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No Creatine in High School Sports Build Muscles Legally. Your Body Can Become A Masterpiece. These headlines and slogans scream out to high school students on a daily basis, but what exactly is creatine and should you use this new performance enhancing supplement? Creatine is a natural compound in our bodies that supplies energy to our muscles. It is manufactured in the liver where then the creatine is transported into the blood and taken up by the cells in our muscles. Next it is bonded into a high energy phosphate group by a reaction. It is stored there permanently until it is used to produce ATP. When the body needs short, quick bursts of energy, it uses the ATP in seconds. ATP is the principle carrier of energy; it is a molecule that is constantly being consumed and reformed all over the body. Creatine replenishes the ATP, thus extending the bursts of energy. With the creatine, the extra rep or two on the weights or extra seconds at top speed builds strength and muscle mass allowing the body to work harder (“Does Creatine Work”). Now that we know what creatine is and does, how did this become so visible in public? For the 1992 Summer Olympics, British track and field athletes were supplemented with creatine, and this supplement was given credit for their success. The 1992 one hundred meter champion Linford Christie and the 1992 four hundred meter champion Sunny Gunnele used creatine before the Olympic games. Soon United States athletes started taking creatine, but creatine was not available on the market until the middle of 1993. EAS introduced the compound creatine to the sports nutrition market. It was especially designed for strength enhancement. Now in 2000, creatine’s popularity has skyrocketed, and it is everywhere. In professional baseball, all-stars like Mike Piazza, Brady Anderson, Gary Sheffield, Craig Biggio, Mark McGwire, and Jeff Bagwell use creatine extensively. In the NFL, the Oakland Raiders, New York Giants, Tennessee Titans, and the Chicago Bears report that over fifty percent of their players use creatine (Truex). With all the visible success of professional athletes and all of the health and fitness publications discussing creatine, younger non-professional athletes have started to use creatine. Now, high schools across America have athletes using creatine to gain that extra edge, and with creatine, the high school athletes run faster, hit harder, and perform better, and the results happen much faster than other supplements. Since creatine is legal, and its results are quickly seen, the current American high school sports issue is that most coaches and some parents are encouraging their teenage athletes to use this supplement. However, as a college athlete and former creatine user, I feel that high school students should not be using creatine for athletic training or sports because the values of tradition, honor, and safety are not being clearly seen by most teenage athletes. This issue shows a variety of conjectures from different parties. A number of professional athletes support and use creatine because creatine has all the positive and no adverse side effects.
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