Anabolic Steroids And Drug Testing

There are drug tests carried out in almost all modern day sporting events. Although we tend to always hear the contrary through the media, it is in fact a common fact that the majority of competitors actually use performance enhancing drugs prior to or even right up to an event. There is nothing abnormal in wanting to get that competitive edge over your opponent and this normally tends to be anabolic steroids along with a concrete plan to "cheat the test"

Many competitions in powerlifting and bodybuilding are now drug tested at events. The idea is, of course, that everybody competes on a 'level field', aside from personal talent for sport. However, what frequently happens is that the guy who is on 'juice' and has found a way to get round the drug test comes out the winner. It isn't fair by any means, but that's life.

Yes, there are many sporting names out there that find this practice an unfair advantage, but at the end of the day it's down to the individual, who knows what the consequences are if he gets found to be positive during a competition. Another interesting part of drug testing is how people avoid the test, but for the moment we are going to concentrate on methods that can be employed to beat the test.

Types of Testing Procedure: During athletics meetings the more common body fluid that is tested for the presence of drugs is normally urine. We will be concentrating on dealing with the different procedures that are carried out to test this body fluid, although such procedures carried out to assess blood for the presence of illegal substances are practically the same.

There are several types of laboratory test procedures that are put in use to detect the presence of performance enhancers and we need first of all to see just how they function. Rule number one is to find out exactly which type of sample analyzing will be used, well in advance of the event so that you can start to put your plan together.

Gas Chromatography(GC): This method uses a separation technique to divide a urine extract into its component chemical parts. These substances are carried through chromatographic columns by a gas: chromatography is simply a means of separating mixtures of compounds from each other, and enables identification in many cases. The chemical compounds in the urine are identified by their 'retention time' on the chromatographic column - the retention time is unique for each drug, and so enables identification.

Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry(GC/MS): This technique uses a combination of gas chromatography, followed by mass spectrometry on the chemicals separated out of the urine on the chromatographic column. The mass spectrometry allows exact identification of the drugs present in the urine by actually giving an exact 'molecular fingerprint' of the chemicals present. That is to say the chemical structure of the drugs present (the atoms present in the drug, and in the order they are bonded together) is given by this method. This is a very expensive test to use, and it could be stated that only sporting organizations with plenty of cash to hand would use it. The test's cost is about one hundred pounds or so per sample (about $200 US).

It is quite fair to say that these two test are reasonably accurate, although there is always room for human error. One example would be due to poor cleaning after the previous test and if that sample should have contained illegal drugs...This would obviously cause contamination and could lead to an incorrect positive test. So in the case that you are found to be positive, make sure you do protest, especially if you were clean or should have been.

High Performance Liquid Chromatography(HPLC): This technique is extremely interesting as it tends to be used on test samples that are suspected of having anabolic steroids present. It's quite similar to GC, apart from that a liquid is used as a carrier for the sample through a chromatographic column, and not a gas. HPLC is both sensitive and a lot easier to carry out than GC. This test is often carried out on results that have already come from less sensitive ones.