All athletes from serious hobbiests up to the pros are on a supplements regimen. My experience includes college football and pro camp, 5 years of triathlons, gf who was olympic gymnast and a friend in NHL. In all these circles the dominating conversation (after schedules, games, meets, etc.) is supplements. All athlete hobbiests and up that I mixed with were on a usually self directed supplement intake plan that bordered on religious fervour and in-depth chemical-biological knowledge of the metabolic, endocrinal, hormonal and performance affects. Some of the supplements were wierd, some run of the mill, and indeed some seemed dangerous. I knew athlete hobbiests who ingested chromium, creatine, fibre shakes, royal jelly, Sudafed by the package, beta blockers, blood boosting, recreational antihistamines, 100's of "muscle max___" pills and powders, vitamin combos, alot of "herbal teas" and good ol' caffiene pills. I personally never saw athletes swallow or inject steroids although anti-inflammatory steroid creams and sprays were always prevalent.
All of these topical supplements (certain name brand's excepted) are totally unregulated in their ingredients and manufacture. And all were self administered based on what the person believed in, which best I could figure out was arrived at by absorbing and distilling the intense discussions prevalent whenever we got together, and consequent supplements experimentation!
Any athlete nowadays caught by testing and tearfully says "I never..." is just lying. They all do, it's nothing special when it's been part of your daily routine for 10 - 20 years and everybody you've ever trained with or chummed around with is doing it too. Top competitive athletes' top performance level has surpassed what a totally natural human body can achieve through physical and mental preparation only, barring the occasional physical freak of nature. Guys like Mcgwire, Sosa, Bonds, Giambi thrive on their strange, unique supplements brew that helped get them to where they are, but then they max out, change their supplements, training and trainers, but thats it, ceiling, possible injury from intense training, frustration, who knows. So they start popping/injecting to get that continuous improvement they used to notice. As my NHL buddy said regarding the serious chemicals, they're always there just like the coke machine.
