Exercise and Alcohol

When you leave work at the end of the week and think ‘thank god is fri­day’ you also prob­a­bly think about (depend­ing on your inter­ests) going out and hav­ing drinks with your friends to not only relax but to wind down from your week at work. Although this site doesnt dis­pute you going out for a drink we do how­ever advise that you still keep cer­tain infor­ma­tion about alco­hol in mind.

If your not yet exer­cis­ing on a reg­u­lar basis then tut tut but keep read­ing any­way as this arti­cle can help you when you decide to start exer­cis­ing. If you do exer­cise how­ever then the day after you go out drink­ing will be a reg­u­lar exer­cise day so in prepa­ra­tion you need to read the fol­low­ing article.

It has been proven by research that you can actu­ally increase your mus­cle indurance and strength through small amounts of alco­hol how­ever it is typ­i­cally only short term last­ing around twenty min­utes. The neg­a­tive affects sur­round­ing alco­hol con­sump­tion eas­ily out­weigh the pos­i­tive and even with any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, alco­hol will harm your body.

When you con­sume alco­hol in larger amounts it can have mul­ti­ple neg­a­tive side affects such as reduced strength, endurance, aer­o­bic capa­bil­ity, recov­ery time, mus­cle growth and also your metab­o­lism not to men­tion your ner­vous sys­tem and brain. With long term expo­sure the above neg­a­tive affects can be even more seri­ous with per­ma­nent dete­ri­o­ra­tion. Short term use can also result in reduced strength which can be extremely seri­ous for any­one who focuses on weights as their pri­mary exercise.

When the alco­hol reaches your blood cells, it typ­i­cally dam­ages them and also causes the typ­i­cal prob­lem of inflam­ma­tion in the mus­cle cells. When you are tying to develop your mus­cle growth the above infor­ma­tion in rela­tion to inflam­ma­tion in the mus­cle cells can cause those cells to die and as a result it can cause less func­tional mus­cle con­trac­tions. Drink­ing will also leave you with sore­ness in your mus­cles increas­ing your rest­ing time.

Alco­hol can also have effects on your cir­cu­la­tory sys­tem and heart along with your endurance capa­bil­i­ties. Drink­ing will also increase your heat loss and as a result your blood ves­sels will dilate caus­ing your mus­cles to become cold and because of that colder and weaker dur­ing your mus­cle contractions.

Not only does alco­hol lead to diges­tive and nutri­tion prob­lems but it also releases insulin that increases the metab­o­lism of glyco­gen which actu­ally reduces your fat burn­ing and makes it more dif­fi­cult then if you were not under the influ­ence of alco­hol. Another key point related to alco­hol nutri­tion prob­lems is that it inter fears with three main nutri­ents and it also has the poten­tial to cause you to become anaemic and be defi­cient of B type vitamins.

It is also a com­mon fact that alco­hol can cause liver dam­age. Liver dam­age from alco­hol is caused due to the fact that your liver detox­i­fies the alco­hol and the more you drink the harder your liver has to work which can result in the destruc­tion of some liver cells. Alco­hol is also a diuretic mean­ing drink­ing large amounts of it can not only dam­age your liver but it can also dam­age your kid­neys. Another key bod­ily func­tion that can be affected by alco­hol is water reten­tion which those who exer­cise will def­i­nitely want to avoid.

Although this arti­cle has made it clear the dan­gers of alco­hol and why you should not drink it, theres a good chance you will still con­sume it any­way. If that is the case then you should make sure that you only do it in mod­er­a­tion and you should never drink alco­hol before you exer­cise as it can sev­erly impair your coor­di­na­tion, bal­ance and also your judgement.

If your seri­ous about your health then you will avoid alco­hol at all costs.

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