How Alcohol Affects Exercise

If you are on an exercise routine, there are a few things that you need to consider before you decide to have a few alcohol drinks.

Studies have shown that even very small proportions of alcohol will cause an increase in muscular stamina and strength; but these gains are temporary. And just 20 minutes or so later, you will notice problems start to emerge. The unfortunate side effects that go with along with consuming alcohol are certain to outweigh any possible gain. These are very important facts to consider when you exercise. It doesn't matter from which direction you are looking; alcohol is a toxicant that can seriously injure your body if you don't take precautionary measures.

Consuming alcohol not only decreases your physical strength and thus effecting exercise, but it sabotages your power to metabolize fat. Drinking alcohol even reduces your muscle growth and can have adverse effects on your brain and central nervous system.

Consuming an alcoholic beverage will result in greater muscle aches and pains after you exercise; and this means that it will take significantly more time to recoup after exercise. When alcohol passes through to your blood cells, it most likely will harm them. Inflamed muscle cells are a common ailment among frequent alcohol consumers. It is only a matter of time before these damaged cells completely disintegrate_ resulting in a reduction in working muscle contractions.

Whenever you drink alcohol, you will have increased heat loss. This can affect you during exercise because reduction of heat can result in your muscles becoming very cold, and thus very weak and very slow during muscle contractions. You might notice a decrease in stamina capacity when you exercise after drinking alcohol.

Alcohol is a diuretic, and because of this, then consuming large proportions of alcohol potentially puts a lot of stress on your kidneys. Of course it can be difficult to exercise when dealing with such conditions. Throughout diuretic action, hormones secrete which can lead to greater increase of water retention; and this is a condition that is definitely not favorable for those who exercise.

If for some reason, you feel that you just have to have a drink, then it is always best to drink conservatively, and under no circumstance should you ever drink prior to performing any exercise routine. Doing so will mar your balance and overall judgment; these are not good conditions to exercise under.

For best practice, it is so important that you consider your health when you drink and when you exercise; this is something that I cannot stress enough. For more information, about the effects of alcohol on exercise, you might want to read this very useful article by Dr. Carlo L. Otis.