The consumption of strong drinks, unfortunately, is considered the norm in modern society. Within the framework of this article, we will not talk about the prerequisites of this phenomenon, its social significance and the influence of alcohol on the moral character of an individual and society. But let's try to consider a number of other issues that are important for those who lead a healthy lifestyle, play sports at an amateur or professional level. It will be about how alcohol affects muscles and sports, can you drink alcohol after training and how long after training can you drink alcohol?
What you need to know about the effects of alcohol?
The active ingredient in any alcoholic beverage is ethanol - ethyl alcohol. The intoxicating effects of various alcoholic beverages are associated with its entry into the human body. Stronger drinks contain high concentrations of ethanol (40-70%), less strong drinks, such as wine and beer, have lower doses (4.5-12%).
Emotional coloring of the state of intoxication
Probably every adult who has sipped alcohol at least once knows that the more "concentrated" drink is consumed, the faster the intoxication effect occurs. By the way, about the effects. A person uses alcohol in completely different life situations and he influences everyone in his own way. Someone's mood immediately improves and he has fun, and inexplicable sadness rolls over someone. There are those who become overly aggressive, show antisocial behavior. It is obvious that the emotional coloring of a person's behavior does not depend on alcohol intake. After all, it is completely different. Alcohol only frees consciousness from the framework and often the true "I" comes out.
Deterioration of health
But, in addition to the not always acceptable emotional coloring, the state of alcoholic intoxication has many physiological moments that do not in the best way affect the general state of the body. This is a deterioration in coordination of movements, weakness, lethargy, loss of control over speech and their own actions. The effects listed above are not accidental, because ethanol is a poison with a cellular mechanism of action. It is most toxic to the liver - it is this organ that is responsible for the metabolism of ethanol, that is, for its "processing" into products that can be excreted from the body.
Influence on the work of internal organs
What is the risk of drinking alcohol for athletes? Everything is quite logical and simple - alcohol perceptibly hits the liver, which in athletes is already overloaded with work due to constant physical exertion and specific nutrition. Let's consider this point in a little more detail:
- The liver of a person who regularly performs certain loads and uses slightly higher dosages of protein compared to a common man in the street, and so works "in the sweat of his brow." The fact is that during the breakdown of proteins, the amount of nitrogenous products in the body increases and the liver must "direct" the required amount to the synthesis of amino acids, and process all excess and make it available for excretion.
- The same vital internal organ is involved in the metabolism of fatty acids - it is from fats that the membranes of body cells, the human nervous system and steroid hormones, which include sex, are composed.
- Let's not forget about glucose metabolism - the main source of energy for the brain and muscle contractions. It also runs in the liver. As you can see, she has a lot of tasks. And the athlete's liver (no matter what orientation) has two times more of these tasks - after all, any practitioner sets himself, first of all, the task of synthesizing new body tissues.
Now imagine that instead of performing the above functions, your liver must urgently detoxify alcohol. She will do this according to the principle of priority: when the poison enters the body, the liver's task is to "neutralize" it as soon as possible. And for this, again, energy and nutrients are needed, in general, everything that could go to the notorious synthesis. In short, one conclusion suggests itself: alcohol and exercise are extremely incompatible things.
How does alcohol affect muscles?
At the beginning of this article, we looked at in general terms how alcohol affects exercise and why it affects athletic performance. Now let's take a closer look at how alcohol affects muscles.
We have already mentioned the energy required for the liver to detoxify alcohol. This energy in the human body is represented by molecules of ATP-adenosine triphosphate - a universal compound, during the splitting of which this very energy is released. So, in order for your muscles to contract, you need the same ATP. Accordingly, the functional characteristics of the muscles when drinking alcohol is reduced simply because there is not enough "fuel". Muscle growth is likewise affected by the use of ethanol - protein synthesis is a very energy-intensive process that requires a lot of energy. But not only that! We list the four main conditions for muscle growth (according to Professor V.N.Seluyanov):
- pool of free amino acids in the cell;
- the presence of hydrogen ions in muscle fiber;
- the presence of anabolic hormones in the blood;
- the presence of free creatine in the muscle fiber.
The presence of free creatine
Let's start with the last item on our list - free creatine. Creatine is a high-energy compound synthesized in the liver from 3 amino acids: arginine, glycine and methionine. The result is a funny paradox: when drinking alcohol, the body does not have enough energy to synthesize the energy-intensive substance needed to build muscles. Moreover, the listed amino acids are nonessential, which means they can be synthesized on their own. But the problem is that they are all synthesized in the same liver, which, again, is busy neutralizing ethanol, and all its resources are spent on this.
Anabolic hormones
As for the presence of hormones in the blood, in order to start acting, they must enter the cell. And here, as an obstacle for them, the product of alcohol metabolism appears - acetaldehyde (how exactly it is obtained will be discussed below). This compound can freely pass into the cells of the body, disrupting the permeability of cell membranes. In other words, if acetaldehyde gets into the cell, it will be difficult for anything else to get there, including anabolic hormones. This means that even if you introduce anabolic agents from the outside, you will not get one hundred percent positive results from them. That is, in the case of the simultaneous use of anabolic hormones and alcohol, most of the hormones will be released from your body unchanged. In short, both money and efforts will be thrown to the wind.
Hydrogen ions in muscle fiber
There should be a lot of hydrogen ions in the muscle fiber, but at the same time, they should be present there for a very limited time. Why, now we will explain.
Hydrogen ions improve the permeability of the cell membrane, that is, they facilitate the better penetration of anabolic agents (amino acids and hormones) into the cell. They also facilitate the access of hormones to the hereditary information of the cell, thereby triggering protein synthesis in the muscles. And this happens due to the so-called "limited destruction" of the cell. And here we can see the negative side of the strong acidification of the cell (that is, the accumulation of a large number of hydrogen ions) - these very destruction can be excessive. For this reason, hydrogen ions must be removed from the cell as soon as possible.
For this purpose, there is a lactate ion - when it bonds with hydrogen, it turns into lactic acid, since for this compound the cell membrane is permeable. In short, hydrogen ions can leave the muscle cell in the form of lactic acid. But what happens if you drink alcohol before training? The answer to this question is simple. It becomes more difficult to remove hydrogen ions, which is why they stay in the muscle fiber longer, causing much more "destruction" than expected. That is, your training has a negative effect, during its course you damage the structures of your body, preventing them from recovering. Accordingly, you work "in the negative".
Free amino acid pool
Consider the following regarding the pool of free amino acids. After drinking alcohol, for the reasons listed above, you will not have very many amino acids in your cell. One part of them will be deaminated, that is, converted into energy sources and NH2 groups in order to render alcohol harmless. And the second part simply will not get to the cell due to its poor permeability.
So, let's summarize how alcohol after training affects muscles. Since the processes of energy supply to the cell suffer, and the utilization of acidic products of muscle contraction is impaired, the synthesis of anabolic hormones, as well as their access to the cell, is difficult, the performance of your workouts will suffer, to put it mildly.
The influence of alcohol on excess weight
Overweight usually means an excess amount of subcutaneous fat, in other words, fat. Moreover, excess fat accumulation occurs not only under the skin, but also in the body cavities, thereby squeezing the internal organs and reducing the flow of blood to them. Alcohol increases body weight by increasing the fatty component. How exactly this happens - read on.
Increased appetite
Getting into the stomach, alcohol irritates its walls. At the same time, the taste of ethanol-containing drinks is bitter (any other can be mixed with it, but bitterness is present in any case). Both of the above circumstances stimulate appetite by acting on two independent mechanisms to stimulate eating behavior. The result is that you are hungry. And now let's recall what was said at the very beginning of the article - you lose self-control due to the fact that the cerebral cortex that forms your personality turns off (to one degree or another, depending on the dose), your subcortex takes over , a kind of inner animal. It consists of simple basic instincts, and, most annoyingly, the less control of the crust, the more likely the subcortex will satisfy its needs at any cost. Accordingly, you will eat much more than you need, because each new portion of alcohol stimulates the appetite anew. And self-control, accordingly, decreases.
Fluid retention in the body
Another factor contributing to increased body weight is fluid retention from systematic alcohol consumption. This is due to the fact that ethanol contributes to tissue dehydration - in other words, increased water consumption. The feeling of dryness in the mouth is not easy. And since our body adapts to what we do with it, with the systematic use of ethanol, the production of antidiuretic hormone increases, which is responsible for the maximum retention of water within the bloodstream. Because of this, in turn, blood pressure rises, the load on the heart increases, even against the background of ordinary household loads. What can we say about sports training!
Can I drink after exercise?
Is it possible to drink alcohol after training is a rather rhetorical question. After all, any sane person who has carefully read all the previous sections of the article will understand why you cannot drink alcohol after training and even more so before it.
Even one bottle of beer drunk in the evening can lead to reduced strength training after alcohol the next day. Sports exercises in themselves place a significant load not only on the muscles, but also on most of the internal organs. The heart, lungs, and other organs, they all begin to work in an almost extreme mode and they need time to recover. If at this time the body has to give up a fair share of energy in order to get rid of alcohol and its decay products, it is not difficult to guess about the possible negative consequences.
A real athlete who trains regularly, and not from time to time, should not even wonder how much alcohol can be drunk after training. After all, even if alcohol after training in the gym is not immediately drunk, but, for example, after a couple of hours or the next day, then it may not affect the last training session, but the next one, as we already wrote, will have to be canceled.
Ethanol, entering the stomach, is absorbed into the blood, from which it enters the liver through the portal vein. A number of chemical reactions take place here, designed to help ensure that the poison (which is ethanol) is neutralized. There are three pathways for the metabolism of alcohol:
- the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase;
- through the cytochrome P 450 system;
- liver catalase.
Accumulation of harmful elements
The largest amount of ethanol is metabolized by the first pathway. The ethanol molecule is split into an acetaldehyde molecule and a reduced coenzyme NADH. Acetaldehyde is subsequently converted to acetic acid. During this transformation, hydrogen peroxide is formed, which is a free radical and, accordingly, the culprit of direct cellular damage.
Acetic acid itself is converted into acetyl coenzyme A - a universal substrate for your body, which can then be used to synthesize fatty acids. Or it can be used to produce a single ATP molecule. It would seem that this is the benefit! It turns out a whole molecule of ATP! Do not rush to rejoice - at least 3 ATP molecules must be spent for its production. Total - minus 2 ATP molecules. Given that it does not metabolize all alcohol at the same time, but as it is absorbed into the bloodstream and enters the liver. And the amount of energy and substrates needed to metabolize alcohol is limited.
Acidosis
Thus, a large amount of acidic products of incomplete alcohol metabolism accumulates in the blood of an ethanol consumer: acetic acid, acetaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide. All this shifts the pH of the body to the acidic side, and for our body this condition is "emergency". It is called acidosis. In this state, all metabolic processes in your body are much less efficient, including your brain - this is where the feeling of euphoria, impaired speech, gait, and mental activity come from. When acidosis becomes critical, the metabolic processes in your brain stop and you simply pass out. At the same time, the cells of the brain partially die off, since due to strong acidification, the process of cellular respiration in them becomes impossible. In addition, a certain amount of water must be present in each nerve cell. And what happens to the liquid while drinking alcohol, we remember from the previous sections.
Deterioration of nerve impulses
By the way, not only the brain itself consists of nerve cells, but also the pathways from it - the peripheral nerves. They, strictly speaking, are processes of the bodies of nerve cells, and intertwined with each other, these processes form peripheral nerves. These are a kind of "wires" connecting the brain with all organs of the body. Including with muscles.Deterioration of the quality of the "signal" leads to a deterioration in the quality of movement, you cannot transmit a high-quality impulse along the nerve fiber due to the fact that the cell that needs this impulse does not work correctly. Or it doesn't work at all.
Interesting fact! Scientists have noticed that people with a large body weight are excreted from the body at a more vigorous rate than their thinner comrades.
Does alcohol affect testosterone?
As mentioned briefly above, alcohol affects testosterone levels by lowering testosterone levels for several of the above reasons. However, I would like to focus on the drink, which, for some reason, is not classified as a “serious” alcohol. It's about beer, of course.
This drink is brewed from malt and hops. Hops are an excellent source of phytoestrogens - plant substances that are very similar in structure to female sex hormones. With a systematic increase in the concentration of such sex hormones in a man's body, his hormonal profile does not change for the better for him. Female-type fat deposits appear, visceral fat is actively deposited (around the internal organs). At the same time, behavior becomes lethargic, aggression and the desire to be the first gives way to laziness and complacency. Think of the medieval monks - classic beer drinkers with round bellies. As for them, there is another important point - for the monks, the issue of reducing libido was very relevant. Beer successfully solved this issue as well, because beer was brewed, first of all, in monasteries.
Drank before training: what to do?
Considering all of the above, if the athlete drank the day before and has a training session ahead of him, then the most optimal and reasonable course of action is to skip the class, since alcohol before training is simply unacceptable. Instead, it is better to take a shower at a comfortable temperature, stock up on a 1.5-liter bottle of mineral water and the same bottle of kefir. Drinks should be drunk in small portions, alternating water with kefir. In parallel, it is necessary to take a double dose of a vitamin complex containing vitamin B 12. This must be done for the following reasons:
- Mineral water will fill the deficit of liquid and ions.
- Kefir will replenish lactate reserves, as one of the substrates most actively consumed when ethanol is consumed.
- Vitamin B12 will help the nervous system recover and restore the speed of transmission of nerve impulses.
During the rest of the day, it is preferable to eat lean meat and cottage cheese in sufficient quantities, eating vegetables, or drinking vegetable juice.
The training process can be resumed only the next day. In this case, the training should be easy. It is advisable to use narrow-focus exercises for small muscle groups. The ideal option is the muscles of the arms, since their activation improves cerebral circulation, and the abdominal muscles - the liver will also require an increased concentration of oxygen.
Remember, no matter what kind of load you plan to occupy yourself with. After drinking alcohol, especially in large quantities, it is better to refrain from them.
The rate of elimination of alcohol from the body
