Its friday night-
what are the problems with lifting in the day(2-5) and drinking at night(11-2). If you eat right, does drinking still make a difference in recovery?
[quote]Hawkson101 wrote:
Its friday night-
what are the problems with lifting in the day(2-5) and drinking at night(11-2). If you eat right, does drinking still make a difference in recovery?[/quote]
It does with me. My body seems to soak up the beer like nobody’s business after a workout. Then I get drunker than I intended. Then I have a massive hangover the next day and don’t get enough calories. But then I am a) old and b) an alcoholic, so don’t take what I say as being true for everyone.
Yes. And you’re workouts should not be 3 hours long.
I used to think that it didn’t matter, because I was getting stronger, didnt feel tired, and my workouts were intense. But I also weighed 300 pounds and looked like shit. Since then I’ve cut out drinking (partly because I’m working and not in college anymore) but I’ve lost 50 pounds and I’m almost as strong. Hope that helps.
Not to mention the raised insulin levels and depressed testosterone levels. What sort of weightlifter wants that?
It does for me. That’s why I’ve cut down to just the weekends… I’m sore and busted up the next day after a good bender. It’s taking too much of a toll on me.
However, I am 22, and am not missing out on shindigs on Friday nights.
It’s an individual thing. When I was in my early twenties I could work 12hrs, lift for 2 hours, drink for 5 hours, sleep for 3 hours and repeat. I had no issues at all. I’ll be 31 in a couple days and I’ll be damned if I can do that ONE day in a row now.
If you can do it, do it, if you can’t don’t.
[quote]TheSicilian wrote:
It’s an individual thing. When I was in my early twenties I could work 12hrs, lift for 2 hours, drink for 5 hours, sleep for 3 hours and repeat. I had no issues at all. I’ll be 31 in a couple days and I’ll be damned if I can do that ONE day in a row now.
If you can do it, do it, if you can’t don’t.[/quote]
haha, see, I think I’m aging prematurely. I was like that at 18, and now at 22 I can’t do it more than two days in a row without feeling like a boxer in the twelfth round all day.
I think you could make an arguement for the “french paradox” (ie, one or 2 drinks a day being healthy)…
But beyond that, there is no arguement, other than perhaps “you are only young once”.
I reduced my drinking 2 years ago to an average of 1 a day, and didn’t feel to much better. I quit drinking completely almost a year ago and the difference is dramatic.
-overall feeling of health
-better sleep
-easier to stay lean
As a bodybuilder, your liver has enough to do. I think everytime you tax it with something other than training or excess protein/supplementation, you are just decreasing your ability to recover and grow.
I cant make any progress in the gym when I drink alot, thats just me though
It definitely screws me up…I noticed after a couple weeks of drinking nothing that 4 or 5 drinks made me feel slightly retarded the whole next day.
I haven’t cut it out completely, and I probably never will, but I don’t feel like I have to drink every weekend just because it’s the weekend. Maybe a Saturday night a month if I got Sunday off, but then every once in a while…you just gotta party.lol
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
TheSicilian wrote:
It’s an individual thing. When I was in my early twenties I could work 12hrs, lift for 2 hours, drink for 5 hours, sleep for 3 hours and repeat. I had no issues at all. I’ll be 31 in a couple days and I’ll be damned if I can do that ONE day in a row now.
If you can do it, do it, if you can’t don’t.
haha, see, I think I’m aging prematurely. I was like that at 18, and now at 22 I can’t do it more than two days in a row without feeling like a boxer in the twelfth round all day.[/quote]
WOW, just WOW, you’re a disgrace to both the IRISH and Jersey Guidos/Trash.
[quote]TheSicilian wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
TheSicilian wrote:
It’s an individual thing. When I was in my early twenties I could work 12hrs, lift for 2 hours, drink for 5 hours, sleep for 3 hours and repeat. I had no issues at all. I’ll be 31 in a couple days and I’ll be damned if I can do that ONE day in a row now.
If you can do it, do it, if you can’t don’t.
haha, see, I think I’m aging prematurely. I was like that at 18, and now at 22 I can’t do it more than two days in a row without feeling like a boxer in the twelfth round all day.
WOW, just WOW, you’re a disgrace to both the IRISH and Jersey Guidos/Trash.
[/quote]
Fuck man, I know, I know.
I drastically reduced my drinking this semester and I look and feel much better.
I was making progress while I drank, but I generally felt weaker and more tired because I think my recovery suffered and I was kinda overtrained all the time.
As it is, I eat like a horse and train in one fashion or another several times a day almost everyday. I’m making good progress in all fields.
Youth seems to be the determining factor. I’m 20 and I could still go drink heavily and make fairly good progress, but I find without benders I do much better.
Drinking is bad… nuff’ said.
[quote]ProfessorCHAOS96 wrote:
Drinking is bad… nuff’ said.[/quote]
No it’s not. Nuff said.
Drinking a beer will not make much difference, drinking to get drunk, excessive drinking, will make a difference.
I can provide further details, but for the most part, off the top of my head, alcohol effects protein synthesis by as much as 40%, inhibits appetite, decreases testosterone, increases estrogen, and is a dieuretic.
There are other problems with alcohol that I can gather if requested.
These are some that I recall that will have an impact on drinking after lifting.
OK, I copie this from Ascendant on steroid.com. I thought it was a decent reference and done pretty well.
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Alcohol negatively affects protein synthesis - this is a known scientific fact guys and one that is obviously a big hinderance to our goals considering decreased protein synthesis means decreased muscle recovery and growth. though you may blow it off thinking it’s effects can’t be that dramatic, think again. alcohol can decrease our bodies ability to synthesize protein by up to 20%.
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Alcohol adversely affects growth hormone and igf - this applies not only to exogenous, but endogenous gh and igf as well, and the effects are quite significant, particularly on igf. alcohol can lower igf levels by as much as 30-40%.
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Alcohol causes dehydration - in order to break down the alcohol, the kidneys must filter a large amount of water. considering our muscles are made of 70% water and water plays a huge role in muscle recovery and growth, this is obviously a big problem. for those mistakingly thinking the dehydrating effect isn’t that significant, here’s something to think about… Alcohol can cause up to a 3% loss in body weight from water loss in a 4 hour period.
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Alcohol lowers testosterone and increases estrogen levels - this occurs due to alcohols increase in our bodies aromitization process. now, anyone with even a basic knowledge on testosterone and estrogen would know this is a very unfavorable effect on our bodies. long story short, it’s effects include reduced muscle growth/recovery, increased fat storage, and other feminization effects.
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Alcohol depletes our bodies of vitamins and minerals - the most prominent of those being the b vitamins (b-6,b-12, etc), vit a, vit c, phosphorous, calcium, and zinc. Obviously lacking in these nutrients can seriously hinder muscle growth, recovery, and even maintenance.
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Calories from Alcohol are primarily stored as bodyfat - best said in this quote “carbohydrates found in alcohol are not converted into glucose and are used to make fatty acids that are stored as fat typically in the liver which eventually alters the metabolism of proteins and the liver?s function leading to fibrosis and cirrhosis (irreversible liver damage)” (article 3). . nuff said.
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Alcohol negatively affects our bodies kreb’s cycle - this is our bodies ability to burn fat as an energy source. so if our body doesn’t burn fat as an energy source, the alternatives are blood glucose, muscle glycogen, and muscle protein, the third of which of course us bb’s try to avoid at all costs.
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Alcohol negatively affects our REM sleep - this occurs even in minor alcohol consumption (2-3 drinks). it negatively affects the duration of our REM sleep, it’s quality, and the overall time we’re in REM during our resting period. see article 5 below for more info.
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Alcohol decreases our bodies immune system - considering gear can lower our immunity systems as it is, alcohol can increase our chances of getting sick or getting infections even more, and quite dramatically, even in small amounts. obviously being sick means less time in the gym, or at least a decreased ability to recover while working out.
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Alcohol increases cortisol production - cortisol is one of the worst chemicals we can have floating around in our bodies as far as negatively affecting our muscle mass. if you don’t know what cortisol is and why you want to avoid increasing it’s production, just do a wikipedia search about cortisol and you’ll see why. basically, it will break down muscle mass into amino acids as a stress response.
well, there you have it. even those who use the justification of moderate alcohol consumption can see that even at low levels of consumption, it can still have a dramatic impact on your gains. if the above information and the links provided below don’t convince you to try to stop the drinking and find other things to do to enjoy your weekends, then honestly i don’t know what to tell you.
maybe a good follow-up to this thread should be one giving a list of alternatives to drinking on the weekends and other ways to go out and have fun?
article 1 - alcohols effect on protein synthesis : http://ajpendo.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/277/2/E268
article 2 - effects on gh and igf:
http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/2/148
article 3 - several good pieces of info on the negative effects of alcohol:
http://www.athletics.mcgill.ca/sportsmed_interest_details.ch2?article_id=613
article 4 - alcohols aromatization effects:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T40-42398PD-2&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F2000&_alid=425468928&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=4960&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c794ff58cfc803fc2692570f68613e73
[quote]mithious wrote:
I think you could make an arguement for the “french paradox” (ie, one or 2 drinks a day being healthy)…
[/quote]
Yea but he’s not obviously talking about 1 or 2, he’s talking about drinking to get drunk, weekend binge drinking.
“If you have to ask if something’s bad, you usually already know the answer.”
[quote]Woppa wrote:
It does with me. My body seems to soak up the beer like nobody’s business after a workout. Then I get drunker than I intended. Then I have a massive hangover the next day and don’t get enough calories. But then I am a) old and b) an alcoholic, so don’t take what I say as being true for everyone.[/quote]
I’m pretty much the same way. Add to that I am incredibly sore the next morning if I drink a few too many the same night after a workout that day. I’m guessing the alcohol absolutely kills recovery.