People talk about the great players who played before, Lawrence Taylor, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan. These players were extraordinary athletes who played the game they loved every day. These legends would give one hundred and ten percent every time they stepped foot on the court, field or track. One thing we don't associate with these players is the use of illegal substances to increase their level of play. But today we have gold medalists being stripped of their Olympic medals, players facing a lifetime ban, and every day another athlete being suspended for a shorter period of time. The use of performance enhancers in any professional sport is unfair to the athletes who work hard and do not take drugs, to the fans who admire them and to the sport itself, to the people who violate the rules on the illegal use of drugs. substances such as steroids, gene therapy, human growth hormones and blood doping should be excommunicated from the game they play if they knowingly take the drugs. Today, there are many different types of performance enhancers that can be easily obtained by players in professional sports. Lean mass builders are a type of performance enhancer that promotes muscle growth along with recovery time after injury. Two examples of this type of drug are steroids and human growth hormones, or HGH. Another method of improving performance is blood doping. Blood doping occurs when red blood cells are taken from the body weeks before the event. Then, before the game, game or event, the person puts red blood cells back into the body. When you do this, it increases the amount of red blood cells in the blood, which increases the amount of oxygen in the blood... middle of paper... Chang, Louise. "Blood Doping: Types, Risks, and Tests." WebMD. WebMD, April 18, 2012. Web. November 19, 2013. CNN Library. “Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports Fast Facts.” CNN. Cable News Network, January 1, 1970. Web. November 18, 2013. Farmer, Sam. “Former NFL Player Describes Pressure to Use Human Growth Hormone.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2013. Web. November 20, 2013. Karriem-Norwood, Varnada. “HGH (Human Growth Hormone): Uses and Side Effects.” WebMD. WebMD, October 11, 2012. Web. November 21, 2013New York Department of Health. “Anabolic Steroids and Sports: Winning at All Costs.” Anabolic steroids and sports: winning at all costs. Np, Mar. 2008. Web. Nov. 18, 2013. Pray, Leslie A. “Sports, Gene Doping, and WADA.” Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 2008. Web. November 20, 2013. Wallace, Eric. "Drugs in sport". Drugs in sport. University of Ulster, nd Web. 18 November. 2013.