction. While in the past HGH was extracted directly from the glands, it can now be produced in laboratories. The known risks of HGH treatment are rare and few in number; however, with its increased use, both in frequency and amount, new side-effects may quickly be discovered. Insulin can also be used and is readily available; however, when used as bodybuilding supplements, insulin injections can be fatal.
