Gym Culture, Identity and Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Gym Culture, Identity and Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Author: Ask Vest Christiansen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-27

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1000070131

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This book is about gym culture, the pursuit of fit, muscular bodies and the use of drugs as a means to get there. Building on the international research literature and in-depth interviews with men who have experience of image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs), the book explores the fascination with muscles, motivations for using drugs to enhance them, assessments of risks, and experience of side effects. The book examines what the altered body does to the men’s identity, self-image and relationships with peers and partners. Taking an evolutionary psychological approach, it also investigates the biological and psychological foundations of the fascination with the muscular body and discusses the notion of precarious manhood. Building on these analyses the book considers the political and regulatory initiatives in place to prevent the use of IPEDs and assesses those strategies’ potential to reach their aims. This is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the issue of drugs in sport, the ethics of sport, sociology of sport, sociology of the body, masculinity or public health.


Fitness Doping

Fitness Doping

Author: Jesper Andreasson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 3030221059

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This book compiles several years of multi-faceted qualitative research on fitness doping to provide a fresh insight into how the growing phenomenon intersects with issues of gender, body and health in contemporary society. Drawing on biographical interviews, as well as online and offline ethnography, Andreasson and Johansson analyse how, in the context of the global development of gym and fitness culture, particular doping trajectories are formulated, and users come into contact with doping. They also explore users’ internalisation of particular values, practices and communications and analyse how this influences understandings of the self, health, gender and the body, as well as tying this into wider beliefs regarding individual freedom and the law. This insight into doping goes beyond elite and organised sports, and will be of interest to students and scholars across the sociology of sport, leisure studies, and gender and body politics.


Fitness Culture

Fitness Culture

Author: Roberta Sassatelli

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2010-08-16

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0230292089

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This book provides a sociological perspective on fitness culture as developed in commercial gyms, investigating the cultural relevance of gyms in terms of the history of the commercialization of body discipline, the negotiation of gender identities and distinction dynamics within contemporary cultures of consumption.


Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs and Substances

Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs and Substances

Author: Aaron Smith

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-06-18

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1351029320

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In the pursuit of more muscle, enhanced strength, sustained endurance and idealised physiques, an increasing number of elite athletes, recreational sport enthusiasts and body-conscious gym-users are turning to performance and image enhancing drugs and substances (PIEDS). In many instances, such use occurs with little regard for the health, social and economic consequences. This book presents a nuanced, evidence-based examination of PIEDS. It provides a classification of PIEDS types, physical impacts, rates of use, user profiles, legal and sporting status, and remedial program interventions, covering both elite and recreational use. It offers the perfect guide to assist students, government policy makers and sport managers in understanding the complex issues surrounding PIEDS consumption.


An Introduction to Drugs in Sport

An Introduction to Drugs in Sport

Author: Ivan Waddington

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-01-13

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1134084250

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An Introduction to Drugs in Sport provides a detailed and systematic examination of the extent of drug use in sport and attempts to explain why athletes have, over the last four decades, increasingly used performance-enhancing drugs. Richly illustrated throughout with case studies and empirical data, this book is essential reading for anybody with an interest in the relationship between drugs, sport and society.


Drugs, Identity and Stigma

Drugs, Identity and Stigma

Author: Michelle Addison

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-07-13

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 3030982866

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This book calls attention to the impact of stigma experienced by people who use illicit drugs. Stigma is powerful: it can do untold harm to a person and place with longstanding effects. Through an exploration of themes of inequality, power, and feeling ‘out of place’ in neoliberal times, this collection focuses on how stigma is negotiated, resisted and absorbed by people who use drugs. How does stigma get under the skin? Drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks and empirical data, this book draws attention to the damaging effects stigma can have on identity, recovery, mental health, desistance from crime, and social inclusion. By connecting drug use, stigma and identity, the authors in this collection share insights into the everyday experiences of people who use drugs and add to debate focused on an agenda for social justice in drug use policy and practice.


Doping in Sport and Fitness

Doping in Sport and Fitness

Author: April Henning

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2022-12-12

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1801171572

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Doping in Sport and Fitness argues that rigid differentiations between doping contexts are less clear than it might seem. Breaking down these boundaries allows for a more complete understanding of substance use patterns, behaviours, and policy responses related to sport, fitness, and society.


Performance Cultures and Doped Bodies

Performance Cultures and Doped Bodies

Author: Jesper Andreasson

Publisher: Common Ground Research Networks

Published: 2021-06-30

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1863352422

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Why has doping, both as a practice and a social phenomenon, been approached largely as a question of context: sport or fitness? Individuals may use substances to enhance sporting performance or within the framework of gym and fitness culture to create a perfect body. But clearly, people who dope are not bound to a singular context. It is quite the opposite, as individuals weave between and move across various settings in their trajectories to and from doping, as goals, identities, ambitions, and lifestyles change over time. Still, these stark categorizations often made in public discourse – and reinforced by scholars – have continued to ignore these lived experiences and limited our understanding of doping.  Building on data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork, studies of online doping communities, and in-depth case studies, this book embraces the challenge of moving beyond traditional and historical doping dichotomies – such as those of sport or fitness, online or offline, pleasure or harm, masculinity or femininity, and health or harm – and, in a sociologically informed analysis, it develops new terminology to understand trajectories to and from doping. It argues there are multiple ways to understand doped bodies and doping practices, and that we must approach these questions from the perspective of both/and rather than either/or. By imploding these divisions, it offers updated and nuanced ways of both empirically and theoretically rethinking doping use and experiences attached to the practice.


Bodybuilding, Drugs and Risk

Bodybuilding, Drugs and Risk

Author: Lee Monaghan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-01-04

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1134588526

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Current popular interest in bodies, fitness, sport and active lifestyles, has made bodybuilding more visible and acceptable within mainstream society than ever before. However, the association between bodybuilding, drugs and risk has contributed to a negative image of an activity which many people find puzzling. Using data obtained from participant observation and interviews, this book explores bodybuilding subculture from the perspective of the bodybuilder. It looks at: * How bodybuilders try to maintain competent social identities * How they manage the risks of using steroids and other physique-enhancing drugs * How they understand the alleged steroid-violence link * How they 'see' the muscular body. Through systematic exploration it becomes apparent that previous attempts to explain bodybuilding in terms of 'masculinity-in-crisis' or gender insecurity are open to question. Different and valuable insights into what sustains and legitimizes potentially dangerous drug-taking activities are provided by this detailed picture of a huge underground subculture.


Looks Can Kill

Looks Can Kill

Author: Riam Shammaa

Publisher: Random House Canada

Published: 2020-01-14

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 0735277486

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A leader in sports medicine reveals the prevalence of anabolic steroids and appearance-enhancing drugs for recreational use, and explodes the myths and silence around these dangerous drugs of choice for the Instagram era. From fitspiration vlogs touting "fit" as the new skinny to magazines imploring men to get "shredded" and "massive" in the gym, fitness stars and elevated body-image standards are driving a burgeoning industry meant, ostensibly, to make us all more healthy. But are those images of rippling abs, bulging shoulders and tiny waists truly inspiring good health? In this book, leading sports doctor (and former champion powerlifter) Riam Shammaa exposes the dirty secret of online fitness culture: rampant steroid and drug use, not only amongst its Instagram stars and wellness gurus, but eagerly enjoined by millions seeking to emulate a new beauty ideal (and its myth, of being all-natural). Never mind the high-profile cases of athletes Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong. Steroids and other pharmaceuticals are being sold and consumed in life-threatening quantities online and through the backrooms of gyms and fitness centres, and the people buying them range from teen girls trying to look good on Instagram to middle-aged men who can't say good-bye to their youthful physiques. This is a vivid, eye-opening and compassionate journey alongside a young doctor as he discovers an underworld of misinformation and misdirected ambition, drug abuse and lives cut short for the glory of competition, pageantry or the mistaken belief that we need to be fantastically beautiful in order to be fit.