|
|
[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
|
|
|
||
|
||
|
2 1 - 1 2 - 2 0 0 4 Sales up as andro ban nears
By Edward Iwata, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — With a federal anti-steroid law kicking in next month, fitness buffs and athletes from coast to coast are snapping up the last bottles of popular bodybuilding products, including andro, which soon will become banned drugs.
The shopping frenzy comes amid a government crackdown on illegal steroids and a widely publicized sports doping scandal involving Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative founder Victor Conte and three other men, including Greg Anderson, a longtime friend and trainer of baseball's Barry Bonds.
After Jan. 20, it's a crime to sell, buy or use prohormones and steroid precursors without a prescription. Anyone caught with the substances, which turn into testosterone when ingested, could face prison and fines.
That isn't spooking customers, who like the way the substances build muscle mass and strength.
"I'm stocking up. I just bought about $1,000 worth," says Dan Phillips, 45, of St. Louis, an amateur bodybuilder who also owns a supplement site. "Obviously, if I get caught with it, I'll be put in jail, which is even more ridiculous."
Currently, the substances are marketed and sold over the counter as diet supplements.
Steroid precursors made headlines a few years ago when former St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire admitted he used androstenedione, or andro. Prohormones, which many say are much more potent, followed. As the market grew, dozens of U.S. companies in the $19 billion diet supplement industry began selling the substances online. "Customers really like these products, and they want to keep using them," says Ryan Deluca, CEO of BodyBuilder.com, an online company in Boise.
BodyBuilder.com has only 10,000 bottles of prohormone products left, and they're moving quickly at $20 or more. Deluca says he probably will sell out by Dec. 31.
Diet supplement companies that hawk the products are urging people to act now. "Do not wait until January to stock up," reads the Web site of Fitness First U.S.A., a Portsmouth, N.H., company.
On the Web site of HouseOf Muscle.com, founder and weightlifter Joel Sward writes: "If you want prohormones after Jan. 20, you will be forced to break the law and buy them on the black market. No one wants to deal with that, so buy 12 or 24 bottles and give yourself a cushion." Rick Collins, author of Legal Muscle: Anabolics in America, predicts the black market for steroids will surge after Jan. 20. After Congress first banned many steroids in 1990, the then-$200 million black market exploded, according to Collins.
But Michael DiMaggio, executive director of the United Supplement Freedom Association, is confident the ban will spawn new, legal products. "But only time will tell if they will live up to the hype," he says.
|
|
|
