What Are PEDs and How Do They Work
Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) are a broad category of substances with different mechanisms of action. Not all PEDs are equal: they vary in effectiveness, health risk and discipline-specificity.
Enhanced Games officially sanctions PED use under medical supervision. This means athletes must:
- Disclose substances used before competing
- Pass cardiac and hepatological examinations
- Have blood parameters monitored during competition
The prohibited substances list covers only those with proven direct life-threatening risk: cardiac stimulants, peptide toxins, hard narcotics.
EPO - Oxygen Delivery
Erythropoietin (EPO) is a hormone that stimulates red blood cell production, increasing oxygen transport to muscles. It is the most important PED for endurance athletes and swimmers.
Documented performance gain: 3–7% in aerobic sports with 4–12 weeks of use. For a 100m freestyle swimmer this would mean an improvement of roughly 1–2 seconds - which would completely erase current world records.
EPO risks: blood thickening, risk of thrombosis and stroke (particularly at night when heart rate slows). Hence the requirement to monitor hematocrit levels.
HGH - Growth Hormone
Human growth hormone (HGH) accelerates muscle recovery, increases lean mass and improves movement economy. It works slower than steroids (effects visible after 3–6 months) but is harder to detect with standard tests.
Performance gain: studies document 3–5% strength improvement and 1–3% aerobic performance improvement. In sprinting this may translate to 0.05–0.15s better result over 100m.
HGH is particularly popular among sprinters and strongmen due to minimal risk at moderate doses.
Testosterone and Anabolic Steroids
Testosterone is the primary anabolic androgen - it increases muscle protein synthesis, strength and training aggression. At supraphysiological doses, effects on strength are dramatic.
Muscle mass gain: 5–20 kg in a 12-week cycle (depending on dose and individual response). For weightlifters and strongmen this directly improves results by 10–30%.
In sprinting, the direct effect is smaller (sprinting is more about neuromuscular speed than raw strength), but increasing fast-twitch muscle mass can bring 1–3% improvement.
Risks: prostate enlargement, lipid disorders, fertility impact. Under medical supervision, long-term risk is moderate.
What Science Says About Record Potential
Sports physiologists from the University of Exeter and Johns Hopkins modeled performance results under full pharmacological conditions:
| Discipline | Current Record | EG Projection |
|---|---|---|
| 100m (M) | 9.58s (Bolt) | 9.35–9.50s |
| 50m freestyle (M) | 20.91s | 19.8–20.3s |
| Weightlifting 102 kg+ | 501 kg | 540–580 kg |
The findings are controversial: some scientists consider the projections overly optimistic, pointing out that human physiology has hard limits regardless of pharmacology.
Medical Safety
Enhanced Games has employed a panel of 12 sports physicians and physiologists. Each athlete undergoes before competing:
- Cardiac echocardiography
- Lipid and hepatological panel
- Blood count with hematocrit
- Neurological examination
Doctors have the right to medically disqualify an athlete even without their consent. This is a significant difference from classical doping, where there is no oversight.
Critics point out however that pre-competition tests do not eliminate long-term risks - the effects of years of supraphysiological hormone doses are poorly studied.