Lesson video

Hello, everybody.

Thanks for joining me for this lesson.

It's called "Prohibited Substances and Methods." It's a fascinating topic, this one, I think.

It's from the "Socio-cultural Influences: Ethics and Behaviour" unit.

What we're gonna learn about today is several different substances, which, unfortunately, are in use by athletes which are prohibited, which means they are not allowed, but they still are in use.

And we're gonna have a look at some of the reasons why athletes use them, why they shouldn't, and what happens to those who get caught.

Loads of juicy stuff in this one.

Let's begin, shall we? Okay, so by the end of today's lesson, you should be able to identify different types of performance-enhancing drugs, their effects and the reasons for and against taking them.

Here's your keywords for today.

There are five of them and they're all names of different types of performance-enhancing drug: anabolic steroids, blood doping, beta blockers, stimulants and narcotic analgesics.

We'll be learning more about those as the lesson progresses.

So three-part lesson, the first one's called explain PED use for strength and endurance.

So first, a little introduction.

And athletes looking to enhance their performance may turn to drugs, you probably knew this already.

Now a range of substances and methods are used, many of which are prohibited, means they're not allowed, they shouldn't be used.

Performance-enhancing drugs or PEDs, as we shorten it to very often, have numerous advantages and disadvantages.

Sometimes PEDs are taken by athletes to stimulate muscle growth if they want to achieve muscle hypertrophy, which is the increase in the size and strength of their muscle, isn't it? A commonly used PED to achieve this is something called anabolic steroids.

It's a substance which mimics the hormone testosterone.

Andeep's question to you is "Which sports performers would benefit from increased muscle growth?" Because not all of them would, that's for sure.

What do you think? Well, let's have a look at this summary slide, which you'll become familiar with for all of our different PEDs today.

So they use my athletes to help them train harder and longer, increase muscle mass and growth, and perhaps most importantly, it speeds up their recovery so they can get back training again quite quickly.

And obviously that means that their training load increases.

What is it used for? Well, used for sports requiring strength and power.

In reply to Andeep's question, what did you think? What sports do require strength and power? Well, here's too from me.

Weightlifting is quite an obvious one perhaps.

And sprinting, that's very much a power strength event, isn't it? But there are several negative effects for people who use anabolic steroids.

Potentially they could have liver, heart and kidney issues, and more psychologically perhaps they could have mood swings, aggression and depression.

Quick check for understanding then, in which of these activities you can see on the screen might you find the use of anabolic steroids to benefit performance? So A, bodybuilding; B, shot putt; or C, marathon? I don't know if you said that two of them would be suited to the use of anabolic steroids.

A, bodybuilding, 'cause that's clearly all about muscle hypertrophy and trying to increase muscle size.

But B, shot putt, it's an explosive power event, isn't it? And so having larger, stronger muscles would also be attractive.

Marathon runners would not wish to have bulky heavy muscles on their body because that would make them less energy efficient as they try to complete the marathon in the best time.

So well done if you said A and B.

Laura's question to you is "If your body could deliver more oxygen to your muscles, which types of activity would you be significantly better at?" And just be where we've moved on from anabolic steroids here.

So which activities might you be significantly better at with more oxygen? Well, here's a clue.

I wonder if you thought this one.

This is an endurance activity such as triathlon, which is in the picture or marathon or tour cycling in which you work aerobically for long periods of time.

Of course, aerobic means that there is enough oxygen present.

So if we're working aerobically for a long period of time, of course we're going to benefit from having more oxygen delivered to the muscles.

Now athletes are able to gain this advantage by using a prohibited method called blood doping.

I wonder if that's one you've heard of before.

Let's have a closer look at blood doping and how it works.

So what will happen is an athlete will have blood taken outta their body a few weeks before they compete.

That blood is then frozen and put into storage.

The athlete's body recognises that there's less blood, and it will replenish the stores and get it back to normal.

What then happens is that just before the competition, that stored blood that's been frozen and stored is then returned to the body.

What do you think that all gonna cause? Well, the number of red blood cells is now higher because you have the natural store of blood plus the blood that was frozen and stored back inside the body as well.

Jacob's question is how a more red blood cells going to be beneficial? It's important to remember the components of blood and their roles in particular here, the red blood cells.

What is the role of the red blood cell? Well, they contain something called haemoglobin, and that's the substance which carries oxygen to the muscle, so very, very important.

More haemoglobin means more oxygen can be transported to the muscles.

The impact of that of course is that you can work harder and longer without fatigue, increased VO2 max and recover faster.

Blood doping has a PED equivalent, 'cause remember, blood doping is a method.

The PED called erythropoietin, or EPO for short, is a peptide hormone.

Now this peptide hormone occurs naturally in the body, but you can also inject a synthetic or manmade version of it that will stimulate the body to produce more red blood cells.

And what we've just seen in reply to Jacob's question earlier that more red blood cells are great if you want to be able to perform aerobically for long periods of time without tiring.

This summary slide will consider both at the same time because they essentially have the same role, and that's that it's used by athletes to increase red blood cell production, increase oxygen transport and therefore improve endurance.

What's it used for? Well sports which last a long time and require endurance.

What might they be? Well, we've had a look already at some, haven't we? Marathon running, tour cycling are some of the most gruelling and require great endurance from its athletes.

Negative effects, well we have something called viscosity.

Okay, the the thickness of the blood, and by having more red blood cells than usual, the blood will get thicker, and that can lead to a few different negative effects as we'll see in a moment.

It could also lead to potential infection when you're injecting things into the body.

The blood viscosity could lead to potential for heart attack and embolisms, which is a blockage of the vessel as that viscosity of the blood has got thicker.

Quick check for your understanding on blood doping and EPO.

So which of these is not a reason some athletes would use blood doping or EPO? Is it A, it improves how fast you recover from endurance activities? Is it B that it increases your blood pressure? C, it helps you to work aerobically for longer? Or D, that it increases your VO2 max? Which one? Okay, great if you recognise that B, that it increases your blood pressure, is not something athletes would use blood doping or EPO for.

It is a side effect, because if you think about having thicker blood or more viscous blood, that's going to require the heart to work harder to push it through your arteries, and so it will increase your blood pressure, but that's not a reason for using EPO.

It's not a desirable impact.

The other three were reasons why athletes might use blood doping or EPO.

Here's your task for this first section.

Here we have Alison on the left and she's a fell runner and is training for an event in which she will run 20 kilometres on an off-road hilly route.

And that essentially sums up what fell running is, if you've never heard of it.

This type of event places a great strain on the cardiovascular system.

Alison is considering using prohibited substances or methods to enhance her performance.

I'd like you to first of all identify a substance or method which could enhance Alison's performance and tell me why.

And then I'd like you to write a paragraph evaluating whether Alison should consider using these substances or methods.

Why might she want to use 'em, why might she not want to use 'em? That's up to you in your recently discovered knowledge to come up with the balanced evaluation.

Okay, so pause video here, and then rejoin me again in a moment, and I'll share some of my answers with you.

Okay, so Alison is considering using PEDs or methods which could enhance her performance and why.

You might have said that she might use blood doping, or she might use the peptide hormones EPO to improve the cardiovascular endurance.

Either of these methods will increase the number of red blood cells in her blood, which will allow for more oxygen to be delivered to the muscles and increase how long she can run for without getting tired.

Okay, second part asks you to write a paragraph which evaluates whether Alison should consider using these substances or methods.

So a bit of a balance in the pros and cons of doing so.

You might have said she could use this method or substance to enhance performance.

However, both the prohibited, which means they shouldn't be used.

She's also risking her health by using either, as they can result in health problems such as thicker blood viscosity and embolism which could lead to heart attack.

She should try to improve her cardiovascular endurance naturally through training, which is, of course, possible.

Well done if your answer reflected something along those lines, with a good evaluation of why there's a lot of negative side effects to using blood doping or EPO despite the obvious benefits.

Okay, brings us to the second part of today's lesson.

It's called explain PEDs for other advantages.

Okay, because we've looked at how they can be used for strength and endurance, but there is a wide variety of advantages that people will use PEDs for.

Let's have a look.

So Alex has a question for you, relates to the picture there on the left.

He said this athlete has a big race next week but has a slight injury.

What do you think they might do? Okay, you can see them there holding their calf, can't you? Well, what a lot of athletes will do is use painkillers, and we have different levels of painkillers.

Some of the strongest are called narcotic analgesics, and that will allow them to continue training and tolerate the pain.

The danger of doing this, however, you might have thought of this yourself, is that they can make the injury worse if they continue participating.

Let's imagine this guy here on the left has a muscular strain and he uses narcotic analgesics to allow him to continue training and tolerate the pain and take part in the big race next week.

Let's say it's a marathon, for example.

He completes the marathon with the pain masked by the narcotic analgesics but actually the muscle strain has got worse.

He just couldn't feel it because of the narcotic analgesics.

Once they wear off, he's gonna be in a lot of pain.

Here's our summary side.

What's it used by athletes? To mask the pain of an injury, participate despite being injured, and it's used for any athlete who wants to continue performing despite injury.

Lots of sports then could be our examples here.

I've chosen two which I think it's commonly used in, examples being rugby and football where players may have injuries that they've perhaps obtained during the week in training but they really want to play in the match at the weekend.

And so they use narcotic analgesics to get through the pain and make sure they can play in the match itself.

There are negative effects of narcotic analgesics, as with all of our PEDs.

Performing with an injury can worsen it and could increase the time you are actually injured and then prolong the recovery.

All right, as we talked about with the guy who was holding his calf a moment ago.

Think about a different PED now.

Sofia's got a question for you, and it might be worth pausing the video here and then having a think about how you'd respond to it.

Could it ever be beneficial in a sport or physical activity to slow down your heart rate? We often think about how hard the heart might work during exercise or physical activity and how a short-term effect of exercise is that your heart rate shoots up.

But could there be a sport or physical activity where you might actually want to slow down your heart rate? What do you think? Well, it is possible if the athlete uses a PED called beta blockers, which is a medication that should be prescribed by a medical professional.

So it's not completely illegal like some of the others.

It can be prescribed by a medical professional.

Beta blockers then, summary used by athletes to reduce their heart rate, which also can help to reduce muscle tension and blood pressure, can reduce the effects of adrenaline, which I'm sure you know if you're pumped up on adrenaline, it might make your hands a bit shaky, might make your body a bit shaky, a bit tense.

Improve fine control or preciseness, and that fine control and preciseness might lead us to understanding which type of sports would really suit the use of beta blockers, not that I'm encouraging it.

So it's used for activities which require a steady hand, activities requiring fine motor skills.

What might they be? Well, here's two examples for me: archery, we need to hold that bow very still while you fire the arrow, and shooting where you need to fire the gun with a very steady hand so that in both cases you can try and hit that small target as accurately as possible.

There are negative effects of beta blockers, a number of them: they may cause nausea, may make you feel weak and they may lead to heart problems. Aisha's question I about a different PED now.

We're having a real variety of PEDs here, aren't we now in this section? She says, "Who might benefit from using a PED which can quickly and temporarily make them way less?" Again perhaps pause a video here while you ponder what kind of sports would people want to be able to weigh less in just for a short period of time? Well, in horse racing, a lighter jockey will help the horse to run faster.

It makes sense, doesn't it? If the jockey is lighter, it's not gonna take as much energy to carry him or her.

For this reason, a jockey may use something called diuretics just before a race to lose weight.

How does that work? Well, diuretics cause the body to produce more urine and lose weight quickly.

They're also used in a different way by some athletes to mask the use of other drugs such as anabolic steroids because it's good at flushing out the water.

And if another PED such as anabolic steroids can be detected in urine samples, athletes who are using anabolics there may also use diuretics to flush a lot of the water out of their body.

And therefore the next time they you give a urine sample, it could be a clean one.

Another type of sport which uses diuretics is the combat sports in which athletes are categorised by weight such as boxing, kickboxing, and judo.

Diuretics can be used to reduce weight quickly before a weigh-in.

Now a weigh-in is where the two participants are weighed, probably the day before they fight to make sure that they're at the correct weight that they're supposed to be.

Now it would be an advantage to be slightly heavier than the correct weight because it allows you to be more powerful, but you wouldn't be able to compete if you were heavier than the required weight.

And so what athletes will do is get themselves to slightly above the required weight, use diuretics to flush out all the water so they become lighter just temporarily while they do that weigh in.

And then by drinking water again afterwards they would return to the heavier weight.

Here's a summary on diuretics: used by athletes to lose weight quickly and mask the use of other drugs, used for sports in which being lighter is an advantage and people who want to mask other PED use.

Examples of these sports, rowing and boxing.

Rowing for the reason that you might want to be lighter, so a lighter boat would be easier to move.

And boxing really because you are looking at those weight categories there.

Negative effects of using diuretics.

Well, look, if you're gonna flush all the water out of your body, it could quite easily lead to severe dehydration.

That would lead to dizziness, cramping, kidney problems. Quick check for your understanding.

Performance could be enhancing two of these activities, which I'm just about to put on the screen by using beta blockers and two of them by using diuretics.

Which way round are they? So we've got rowing, darts, snooker and triathlon.

Which way round does that work? Okay, hopefully you noted that rowing, we gave that an example just a short time ago.

Rowing can benefit from the rowers being lighter.

Darts, however, wouldn't really matter if you were lighter or heavy would it? But it needs a steady hand, and so beta blockers could be used in darts.

And snooker is very similar to darts in that it's a target sport, isn't it? You're trying to be accurate with very small margins for error.

And so beta blockers, again, could be used in snooker.

Diuretics is for triathletes perhaps who want to be lighter on the bike or lighter when they run and therefore use less energy to move themselves.

Well done if you've got those the correct way around.

So Sam's got a question for you.

"What do people drink to stimulate themselves in the morning?" You might do it yourself, you might know other people who do it, but it's very, very common for people to take a certain type of drink in the morning to wake themselves up and feel a little bit more stimulated.

Well, we were talking here about coffee.

When people want to feel more alert, they may drink a coffee.

Happens very, very often.

It's very popular.

That's because the caffeine in coffee, which is also found in many of the energy drinks you might have heard of, is what's called a stimulant.

Caffeine is a legal stimulant, okay? Of course, otherwise we don't have all the coffee shops, although some competitions do limit its use.

They'll say that there's a certain level of caffeine that's allowed to be in your blood.

If it's too high then you might get banned or not be able to take part in the competition.

There are several other stimulants which are illegal or banned, okay, such as amphetamines.

Even popular energy drink Red Bull is banned in some country due to the strength of the stimulant.

And sports people may use stimulants if they want to feel alert or they want to reduce fatigue 'cause they're feeling tired or because they need to have fast reaction times in their sport.

Here's a summary slide on stimulants.

It's used by athletes to increase alertness, decrease reaction time, reduce fatigue.

It's used for sports which need alert and quick reaction times.

Here's some examples, table tennis.

If you've ever seen a rally between two top table tennis players, it's really fast, and they really need fast reaction times to be able to return the ball, and boxing, okay? Boxers need to dodge punches as they come.

And so those fast reaction times and being really at the height of stimulation is very important for them.

However, negative effects of stimulants, it increases heart rate and blood pressure and risk of heart attack or anxiety.

People get aggressive when they use stimulants.

Poor sleep, of course.

I mean, drinking coffee just before you go to bed would be a terrible.

And stronger stimulants are going to have an even higher effect.

And they can lead to dehydration 'cause some stimulants actually work a little bit like a diuretic and flush out the water.

So check for understanding, why might stimulants be used by an athlete? Which of these, A, increases alertness; B, masks pain from an injury; C, reduces fatigue; or D, improves reaction time? Well done if you noted that three of those are actually correct answers, it increases alertness, it reduces fatigue, and it improves reaction time.

It does not, as B says, mask pain from an injury.

That of course would be narcotic analgesics.

I'm sure you recognise that.

Well done.

Task for this second section of the lesson looks at the sports of golf and gymnastics.

And what I'd like you to do is look at the sports of golf and gymnastics and consider whether narcotic analgesics, beta blockers and stimulants would be used by golfers and gymnasts.

Okay, so for each sport, I'd like you then to write a sentence explaining the extent to which each PED could be used to enhance performance in that sport.

So a sentence for golf and narcotic analgesic, a sentence for golf and beta blockers, a sentence for golf and stimulants.

And then do the same for gymnastics.

Hope that all makes sense.

Come and rejoin me in a minute for some suggested answers.

Right, golf.

So golf and narcotic analgesics.

Golfers don't really suffer too many injuries caused by the sport.

However, there is one called golfer's elbow, which is an overuse injury which can make swinging the golf club very, very painful.

And so narcotic analgesics might be used for people who have golfers elbow or perhaps another injury that's been caused outside of golf itself.

Would golfers use beta blockers? Well, it's possible, isn't it? Because we do have a part of golf in which precision is key and that's putting the ball on the green, isn't it? So they might use beta blockers if they find that when they're putting, their hands are a bit shaky and they want to steady their hands by using beta blockers.

It's possible.

How about stimulants? Well, a round of golf can last quite a long time.

And in the major tournaments, they'll play four days in a row of golf.

So stimulants might be used to help reduce fatigue and remain focused.

Those golfers might wake up in the morning feeling bit tired just before they're around and think, "I need to take some sort of stimulant here, get me awake and get me feeling alive again." So yeah, golf may be narcotic analgesics, possibly beta blockers and possibly stimulants, but none of them are hugely suited to golf.

Okay, how about gymnasts? What might you have said about gymnasts? So narcotic analgesics, now gymnasts' bodies take a lot of impact on their joints when they perform.

Think about some of the actions that they're doing, the vaults, the jumping off bars, the jumping off balance beams. So a lot of impact on their body.

So they may get injuries quite commonly actually, and they may then use pain relief to allow them to get through a performance.

Would they use beta blockers? Possibly.

It's not gonna be hugely beneficial.

Perhaps those people who are on the balance beam where you have to be very precise about where you put your feet may benefit from using beta blockers to reduce muscle shakes possibly.

How about stimulants? I think stimulants is something that might suit gymnasts.

Not saying they should use it, but it might suit them because they have certain disciplines such as like parallel bars where, let's say they make a slight mistake, but they have a split second to react and correct themselves again.

So being under the influence of some sort of stimulant, which is making their reaction times really fast, would be beneficial in that case.

Well done if your answer sort of reflected similarly to mine the use of those drugs in those two sports.

That brings us to the third part where we're gonna discuss why athletes use PEDs and their impact, not just the physical benefits of using PEDs but why else they might use it.

So in professional sport, winning has become increasingly lucrative, and lucrative means that you can make a lot of money outta being a professional sports person.

Now, some athletes, coaches entire teams or even the people running entire countries adopt a win-at-all-costs attitude where anything they can do to win is okay by them.

And that of course means that some of them will use performance-enhancing drugs to gain an edge over the competition.

Athletes are drawn to the idea of becoming famous, making lots of money and having lots of success in their sport.

And they might believe that the only way to do that is to use PEDs, which is cheating and gaining an unfair advantage.

So using any of these prohibitive substances or methods to gain an unfair advantage is what we'd call unethical.

Jun says, "What does unethical mean?" What do you think? Well, unethical means it's not morally acceptable behaviour, and using prohibited substances is cheating and immoral.

Jacob's question is, "Other than negative effects on their health," which you've looked at in those summary slides, "what else could happen to an athlete who gets found guilty of using prohibited PEDs?" Well, here's an example of a person on the left.

We'll come to him in a moment.

Athletes using prohibited substances risk their career, reputation and accomplishments.

The guy on the left is the most decorated, or was the most decorated cyclist, called Lance Armstrong, who, after his career had ended, admitted that he had used PEDs throughout his career.

As a result, his titles were taken away from him, his reputation was destroyed, and he was sued for his prize money.

He went from hero to zero.

Alex says, "Why do you think he risked it all by using PEDs?" And this is an interesting topic that you might want to talk about to somebody else who's nearby.

Why do athletes risk it all by using PEDs? We've alluded to a lot of the reasons why already, haven't we? Here's another example.

In 1988, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson shocked the world by winning the hundred metre Olympic final.

And this is, in most cases for people watching this video, was long before you were born.

But it was a big story in terms of drug use because three days later, Johnson had his medal stripped from him and he was banned for two years after testing positive for anabolic steroid use.

And ever since, the sport of athletics has had a series of PED scandals involving some of its most famous athletes.

Final example is that for many years, tour cycling, you might have heard of the Tour de France, for example, has been associated with PED use.

And we looked at Lance Armstrong, didn't we, who was found guilty of using prohibited substances.

And unfortunately, a large number of cyclists down the years have been found guilty of using prohibited substances.

And cycling has really been associated with PED use as a result.

So Lucas says, "What negative impacts can the sport suffer if it becomes associated with PED use?" Well, the fans and spectators might lose trust.

They want to be watching a fair competition.

And if they keep finding out that athletes are using drugs, they might not be interested anymore because they want to watch a fair competition.

The sponsors may withdraw funding because they don't want their business associated with PED use.

And if all the athletes are using PEDs, they might remove their funding.

And then we have people, again, like Ben Johnson who are setting a bad example, which could lead to bad publicity in the media.

And other people may see that they're using PEDs and want to use PEDs themselves, and it might make the problem even worse.

Now to try and combat it, governing bodies such as the IOC, the Olympic Committee, spent huge amounts of money each year to test athletes for PED use and to educate them about the dangers.

And we have something called WADA, which is an organisation leading the fight against drugs in sport.

Wonder if you've heard of both of those? Okay, quick check for your understanding, and sports can suffer as a result of athletes using PEDs.

Which of these on the screen could be a negative impact? Is it A, the competition becomes more exciting? B, fans lose trust in it being a fair competition? C, that role models inspire youngsters to use PEDs? Or D, that sponsors withdraw their funding? Which ones do you think? The answers, of course, were B, C, and D.

Fans lose trust in it being a fair competition, role models inspire youngsters to use PEDs, and sponsors may withdraw their funding.

Well done if you spotted all three of those.

Here's the task for today's third section.

And Sofia says, "If you are a sprinter using anabolic steroids, it's worth the risk," or "well worth the risk," she says.

What your job is to do is to write a counter-argument to Sofia's statement which recognises at least one ethical and two health impacts associated with anabolic steroid use, and that could be mental or physical health.

And also write one potential negative impact on the sport of sprinting itself.

Pause the video here, write your counterargument, and come back and rejoin me for some suggested answers.

Okay, so here's Sofia, and things you might have said to Sofia.

"While the ethical impact is you are cheating, you are gaining an unfair advantage, and it goes against the principles of sporting competition." Your answer may have recognised some of those.

How about the health impact? The health impact may be that you may suffer liver, heart, or kidney issues and that you may become aggressive, depressed, or suffer mood swings, okay? And on the sport itself, you might have said that the impact would be, well, you should set a good example as a role model to fans of the sport, and you may actually be the opposite of that, a poor role model.

If caught, you'll damage the sport's reputation.

And that people like you, if you're gonna use anabolic steroids, cause money to be spent on testing, which could be better spent on helping people become better athletes or better facilities or lowering ticket prices so that more people can go to the stadium to watch.

Well done if your answer reflected that and you gave Sofia a good counter argument.

That brings us to the summary for today's lesson.

Let's read it along together.

Been a full on lesson, hasn't it? Lots of things learned today.

So a number of substances and methods are used by athletes to gain an advantage in performance, most of which are prohibited.

Performance-enhancing drugs include anabolic steroids, stimulants, diuretics, narcotic analgesics and peptide hormones, or EPO for short, along with the prohibited method of blood doping.

And they can have positive effects on performance, but serious negative effects on health.

Athletes using prohibited substances and methods often do so for fame, for money, success, but at the risk of their health and reputation.

And they may also be fined or banned as the result.

So that brings us to the end of today's lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

I said at the start this is a fascinating subject, and I hope you agree now, having learned a little bit more about them.

This idea that in the real world, right now as we speak, people are making decisions about whether to use PEDs.

And you may see in the news or the next months that somebody you like has been using PED, and you'll be able to form a lot more of an opinion now about why they use that certain PED and what they must have been thinking and what the negative side effects are going to be for them.

Really great topic, thanks for joining me today, and I'll see you next time.