Alcohol and Fitness!

[WillBrink]

Does booze negatively impact your fitness? Does it prevent you from losing weight? What are the facts with alcohol and your fitness goals, or bodybuilding, or weight loss, or performance? I cover the topic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGYtCqYjg3g

[Hammer27]

According to the director of fitness at NSWC even after 24-48 hours just 2 beers can severly affect your performance. Perception of increased exertion, reduction of VO2 max, weakend immune system, increased lactic acid, and poor processing of glycogen often occur. Alcohol also will limit the muscle's ability to gain mass.
If you can stand it I'd cut it out all together.

[WillBrink]

According to the director of fitness at NSWC even after 24-48 hours just 2 beers can severly affect your performance. Perception of increased exertion, reduction of VO2 max, weakend immune system, increased lactic acid, and poor processing of glycogen often occur. Alcohol also will limit the muscle's ability to gain mass.
If you can stand it I'd cut it out all together.

I'd have to see the data he's referring to there, but people and orgs tend to have a very biased view on the topic and therefor tend to look at one side, vs weighing the risk/benefits of the issue minus the emotional connections and or agenda's of the org in question.

Bottom line is, if you don't drink, probably not worth starting due to the studies finding possible benefits of moderate drinking (although I do know some docs who advise people to add 1-2 glasses of red wine per day to raise HDL...) but if you do drink moderately already, does not look like any compelling reasons to stop per se, and quite a bit of data that suggest some potential health benefits.

From a real world perspective, I have known ship load of high level/pro athletes and or mil who didn't seem to suffer any performance issues from moderate drink. Getting sh&% faced regularly, is another issue.

[panzerr]

According to the director of fitness at NSWC even after 24-48 hours just 2 beers can severly affect your performance. Perception of increased exertion, reduction of VO2 max, weakend immune system, increased lactic acid, and poor processing of glycogen often occur. Alcohol also will limit the muscle's ability to gain mass.
If you can stand it I'd cut it out all together.

I've never looked into the subject myself, but I've been told from multiple Docs that alcohol does a great job of damaging every organ in your body.

[m4fun]

Thats a major buzz-kill.

[wesprt]

I know some alcoholics that are about as fit as fit can be. I know some teetotalers that couldn't run down the driveway.

I don't think one will neccesarily preclude the other although it might could be said that being an alcoholic might keep you from being as fit as you can possibly be.

[panzerr]

I know some alcoholics that are about as fit as fit can be. I know some teetotalers that couldn't run down the driveway.

I don't think one will neccesarily preclude the other although it might could be said that being an alcoholic might keep you from being as fit as you can possibly be.

Being physically fit and being healthy don't always go together. You could be extremely physically fit and have a huge abdominal aneurysm or kidneys close to failure and not know it until you end up in the hospital.

[300WM]

When I started drinking beer, you had to be 18 to buy it. It was that same year (me at 18) that I entered my first hare scrambles ( iron man off road motorcycle racing, I like to call it). My first two seasons only saw mediocre results at the finish line. After getting sick of my racing partner tell me that I need to give up the beer, I decided to race alcohol free. I had not had any beer for about three months before the first race of my third season. I placed fourth out of 42 riders in that event. That season saw five more trophies added to my display with two first place. I believe I could have gotten more trophies if it wasn't for flat tires and broken chains, plus, a broken head gasket cost me a 32 sec. lead on the last lap of a 43 miler on a track that was nothing but palmettos and sand.

Mileage varies with alcohol and fitness. Some people can get away with it and some can't. I could not. Even though I was a training freak during the first two seasons, It could not compare to how I trained for the third. Many good athletes have a beer or wine now and then. But when you look at the truly great ones, alcohol was not on their menu.

[WillBrink]

When I started drinking beer, you had to be 18 to buy it. It was that same year (me at 18) that I entered my first hare scrambles ( iron man off road motorcycle racing, I like to call it). My first two seasons only saw mediocre results at the finish line. After getting sick of my racing partner tell me that I need to give up the beer, I decided to race alcohol free. I had not had any beer for about three months before the first race of my third season. I placed fourth out of 42 riders in that event. That season saw five more trophies added to my display with two first place. I believe I could have gotten more trophies if it wasn't for flat tires and broken chains, plus, a broken head gasket cost me a 32 sec. lead on the last lap of a 43 miler on a track that was nothing but palmettos and sand.

Mileage varies with alcohol and fitness. Some people can get away with it and some can't. I could not. Even though I was a training freak during the first two seasons, It could not compare to how I trained for the third. Many good athletes have a beer or wine now and then. But when you look at the truly great ones, alcohol was not on their menu.

If your priority is performance, minimal/no alcohol is probably best. My discussion is more regarding overall health/well being/fitness.

Having said that, I can't agree with your final statement. Some of the most famous athletes were flat out drunks. I have known #1 ranked track and field athletes, power lifters, MMA athletes, top ranked NFL players, O lifters,Strong Men, etc, etc who like to get their drink on when it's appropriate for them.

East block athletes, especially those in the strength oriented sports, consider beer as food and laugh at the western athletes non drinking counterparts, and they kicked are butts for decades.

I was at the SWAT Challenge years ago. Many of the nations top teams were there (LA, Dallas, etc). A group from the GSG9 showed up, and won by a wide margin. 8am, in front of the hotel, they drank beer and smoked cigs. No, I DON'T recommend anyone do that, but, it was an eye opener I must say.

I think your prior statement "Mileage varies with alcohol and fitness. Some people can get away with it and some can't. I could not."

Is the more accurate to the over generalized statement you ended with.

[Hammer27]

If your priority is performance, minimal/no alcohol is probably best. My discussion is more regarding overall health/well being/fitness.

Having said that, I can't agree with your final statement. Some of the most famous athletes were flat out drunks. I have known #1 ranked track and field athletes, power lifters, MMA athletes, top ranked NFL players, O lifters,Strong Men, etc, etc who like to get their drink on when it's appropriate for them.

I was at the SWAT Challenge years ago. Many of the nations top teams were there (LA, Dallas, etc). A group from the GSG9 showed up, and won by a wide margin. 8am, in front of the hotel, they drank beer and smoked cigs. No, I DON'T recommend anyone do that, but, it was an eye opener I must say.

I believe, from what I've gathered and experienced, that those athletes mentioned above could have been better sans alcohol, but we'll never really know.

It's also important to note that GSG9 is a federal entity and tends to be more selective and better trained than city SWAT units as such. The point here is that their victory may or may not have been a product of training over fitness. Of course, we cannot say for certain and I don't know what the events are.