Back when I was in college in the dark ages, several drugs ran rampant through football teams. I know you want to think that all of these athletes are clean, upstanding members of society. Think again.
I was probably one of about 25 percent of the team that always stayed away from the drugs. The general drugs used for performance enhancement were several different types of steroids and amphetamines (speed).
Believe me, I thought about it on a daily basis. We didn’t think of it as cheating back then. So, I didn’t have any moral issue. Practically everyone was using it.
I was worried about future consequences, such as cancer. But I guess the joke was on me. Although I never touched any of these drugs, I got cancer anyway. But I digress.
The only line of defense the NCAA took against these drugs was to say that they didn’t work. The drugs wouldn’t improve athletic performance. Bullshit. These drugs worked plenty fine. They turned average athletes into good athletes, and good ones into great ones.
I stopped myself from taking drugs out of fear of later damage.
I told you that to tell you this. A couple of months back, my cousin Skylar Giardina called. She works full-time and is a mother of two. She’s also a triathlete. Like most triathletes, she’s always looking for that edge, that one thing to push her over the top and make her time better.
So I get a call from Skylar from time to time. She usually asks about equipment. Should I get a tri-bike? What do you think about deep-dish Zipp wheels? Last time she called me, she asked about a different product…a so-called nutritional product called Jack3d. She was telling me that everyone in her tri club uses the stuff and swears by it.
I hear this often from cyclists, tri-athletes and runners. The promise is that the product works better than steroids and is safer. I’m here to tell you to be skeptical. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
In the words of P.T. Barnum, a sucker is born every minute. These companies rely on that.
There are ergogenic aids that will help your athletic performance and I will discuss them on this blog from time to time. Jack3d is not one of them.
