I am not sure if you have heard about the collapse and death of Claire Squires in the final meters of the London marathon.
It may be too soon to blame DMAA for her death, but it certainly doesn’t help products like Jack3d.
However, a coronor’s report says the substance (1, 3-dimethylamylamine/methylhexaneamine) likely played a role. Find out more in this article at NUTRAingredients.com.
Jack3d has DMAA in it which caused an NCAA football player to be suspended over a year ago.
This product was covered in The Sport Digest when I wrote about DMAA in an article in May 2011. I warned people then that this was a banned substance!
The makers of Jack3d (USPlabs) reportedly just recently changed their formula and removed the stimulant DMAA, but people can still get the old formula.
The fact that the late Squires said, “If I hit a bit of a wall, I might take this drink and see if it pushes me through the end of the marathon,” brings into light the cost of wining only weeks after cyclist Lance Armstrong confessed to doping.
This falls back to educating people about supplements and making sure they research the brands and content, as well as understanding the risks!
Also, is it just me, or did Tiger Woods get more press and criticism from his infidelity than Armstrong received from cheating most of his career?
I understand both are “cheating” but one tarnishes the sport and the athlete as a competitor, the other questions their personal life choices. Are we really more concerned with an athlete’s personal life than the integrity of an entire sport and culture?
Sports related media needs to reconsider their focus.
Case-in-point: A recent search found that there were more than 155,000 results in Google when I searched for Manti Te’o news and only 1,420 results when I searched for Squires, who died during the London marathon after taking a substance with banned stimulants.
People care more about the personal lives of athletes than if they are hurting themselves to win or ruining the integrity of a sport.
What a shame!
Dr. Jordan R. Moon, PhD, CPS, CSCS*D, HFS, is a distance learning faculty member at the United States Sports Academy. He has trained athletes at all levels including professionals in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League, as well as college athletes and teams in addition to youth and fitness clients.