Practically everybody who is competing in any kind of sport is a subject to a drug test. And just like any regular couch potato, athletes use a great variety of drugs, not only steroids and hormones, like everybody believes. And of course, there are many drug tests that are being administered for athletes, much more diverse tests and more frequently than in other professions. One other thing that is different for an athlete’s test is that it is normally not the “standard urine test for drugs of abuse” but a specialized urine and / or blood test which gets a whole spectrum of different toxins. Let us review the unique choices of non-standard toxins for athletes:

Beta Blockers

These agents are mostly used right before the game to calm the nerves. Beta blockers are quite popular among pool players, biathletes, archers, etc. Noticeably reducing social anxiety, these agents are easily detectable by a special urinalysis test.

Anabolic Steroids

These performance enhancers are used to build up a muscle mass. Steroids subdivide into several categories – fluoxymesterone, nandrolone, norethandrolone, oxandrolone, stanozole, and testosterone. Only testosterone is a natural hormone that is contained in every human body, the rest are artificially made and can be easily detected by a special urinalysis test. As for testosterone – they test for its levels in the urine or blood and compare to the levels of epitestosterone – disproportional levels are equal to a failed test because it basically proves an illegal use of testosterone. Most of the athletes figured just taking some extra epitestosterone as well to keep the levels in balance, which beats the test.