How Does Alcohol Affect Fitness?

After a hard day of sulking at work, people resort to alcohol and intoxicated beverages like wine, beer, mixed drinks, etc. However, they never realize that as they are gulping down these beverages one after the other, it creates a negative impact on the aspect of the fitness. Learning about the relationship between fitness and alcohol, it is easy to protect one’s physique and still enjoy the regular benefits of moderate consumption of alcohol.

Athletic Performance

Just like any other task, where cognitive precision and coordination is required, the ability to play sports and to exercise could be negatively affected by alcohol. As per most of the doctors and medical practitioners, the effects of alcohol is so serious that it impairs the balance of the eye-hand coordination, reaction time, etc. which is important for most of the athletic performances.

Plus another disadvantage of alcohol is it leads to diuretics where there would be excessive loss of fluids and electrolytes. Such things are required for the proper hydration of the body. The production of lactic acid increases with alcohol consumption and it could worsen one’s fatigue while exercising. There are other effects like dehydration, increased sweating, dilation of the blood vessels, etc.

Gaining Weight

Like the soda which is consumed by most of us, alcohol has got calories which could lead to increasing the weight. Consuming two or more alcoholic contents each day would increase the belly fat. Such condition is called as beer belly and excessive consumption can lead to weight gain. Various researchers and doctors suggest in reducing the intake of alcohol to about two or less each day and monitoring the amount of calorie intakes.

Muscle Growth

For a good muscle maintenance and development, protein synthesis is important. As consuming alcohol can impair this particular process, your ability to maintain and developing muscles takes a beating.

Excessive drinking could lead to reducing the levels of testosterone and increasing the cortisol. This is a hormone which attacks and destroys the muscles. In order to avoid muscle loss, you should avoid drinking alcohol after or before hitting out the gym. You could select hydrated drinks like sports drinks and water instead of alcohol and keep a track of the entire amount of alcohol intakes.

Effect on Memory

To be the best, one has to learn or play various strategies. The biggest disadvantage of consuming alcohol is that it impairs the functioning of hippocampus. This is main part of the brain which is vital for memories. Unless you store new memories, you cannot learn or understand information.

To conclude, the above given points clearly states the ill-effects of alcohol consumption.

Author

Saravavan Nadarajan (Vanan)

Vanan, fitness expert and leader at EzFit Singapore, specializes in holistic training—home-based, boot camps, and corporate fitness—with over a decade of industry experience.

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