Sport supplements (Are these worth for use)
If you're a competitive athlete or a fitness buff, improving your sports performance is probably on your mind. Spending tons of time in the gym or at practice may offer results, but it's no shortcut, and sportsmen with busy lives may be looking for fast, effective results. It’s hard to open a sports magazine without being bombarded with advertisements pertaining to sports supplements unambiguously drawing your attention to procure the sports supplements to make you significantly bigger, stronger, leaner, faster or whatever to be a best athlete in your sports. How can you refuse such a tempting offer or better still how can you afford to let your competitor get the edge that you don’t have when even your dietician or the doctors are also being the underpins of this theory.
Most of the foods you see on the shelves of your local grocery store and the drugs your doctor prescribes for you are regulated by a government agency called the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA ensures that many foods, beverages, and drugs adhere to certain safety standards. But sports supplements aren't regulated by the FDA, and no sports supplements have been tested on kids and teens. That means that scientists and doctors don't know whether supplements are safe or effective for teens to use. Lots of sports organizations have developed policies on sports supplements. The National Football League (NFL), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have banned the use of steroids, ephedra, and androstenedione by their athletes, and competitors who use them face fines, ineligibility, and suspension from their sports. Still each year billions of dollars are spent in search of the bottle of the “Winning Edge” and every year a new set of wonder substances replaces the last one, these facts and figures are “official”, and can be accepted as being substantially true. But do these sports supplements really work and are they safe? Sports supplements (also called ergogenic acid) are pharmacological products which are used to improve the athletic performance in human beings. These are available in market in different forms such as proteins, vitamins, man made drugs, amino acids and herbs. Creatine, Androstenedione and DHEA, Human growth hormone, antioxidants, are some of the most popular known categories of supplements consumed by athletes in sporting events often to beat their competitors. Athletes usually concedes that such supplements helps them to boost their strength, stimulate their muscle mass and unleash their stamina. They believe that the nutrition which they are getting from the normal food supply is inadequate for them and hence get involved in supplementation. Muscles consist of 75% water, 20% protein and 5% salts and other components. Muscle contraction relies on the protein portion, arranged in the form of muscle fibres: thousands of cylindrical protein filaments mainly made from Actin and Myosin.Sporting performance is directly dependant on muscle contraction. Consequently, muscle integrity is as essential as a good supply of energy. For this reason, proteins, and particularly those involved in muscle architecture and contraction have a very important role in sport.Supplementation no doubt can stimulate the muscle mass but for an interim period and is not an essential requirement in strength training of athletes. Supplements such as antioxidants, proteins and amino acids are the integral components of diet, but additional oral supplementation does not increase endurance or strength.
Many factors go into your abilities as an athlete - including your diet, how much sleep you get, genetics and heredity, and your training program - but the fact is that using sports supplements do have significant side effects that may put you at risk for serious health conditions. So, keeping in view all the adverse effects of the supplements it is recommended for the athletes that they should not waste their valuable money in buying these supplements, instead more emphasis should be laid towards energy rich diets and nutrient enriched foods such as vegetables, fruits, lean meat and low fat dairy products and the last but not the least athletes should be made aware on effectiveness and the potential harmful effects of dietary supplements which they are adding into their diet.
Recipe for a traffic jam
This is not for the very first time that a Prime Minister has prodded the Special Protection Group tasked with his security to minimize the inconvenience to people by his movements and not to perform coercions, such lateral thoughts have been adopted by many former Prime Ministers.
According to the guidelines, the number of policemen deployed along the route traversed by the Prime Minister will be drastically reduced and traffic will be held up only for three minutes. Vehicular movement will be allowed as soon as the last car in the Prime Minister's convoy has passed. Wherever there is a verge or a railing, traffic moving in the opposite direction will not be stopped. Shops along the route will no longer be closed down as a matter of routine. Pedestrians will be permitted to move around except those wanting to cross the road at the time the cavalcade passes by.
Such steps are afoot to scale down the security provided to other VIPs also with a view to reduce Government expenditure and letting police personnel perform their normal duties on the law and order front but only on paper works.
The degree of protection accorded to those who require it should not be compromised with anything. Security should be given in consonance with the threat perceptions to the VIP concerned. A breach in the security of the Prime Minister can definitely jeopardize the safety of the entire nation. But things happens on contrary, religious Gurus are keenly procuring VVIP level securities. When religious ceremonies are held, the entire traffic guidelines are entrusted on the religious followers rather on the traffic cops triggering a lot of inconvenience to the general public. The cavalcade of the Prime Minister causes less inconvenience to the public but that too for an interim period but the religious ceremonies and political gatherings causes a great inconvenience to the public till they are over with (most of the time when it’s peak hours of traffic) and the public can’t wriggle out of such recipes of traffic jams.
Hitherto media has been splashing news related to deaths of civilians caused by stampedes on religious ceremonies or political gatherings, but have never come across with the news of any such incidence with the religious Gurus or the political leaders. Why this disparity in the security of the common man? The only option left with the common man is to be a leapfrog and let these religious and political leaders vault over them.
According to the guidelines, the number of policemen deployed along the route traversed by the Prime Minister will be drastically reduced and traffic will be held up only for three minutes. Vehicular movement will be allowed as soon as the last car in the Prime Minister's convoy has passed. Wherever there is a verge or a railing, traffic moving in the opposite direction will not be stopped. Shops along the route will no longer be closed down as a matter of routine. Pedestrians will be permitted to move around except those wanting to cross the road at the time the cavalcade passes by.
Such steps are afoot to scale down the security provided to other VIPs also with a view to reduce Government expenditure and letting police personnel perform their normal duties on the law and order front but only on paper works.
The degree of protection accorded to those who require it should not be compromised with anything. Security should be given in consonance with the threat perceptions to the VIP concerned. A breach in the security of the Prime Minister can definitely jeopardize the safety of the entire nation. But things happens on contrary, religious Gurus are keenly procuring VVIP level securities. When religious ceremonies are held, the entire traffic guidelines are entrusted on the religious followers rather on the traffic cops triggering a lot of inconvenience to the general public. The cavalcade of the Prime Minister causes less inconvenience to the public but that too for an interim period but the religious ceremonies and political gatherings causes a great inconvenience to the public till they are over with (most of the time when it’s peak hours of traffic) and the public can’t wriggle out of such recipes of traffic jams.
Hitherto media has been splashing news related to deaths of civilians caused by stampedes on religious ceremonies or political gatherings, but have never come across with the news of any such incidence with the religious Gurus or the political leaders. Why this disparity in the security of the common man? The only option left with the common man is to be a leapfrog and let these religious and political leaders vault over them.
Punjabi First (Making of Punjabi as a mandatory subject upto matriculation)
The once call decision by the Punjab State Assembly towards making Punjabi as a mandatory subject in all schools till matriculation irrespective of the educational board can’t be defined as a pragmatic one. It’s just a coercion of cultural aspects and acceptance of Punjabi as lingua franca. India being an incredibly rich country in various aspects is a linguistically diverse country as well, it does not have a single official language. Instead, the Constitution of India envisages a situation where each state has its own official language(s), in addition to the official languages to be used by the Union government. Indian schools are segmented into two categories i.e. Government recognized and Private business schools. Hitherto two languages have been enjoying the privilege of being the official languages in the schools of our country i.e. Hindi in Government recognized schools and English in the Private ones. Since long English has been casting conjures towards the students and the parental section. No doubt, it’s still the world’s lofty job-fetching language. If asked about the ratio of how many progenies of our MPs and Ministers have studied or are presently studying in the Government schools (the schools where Hindi/Punjabi is the medium of teaching), the answer would be negligible. Every Minister and MP is just interested to send their progenies abroad for getting high quality of education. Why at all this coercion is being done with the hapless Indians? They won’t have any option except to accept the decision of the Government and see their progenies strive for fetching stratospheric salaried jobs without sound knowledge of English. What if every State Government takes such decisions? Why not to make all the 16 Indian Languages mandatory in the schools up to matriculation and make our progenies jack of all trades and master of none?
The UK Government has made the sound knowledge of English as mandatory for the Indians for being the beneficiaries of jobs in their country but has Indian Government made any such amendments in it’s laws for the foreigners to have sound knowledge of Punjabi or any other Indian language to settle here in India?
The UK Government has made the sound knowledge of English as mandatory for the Indians for being the beneficiaries of jobs in their country but has Indian Government made any such amendments in it’s laws for the foreigners to have sound knowledge of Punjabi or any other Indian language to settle here in India?
Brutality towards humans (It happens only in India)
I happen to come across a news published in the Amar Ujala (one of the leading Hindi newspaper of our country) on 29th March, 2008 depicting an abysmal picture of brutality towards a human being (unfortunately an insane woman). An alarming increase in such dreadful acts is jeopardizing the safety of the citizens especially the feeble women section and hence is tarnishing the dignity of our country as well. Is media proving to be a proxy of the hapless common man to the government or is busy in collecting news just for the sake of its sales promotion? The MPs are demanding for a stringent action against the policemen who failed to stop this heinous crime from being committed, but what about the lens man (press photographer) who captured this incident but didn't even try to shield this hapless woman? Shouldn't he who has no remorse for what he did be held equally responsible for this incident? Isn't it a brutal murder of the hopes of the common man who just thinks that media can some how redress their worsening condition?
Committed to Pay (The Sixth Pay Commission Report)
Since decades there has been altercations between the Private and the Government sector employees on the issues related to the pay comparisons. The recent agitations shown by the Government employees over the inequality of Pay and Allowances as compared with the Private Sectors after the announcement of the Sixth Pay Commission Report reminiscent the era when the same agitations was seen from the Private Sector employees whose salaries were quite meagre as compared with those of the Govt. employees.There are two major tangible factors which outbreaks such agitations, one is that most of the Government Departments are lacking work and productivity so the employees remain idle most of the time and hence can’t demand drastic hikes in their salary for the no work done by them. The second one being the lack of regular inter-departmental competitiveness where an employee gets a chance to prove his/her skill based performance and hence deserves the right to excel by getting the promotion. Lack of inter departmental competitiveness in the Government Sector for those who are willing to excel makes an employee’s skills obsolete and the then skilled employees are therefore not able to strive in the current Private Sector competitions. Hence such employees after putting up 15-20 years service don’t have any other option left with them except to continue with their present job and show their rage over their failure to get more.The productivity-linked incentive/promotion, if introduced, will further aggravate the matters and the sycophants will flourish. Seniors will grade the performance of the junior ones, but who will grade the seniors who according to the junior employees extract most of the work from their juniors which is in fact assigned to the seniors? In such situations grading of the seniors performance by lower level should also be introduced to mark proper justification.The assent towards the flexible working hours for the working women in Government Sector will fuel the agitations. On one side in the men dominated world the Government is pressing hard for giving the gender based equality in every respect to the women section then why such favouritism (still treating women as weaker), aren’t the working men in possession of getting such favours?The resultant factor of all these will be a breach in laws and an intensification of rampant corruption making the high salaried class heave a sigh of relief leaving behind the low salaried class puff for the money.
Wake up time for Indian Players and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports
It would be wrong to say that our country doesn’t have sports culture flourishing within or our players don’t have the flair of winning the game. We can’t ignore the worldly accepted fact of the contribution of India/Indians towards the origination of the skilled brain-drain game “Chess” and the current world chess champion Mr. Vishwanathan Anand who is fortunately an Indian too. The remarkable success of Indian shooters at international events has spawned a new breed of non-cricketing sports icons. From Jaspal Rana, Abhinav Brinda to Anjali Bhagwat, this bunch of expert Indian shooters has the whole country drooling over them at present. The rich haul of medals at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games is another shot in the arm to shooting sport in India. Indian shooters blazed the shooting ranges to come home with a tally of 27 medals (16 gold, 7 silver and 4 bronze).If our players are not feeble and everything is perfect with them, then what are the major flaws which are forbidding their best capabilities? Obviously it’s not a conundrum without a solution. Here it would not be wrong to say that though our youngsters do have the interest in sports but most of the parents are trying to inculcate the ideological concept of “Padhoge likhoge to banoge nawab, kheloge koodoge to banoge kharab” to their progenies. We often come across with various stars that are from the clans of Hollywood celebrities trying to build up their career in Hollywood but will never be able to find such from the clans of sport players. With the establishment of Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports (NIS) in Patiala (Pb.) which is also Asia's largest Sports Institute the government has proved to provide adequate coaching to the upcoming players. But are such institutes adequately equipped with the essential resources or are they bereft of it?The Indian shooters are having abysmal remarks for the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports for not being able to provide them with the special practicing cartridges; instead they have to practice with the common cartridges. Whereas the government along with the spectators concedes the defeat in an event because of the players who just start basking on their victory and instead of practicing more for the upcoming events they just get busy in broodings.So ending up here the entire episode, I would like to appeal everyone along with the government bodies to encourage the youngsters in your clan or network neighbourhood who are keenly inclined towards sports so that the sports activities are well promoted in our country. And yes along with it the government should tighten up the noose around the guilty sportsmen who are involved in match fixing which gives a bad name to the game and its players. Just remember that a “bird in the hand is worth than two in the bush”.
Broken Indian Hockey Stick
The failure of the Indian Hockey Team in qualifying for the Olympics is really a lament issue and needs to be pondered on seriously. Hockey the national game of India has somehow now been overcome by Cricket and hence is loosing it’s dignity just because of the paucity of game lover’s interest in it. Failure is the other facet of the game which needs to be accepted in sportsmanship. When an individual fails, he is blamed for it for the reasons best known to him, but when an entire team fails then a single person should not be held responsible i.e. Mr. Gill the Chairman of the Indian Hockey Federation in this case. Instead the reasons for the abysmal failure should be traced to the grass root level. One of such reasons is the inappropriate pay and perks offered to the Hockey Players and paucity of proper infrastructure by the IHF which is itself bereft from the essential resources. Whereas in comparison their Cricket counterparts are offered stratospheric offers as an encouragement pack by the BCCI which is one of the most powerful economic body of the world. Most of our schools/colleges are lacking of playgrounds for their students or are having playgrounds which are less than 1 Km in area and hence deprives the students to discover the sporting talent within himself/herself. To help Hockey to regain it’s lost dignity the Government and other related bodies should unleash the terror of the must-must win compulsion, allowing the players to play with their full fledged skills in teamwork.
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