When most think of performance enhancement in sports, they think of steroids and other drugs. While this is true, medications are only part of the reality. There are other ways to improve athletic ability that are legal and may seem ingenious to some. Performance enhancements in sports are unethical, unhealthy and should be banned in professional sports. High-risk physical training, using drugs, or altering the human body with artificial limbs are all performance-enhancing, unfair, and unhealthy actions. competitiveness. This puts an athlete at a competitive advantage over his or her competitors. Altitude training, being one of the many enhancements in sports, is used to increase lung capacity, as well as increase the intensity of training. While at high altitude the human body naturally increases levels of erythropoietin, which is a chemical that releases red blood cells into the body. Red blood cells carry oxygen to the muscles, thus increasing oxygen levels in the muscles. Many people may not be aware of the serious dangers and inconsistent and unpredictable results that accompany this enhancement. There are many possible outcomes for an athlete training at high altitude. An athlete can train at high altitude for months following suggested training, have no symptoms other than headaches, and return to sea level becoming a more valuable competitor. Another athlete could train following the same guidelines and become seriously ill, therefore unable to train, reversing the purpose of training at altitude. In fact, adaptations to high altitudes are extremely difficult. Weight loss is unexpected… middle of the paper… an athlete can incur expenses of up to $80,000 per year just for training, coaching and competition entry fees. This may not even include the cost of daily living and travel expenses. There are sponsors who will cover many costs for an athlete. But such sponsorships will not cover steroids and other drugs, altitude training, prosthetics or surgeries. They support the athlete's needs to play the sport he loves. This may seem fair to athletes with money in the family. Think about a situation where there might be a person who has no money but is an incredible athlete and is competing against a good athlete but has had to go through expensive altitude training, surgeries to enhance body parts, and steroids that his opponent didn't have and has won. This is not morally right. It's no longer a fair fight and can ruin the whole spirit of fairness in the sport.