Get involved in drug-free athletics
By Victor Naumov, DC

The topic of anabolic steroids and athletes has been getting out of the locker room and into living rooms around the country. Steroids are bad; drug-free performance is good.

I am an advocate for the advancement of drug-free athletes. I have made it a personal mission to help raise public awareness about this national problem by working with a number of radio stations, including ESPN and 1010 WINS in New York; various local and national print media; and CN8 and NJN television stations on the East Coast.

The public is hearing the message, and it has an interest in the topic. That interest is an oppor-tunity for chiropractic. It allows us to deliver a strong message on an issue about what is right, ethical, and natural and to build a new and exciting identity as healthcare professionals who can and want to improve human performance.

All chiropractors are trained as human performance specialists, but few currently promote themselves as such. Athletic performance relies on balance, hand-eye coordination, and reflexive reaction time — all neurological acts. Chiropractic care, which focuses on eliminating subluxation, improves the neurological abilities of athletes — and that is why we can and should be perceived as human performance specialists.

We can help athletes of all ages maximize their innate peak potential. If we promote this truth, we will eventually be seen as human performance doctors — not just as alternative pain-management specialists.

If you promote yourself as a human performance specialist, you will unleash limitless potential in your community. You will be able to position yourself confidently as a drug-free professional who is trained to help individuals function at their best, regardless of their current conditions.

Just as athletes can choose not to use performance-enhancing drugs, you can choose to get involved in drug-free performance enhancement. To do this, join an organization that shares your viewpoints and vision concerning drug-free athletics. And get active. Work in your community; give talks to organizations, such as parent-teacher organizations student athletics organizations, and service groups; spread the word.

We all have a personal responsibility to chiropractic. By this I mean we need to use it to its fullest potential — not limit it to just pain management or alternative medicine. Chiropractic is bigger than that. Chiropractic care helps your patients to be your best. We are human performance specialists and the world needs to know about it.

— Victor N. Naumov, DC, founder and president, National Coalition for the Advancement of Drug-Free Athletics, Inc., www.NCADFA.org.