Issue 033
January 2008
Ask yourself this simple question: if you were going to compete against another individual in the hardest sport in the world where the winner may become rich beyond hid wildest dreams and achieve movie-star type fame, and you were offered a guaranteed way of improving your performance, would you take it? What if it meant taking a banned substance? What if that substance was a drug? Be totally honest – would you take it?
Look at the training that is involved if you want to get to the top in mixed martial arts (MMA). I’ve seen documentaries on some of the top fighters and spoken with many elite MMA competitors. Some of these guys are training three times a day, six days a week, for up to two hours per session. I have trouble training three times a week let alone three times a day. Surely these guys are overtraining. How can they get enough food in to recover properly? How do they deal with injuries with this training frequency? How come they stay motivated for every workout?
Well as it turns out, some MMA fighters have been taking stuff. Some have been taking creatine, some have been taking extra protein, but some have been taking drugs.
People make me laugh. I’ve been speaking to people in the past and they’re preaching away about how they can’t stand drugs and how the scumbags that sell them should be put in prison and this and that. Then they take a nice long suck on their cigarette and gulp down some beer, before carrying on. Cigarettes are drugs. Alcohol is a drug. And all of you out there who can’t get through out the day without a regular fix of caffeine, either from a cup of coffee or a can of cola. We live in a very hypocritical society.
Before we go any further I would like to point out that I am not justifying the taking of drugs. I don’t like the effect drugs have on society and people in general. As a side note I even think that drugs in general are often unnecessarily prescribed by doctors when other options could be explored for the treatment of illnesses. Also I am no expert regarding what drugs do to a person, I can just give my opinions from what I’ve seen from many years of being involved in nightclubs, combat sports competition, weight training and more recently as an ambassador of this great sport called MMA.
Over the past couple of years there have been many fighters tested as ‘non negative’ for banned substances. It seems that when we see the results of competitors who have been found guilty of taking something there seems to be a few substances that crop up time and time again, the three most common being anabolic steroids, marijuana and cocaine. Now what these athletes are being tested for is performance-enhancing drugs. It is pretty obvious why someone might take anabolic steroids as they have been used extensively to improve strength, speed and recovery in a multitude of sports. Steroids, however, are not illegal to be in possession of for personal use in the UK, so what’s the problem? Cocaine and weed are both common recreational drugs, but would you associate them with improving an athlete’s performance? I think we need to look at the bigger picture here.
People often say ‘how can weed improve performance’? I don’t smoke but I’ve seen plenty of ‘stoned’ individuals to see how ganja affects people and I would agree that it wouldn’t be the best thing to do just before a fight, but look at the bigger picture. If smoking a blunt makes you feel relaxed and relieves you of your pre-fight nerves, maybe allowing you to sleep better and fight better on the day, is that not enhancing your performance? Cocaine looks like it makes you go hyper. I’ve read that it increases your heart rate considerably and causes dehydration (among other things) so it’s again not that advisable to be snorting this stuff prior to a fight (or any time for that matter). These drugs are also illegal and tarnish the good name our sport has built up over the years. There is also the fact that they all have negative effects on a person’s health, and we need to protect fighters from themselves, not just each other.
At the end of the day, drugs in sport are bad. Drug abuse is not a healthy pastime and athletes getting caught taking them does MMA no favours with regard to its image and public perception. There are no shortcuts regarding performance and there is no substitute for good old-fashioned hard work and a sound nutrition programme. If you are an up and coming fighter, steer clear of performance enhancing drugs and educate yourself about the latest training and recovery methods. Let’s keep the sport clean and ensure it keeps growing like it has.
