Sunday, June 28, 2009

Alcohol Should Be Avoided While Building Muscle

By Ricardo d Argence

It may seem hard to believe, but many people are not sure if alcohol has any kind of negative effect on muscle building. The answer is a resounding yes. Consuming alcohol definitely has an adverse affect on you workouts.

What is the first drink that most muscle builders reach for? Protein shakes! Protein is a key ingredient in muscle building and as such should not be interfered with. Unfortunately, alcohol impairs protein synthesis.

Protein synthesis is the process where amino acids in the system join together for the purpose of creating complete proteins. It has been shown that consuming alcohol can slow this process down by 20%.

Another factor in muscle building is the level of testosterone in the body. Ave you ever noticed that women do not build the same amount of muscle mass as men? This is because of low levels of testosterone; women have 15-20 times less testosterone than men do.

You may wonder what testosterone has to do with alcohol. Alcohol will decrease the levels of testosterone while increasing levels of estrogen in the body.

Everyone know that it's important to keep the body hydrated. When you consume alcohol, the kidneys have to work really hard in order to produce the massive amounts of water that are needed to process this toxin. The body does think of alcohol as a toxin. When this much water is produced so quickly, it is very easy to become dehydrated.

Nerves control muscles and nerves produce the stimuli to contract muscles from electrolyte minerals dissolved in water. Further more water lubricates the joints and protects them from injury during workouts.

Drinking alcohol robs your body of key vitamins. Vitamins like B, C and A, plus calcium and phosphorous are all depleted through the use of alcohol. When you consider that the most important vitamins to healthy muscle development are vitamins B and C, you can see this is just one more reason that drinking alcohol while muscle building is such a big deal.

When trying to build muscle, you need to deplete the stores of fat and increase the muscle mass. Alcohol works directly against this effort. Nutritionists will tell you that alcohol contains empty calories. Empty calories have no nutritional benefit at all. Alcohol also contains twice as many carbohydrates and calories as protein does.

While we are on the subject of calorie it is important to note that the calories taken in while drinking are the first ones burnt. This means that all other fat stores will remain and not be used for energy until alcohol calories are all burned. Not a good combination for a person wanting to build muscle mass and lose fat.

While we have looked at most of the major points on alcohol and bodybuilding; however, you have to consider the other affects of alcohol on the body. Prolonged use can lead to liver damage, diabetes and a host of other medically related problems. It will be increasingly difficult to build muscle if you suffer any one of these. Is it really worth the cost?

About the Author:

No comments: