Performance-Enhancing Technologies in Sports

Performance-Enhancing Technologies in Sports
Author: Thomas H. Murray
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2009-11-16
Genre: Law
ISBN:

This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of experts in bioethics, sports, law, and philosophy to examine the need for regulating such athletic performance-enhancing technologies as steroids and gene doping. The use of performance-improving drugs in sports dates back to the early Olympians, who took an herbal tonic before competitions to augment athletic prowess. But the permissibility of doing so came into question only in the twentieth century as the popularity of anabolic steroid use and blood doping among athletes grew. Sports officials and others—aided by the development of technologies to test participants for proscribed substances—became concerned over the physical safety of athletes and competitive fairness in sporting events. In exploring the culture, ethics, and policy issues surrounding doping in competitive athletics, the contributors to this volume detail the history and current state of drug use in sports, analyze the distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable usages, evaluate the ethical arguments for and against permitting athletes to avail themselves of new means of improving athleticism, and discuss possible future doping technologies and the issues that they are likely to raise. They explain how and why some athletes resort to doping and assess what the fair opportunity principle means in theory and practice and how it relates to the concept of an equal opportunity to perform. This frank discussion of doping in sports includes accounts by former elite athletes and offers an illuminating exchange over the meaning and value of natural talents and genetic hierarchies and the essence of fair competition.

Doping, Performance-Enhancing Drugs, and Hormones in Sport

Doping, Performance-Enhancing Drugs, and Hormones in Sport
Author: Anthony C. Hackney
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2017-11-23
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0128134437

Doping, Performance-Enhancing Drugs, and Hormones in Sport: Mechanisms of Action and Methods of Detection examines the biochemistry and bioanalytical aspects of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) and other questionable procedures used by athletes to enhance performance. The book informs the specialist of emerging knowledge and techniques and allows the non-specialist to grasp the underlying science and current practice of the discipline. With clear and compelling language appropriate for a broad spectrum of readers, this book provides background on prevalence, types of agents, their actual or supposed benefits, and their negative effects on health. The technical aspects of detection are discussed, followed by a discussion of why detection is a problematic and still-evolving science. To facilitate comprehension, each chapter is organized in a uniform way with six sections: (1) standard medical uses, (2) why the drugs are used by athletes, (3) biological mechanism of action, (4) what research says about efficacy in improving performance, (5) major health side effects from use and abuse in sport, and 6) concluding key points. - Presents the scientific concepts of how performance enhancers work, how they are used, and how they are detected and masked from detection - Features language that is neither simplistic to scientists nor too sophisticated for a large, diverse global audience - Provides a short "close-up in each chapter to illustrate key topics that engage, entertain, and create a novel synthesis of thought

Sport, Technology and the Body

Sport, Technology and the Body
Author: Tara Magdalinski
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2009-01-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134182252

What is the nature of athletic performance? This book offers an answer to this fascinating question by considering the relationship between sport, technology and the body. Specifically, it examines cultural resistance to the enhancement of athletes and explores the ways in which performance technologies complicate and confound our conception of the sporting body. The book addresses concerns about the technological "invasion" of the "natural" body to investigate expectations that athletic performances reflect nothing more than the actual capacity of the untainted athlete. By examining a series of case studies, including Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, Fastskin swimsuits, hypoxic chambers and an array of illicit substances and methods, the book distinguishes between internal and external technologies to highlight the ways that performance enhancement, and public reaction to it, can be read. Sport, Technology and the Body offers a powerful challenge to conventional views of athletic performance that stand authenticity against artifice, integrity against corruption, and athletic purity against technological intrusion. It is essential reading for all serious students of the sociology, culture or ethics of sport.

Good Sport

Good Sport
Author: Thomas H. Murray
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2018
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0190687983

Good Sport argues that the values and meanings embedded within sport provide the guidance we need to make difficult decisions about fairness and performance-enhancing technologies. By examining how sport's history, rules and practices identify and celebrate natural talent and dedication, the book illuminates not just what we champion in the athletic arena but more broadly what we value in human achievement.

The Ethics of Sports Technologies and Human Enhancement

The Ethics of Sports Technologies and Human Enhancement
Author: Thomas H. Murray
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 524
Release: 2020-07-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000151980

This volume presents articles which focus on the ethical evaluation of performance-enhancing technologies in sport. The collection considers whether drug doping should be banned; the rationale of not banning ethically contested innovations such as hypoxic chambers; and the implications of the prospects of human genetic engineering for the notion of sport as a development of ’natural’ talent towards human excellence. The essays demonstrate the significance of the principles of preventing harm, ensuring fairness and preserving meaning to appraise whether a particular performance enhancer is acceptable in the context of sport. Selected essays on various forms of human enhancement outside of sport that highlight other principles and concepts are included for comparative purpose. Sport enhancement provides a useful starting point to work through the ethics of enhancement in other human practices and endeavors, and sport enhancement ethics should track broader bioethical debates on human enhancement. As a whole, the volume points to the need to consider the values and meanings that people seek in a given sphere of human activity and their associated principles to arrive at a morally grounded and reasonable approach to enhancement ethics.

Athletic Enhancement, Human Nature and Ethics

Athletic Enhancement, Human Nature and Ethics
Author: Jan Tolleneer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2012-12-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 940075101X

The book provides an in-depth discussion on the human nature concept from different perspectives and from different disciplines, analyzing its use in the doping debate and researching its normative overtones. The relation between natural talent and enhanced abilities is scrutinized within a proper conceptual and theoretical framework: is doping to be seen as a factor of the athlete’s dehumanization or is it a tool to fulfill his/her aspirations to go faster, higher and stronger? Which characteristics make sports such a peculiar subject of ethical discussion and what are the, both intrinsic and extrinsic, moral dangers and opportunities involved in athletic enhancement? This volume combines fundamental philosophical anthropological reflection with applied ethics and socio-cultural and empirical approaches. Furthermore guidelines will be presented to decision- and policy-makers on local, national and international levels. Zooming in on the intrinsic issue of what is valuable about our homo sapiens biological condition, this volume devotes only scant attention to the specific issue of natural talent and why such talent is appreciated so differently than biotechnological origins of ability. In addition, specific aspects of sports such as its competitive nature and its direct display of bodily prowess provide good reason to single out the issue of natural athletic talent for sustained ethical scrutiny.​

Interactive Sports Technologies

Interactive Sports Technologies
Author: Veronika Tzankova
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2022-06-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1000592278

Building on the unfolding and expanding embeddedness of digital technologies in all aspects of life, Interactive Sports Technologies: Performance, Participation, Safety focuses on the intersection of body movement, physical awareness, engineering, design, software, and hardware to capture emerging trends for enhancing sports and athletic activities. The accessible and inspiring compilation of theoretical, critical, and phenomenological approaches utilizes the domain of sports to extend our understanding of the nexus between somatic knowledge and human-computer interaction in general. Within this framework, the chapters in this volume draw upon a variety of concepts, processes, practices, and elucidative examples to bring together a timely assessment of interactive technologies’ potential to facilitate increased performance, participation, and safety in sports. This collection of chapters from international authors presents diverse perspectives from a wide range of academic and practice-based researchers within a comprehensive coverage of sport disciplines.

Truly Human Enhancement

Truly Human Enhancement
Author: Nicholas Agar
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2013-12-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262318989

A nuanced discussion of human enhancement that argues for enhancement that does not significantly exceed what is currently possible for human beings. The transformative potential of genetic and cybernetic technologies to enhance human capabilities is most often either rejected on moral and prudential grounds or hailed as the future salvation of humanity. In this book, Nicholas Agar offers a more nuanced view, making a case for moderate human enhancement—improvements to attributes and abilities that do not significantly exceed what is currently possible for human beings. He argues against radical human enhancement, or improvements that greatly exceed current human capabilities. Agar explores notions of transformative change and motives for human enhancement; distinguishes between the instrumental and intrinsic value of enhancements; argues that too much enhancement undermines human identity; considers the possibility of cognitively enhanced scientists; and argues against radical life extension. Making the case for moderate enhancement, Agar argues that many objections to enhancement are better understood as directed at the degree of enhancement rather than enhancement itself. Moderate human enhancement meets the requirement of truly human enhancement. By radically enhancing human cognitive capabilities, by contrast, we may inadvertently create beings (“post-persons”) with moral status higher than that of persons. If we create beings more entitled to benefits and protections against harms than persons, Agar writes, this will be bad news for the unenhanced. Moderate human enhancement offers a more appealing vision of the future and of our relationship to technology.

Nutrition and Enhanced Sports Performance

Nutrition and Enhanced Sports Performance
Author: Debasis Bagchi
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 820
Release: 2018-10-05
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0128139234

Nutrition and Enhanced Sports Performance: Muscle Building, Endurance and Strength, Second Edition, includes comprehensive sections on the role of nutrition in human health, various types of physical exercises, including cardiovascular training, resistance training, aerobic and anaerobic exercises, bioenergetics and energy balance, and the nutritional requirements associated with each. Other sections cover sports and nutritional requirements, the molecular mechanisms involved in muscle building, an exhaustive review of various foods, minerals, supplements, phytochemicals, amino acids, transition metals, competition training, healthy cooking, physical training, and lifestyle and dietary recommendations for sports performance. This updated edition includes new chapters on mood, alertness, calmness and psychomotor performance in sports, extreme sports, natural myostatin inhibitor and lean body mass, the benefits of caffeine in sport nutrition formulations, the role of vitamin D in athletic performance, probiotics and muscle mass. - Provides a comprehensive appraisal of the nutritional benefits of exercise in human health - Compiles chapters reviewing the nutritional prophylaxis in human health - Addresses performance enhancement drugs and sports supplements - Presents various types of physical exercises and addresses exercise and nutritional requirements in special populations - Discusses sports nutrition and the molecular mechanisms involved in muscle building - Contains an exhaustive review of various food, minerals, supplements, phytochemicals, amino acids, transition metals, small molecules and other ergogenic agents - Highlights the aspects of healthy cooking, physical training, lifestyle and dietary recommendations for sports performance