Jack3d, Death And Responsible Fitness

The use of supplements sometimes is to being fit and active as nuclear warfare is to land development. But being fit means respecting your body.

Jack3d And Claire Squires

If you are interested in fitness news, you probably heard that a London coroner recently found that Jack3d is most likely the responsible party in the death of 30 year old marathon runner Claire Squires last year.

A death that practically came on the heels of the US Army pulling Jack3d and the similar OxyElite Pro from stores in military bases, after two soldiers, who both had taken these supplements, died from cardiac arrest.

I also vividly remember that when I wrote my article on the soldiers’ deaths last year, I shortly after saw a status update by a young woman on Facebook, stating “out for a run” under a picture of a Jack3d bottle. I sent her a link to my article, urging her to be cautious. Her reply was, “so what, then I’ll die.”

I suppose that if you are an energetic 22, being dead is not very high on your list of possible things to do in the afternoon.

What Is It Good For?

But it’s not as if behavior like this is restricted to younger people who feel invincible; when German researchers a while ago examined marathon runners that practically came from all age brackets, more than half of them had preemptively used pain relievers to perform better.

To all these people I have a question: what for are you doing this? If supplements or medications help you perform a little better, run a bit faster, build muscle in shorter time, and you don’t die from it, what will it have proven? That you conquered the weaknesses of your body? That you performed better than that other guy you don’t even really know?

For me, fitness is a means to live a longer life and spend the gained years in a satisfactory and enjoyable manner. Using fitness to practically bring your own death about sooner or being bound to the miseries of permanent sports injuries is in my opinion folly.

Picture courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps.