I thought this article would be quite fitting after the CrossFit Zone gathering this weekend. Something to think about as we are heading in to the holiday season 🙂
~ This article is from CrossFit South Bay
No one can deny: drunk can be fun. Not much has changed since high school/college other than maybe my alcohol tolerance and propensity to prank/trespass/sleep in public places. However, how much I value my health has definitely changed, hence the frequency I partake.
‘EtOH’ is organic chemistry for ‘alcohol’ or ethyl alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. I sometimes hung out with a crowd that would refer to alcohol by this name (yeah, nerds partied, too). Calling it EtOH redefined alcoholic beverages to be perhaps more deviant than just throwing back some beers given what we’d sometimes do with it — brew our own beer to create it, extract/isomerize elicit substances into it, among other things. Making it into numerous games also redefined it — pong, flip-cup, etc. Calling it another name highlighted the values I identified with then.
Now, I just like calling things what they are. Alcohol is a serious toxin in the body and even in moderate amounts it’s definitely at odds with health goals. Alcohol’s also been called a crutch, a social lubricant or yet another product we rely on to help us define happiness. Whatever your persuasion, alcohol came into our diet relatively recently and hasn’t been around from an evolutionary perspective long enough to produce any significant adaptations to its seriously toxic short and long term effects.
The list of facts below summarizes effects of non-excessive alcohol use. Excessive is defined by most health sources as more than 1 drink per day. However, for women, this level of use has been associated with increased risk for breast and other cancers, as well as for those with other negative nutritional and lifestyle factors. And while 1 drink per day may not be ‘excessive’, for the subset of population that is trying to improve fitness beyond just wellness or avoiding disease, these facts should hopefully be even more meaningful.
Alcohol & Performance
- Consuming alcohol after a workout can cancel out any physiological gains you may have received from the activity.
- Alcohol use drastically reduces protein synthesis resulting in a decrease in muscle growth, and even short-term alcohol use can impede muscle growth.
- Even a small amount of alcohol severely disrupts sleep resulting in suppressed vital hormones (particularly HGH by as much as 70% — a hormone integral to sustained muscle building and repair) and decreased oxygen availability resulting in decreased endurance.
- Alcohol is toxic to testosterone levels essential to muscle development and recovery. Alcohol disrupts the fluid balance in muscle cells, resulting in reduced ability to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), your muscles’ main source of energy, as well as dehydration and slowing of repair processes.
- The body metabolizes alcohol sugars into fatty acids and promotes the storage of other carbohydrate as fat.
- The metabolization of alcohol by the body is an oxidation reaction with the enzyme dehydrogenase. This creates an elevation of NADH (remember the Kreb’s Cycle?) which reduces the production of ATP, resulting in a lack of energy. Women have much less dehydrogenase which is what accounts for the effect of higher intoxication for the same amount of alcohol consumed by a male of the same size.
- Alcohol use inhibits absorption or can use up important nutrients. To name a few: Thiamin is integral to metabolizing carbohydrate, proteins and fat, hemoglobin creation; B12 is essential to maintain healthy red blood and nerve cells (and lots of other functions); Folic acid is part of a coenzyme involved in the formation of new cells; zinc is essential to your energy metabolic processes.
Alcohol & Health Risk Factors
Over time, excessive alcohol use can lead to the development of chronic diseases, neurological impairments and social problems. These include but are not limited to:
- Neurological problems, including dementia, stroke and neuropathy.
- Cardiovascular problems, including myocardial infarction, cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation and hypertension.
- Psychiatric problems, including depression, anxiety, and suicide.
- Social problems, including unemployment, lost productivity, and family problems.
- Cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, colon, and breast.
- In general, the risk of cancer increases with increasing amounts of alcohol.
- Liver diseases, including: alcoholic hepatitis, cirrhosis (which is among the 15 leading causes of all deaths in the United States), other gastrointestinal problems, including pancreatitis and gastritis.
Other Affiliates’ Blog Posts on Alcohol
CrossFitters’ preferred drink for minimizing the damage if you must drink (though very marginally) is tequila or a hard liquor without the added sugary extras, or ‘corn sugars’ as the industry will now be having you call them.
CF Invictus: Alcohol & Recovery
CF One World: “Alcohol Is All Bad”
CF Zone: “Alcohol vs Muscle”
Other Sources:
Harvard School of Public Health
CDC FAQ
Today’s Workout:
Buy In -Deadlift 6 x 1 reps, work up to a heavy single
WOD – “Tabata This!”
Tabata Row
Rest 1 minute
Tabata Squat
Rest 1 minute
Tabata Pull-up
Rest 1 minute
Tabata Push-up
Rest 1 minute
Tabata Sit-up
The Tabata interval is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest for 8 intervals. Tabata score is the least number of reps performed in any of the eight intervals. Unit for the row is “calories”.
Cash Out – Coach led mobility exercise
That means 24 minutes for tabata and a while to work up to the 1RM. Going to be a pretty long workout hey?
Did it this morning… I couldn’t even button up my shirt after my shower. Wow.
Haha! I like how I’m portrayed as the drunk. When by the end of the night. I was the last one standing.
Hi,
I would like to see references from peer reviewed scientific journals with these facts. Crossfit often provides useful information, however, without references it is not citable and its content has to be questioned. I have little arguement to the assertion that excessive alcohol consumption is counter productive for producting elite fitness (although I can provide numerous example of elite athletes who partake in heavy binge drinking). My issue is in distinguighing our literature from that of Pop culture magazines. Dr Sears advocates a single beer or glass of wine a day. This article states
“Consuming alcohol after a workout can cancel out any physiological gains you may have received from the activity“. Is consuming a glass of wine really going to erase all physiological gains from exercise. I would like to see the evidence.
I had difficulty agreeing with a lot of the information alleged in the posting from Cross Fit South Bay, which initiated a conversation with a friend and colleague, who is an alcohol expert… yes, they do exist.
I am adding this so everyone can form their own opinion based on other sources of information, not to say anyone is wrong or place any distrust in the information Cross Fit Zone is trying to provide.
>>>>>>>>> This is in direct response to the article.
There are many exaggerated facts. Clearly this person is anti alcohol and is twisting information to suit his position.
I’ve never read that alcohol was linked to cancer in women, i think a source is required here.
The World Health organization has recognized that a drink a day has positive benefits for cardiovascular diseases. This is supported by the canadian and american medical associations. With chronic heavy consumption there can be problems with many organ systems, including the liver, although it’s not the case with almost half of chronic alcoholics. Many don’t end up with cardiovascular, liver or other problems, until they damage their brains and end up with Korsakov-wernicke syndrome which results in neurological and psychological problems.
What first needs to be defined is the difference between toxic and therapeutic. All drugs have have a therapeutic level and then eventually a toxic level. Most drugs are consumed in very small doses to exert their therapeutic effect, and some have very finite levels where it becomes toxic. At low levels (1 to 2 drinks) has very pleasant anti-anxiety, sedative effects, causes mild euphoria, lowers inhibitions and relaxes the body. if you stay at this level of alcohol, there are no toxic effects to the body. The drug is not present in high enough concentrations to have any significant impact on protein synthesis, muscle growth, sleep disturbances, hormone suppression. It will exert these effects if the alcohol level is increased to a moderate to high level, which would be 4 to 6 drinks (consumed in the same time frame as the previous 1 to 2 drinks). But again, this is still not a toxic level.
(I will add that although not “toxic” to the body, that this by no means means a person is not AFFECTED by the alcohol in their body at the 1-2 drink point… i.e it does NOT mean that you are necessarily okay to drive, or, be taking on co-ordinated movements like Olympic lifting)
One shouldn’t consume alcohol after a workout though. Your body is starved for nutrition and it needs to be fed good food, like protein, electrolytes and good carbs. If you drink alcohol after a workout, you’re feeding it empty calories which won’t help you build muscle. But it’s not because the alcohol is toxic at this point and is interfering with protein synthesis to any significant degree. Decreased absorption of nutrients occurs with chronic over use of alcohol. (eg. thiamine) This deficiency leads to malnutrition in chronic drinkers. Chronic drinking is someone who maintains a blood alcohol level on a regular basis (either every day or every weekend). It takes years of heavy alcohol use to end up in this state, it’s not going to happen if you have one drink a day.
Gross error in the second to last point regarding the ‘metabolization’ of alcohol. First of all, it’s pronounced metabolism. Secondly, I can produce a mountain of scientific papers which are peer reviewed and published in journals, which state there are no measurable differences in the way men and women eliminate alcohol. Everyone, regardless of gender, age and ethnicity metabolizes alcohol at a rate between 10-25 mg%/hour. Which is about a drink an hour. Also, the metabolism of alcohol has nothing to do with how drunk women get in comparison to men when going drink for drink. it has everything to do with the volume of distribution for alcohol in the body. Alcohol dissolves and distributes in body water (not fat tissue), women have a higher percent body fat than men, therefore, have a smaller volume of distribution than a man of the same weight. THIS is why the woman will get more drunk (have a nigher blood alcohol level) than the man, having consumed the same amount of alcohol. A trainer who claims to have knowledge of human physiology should be familiar with this concept. That’s really bad information.
The only deleterious effect of a glass of alcohol (wine, beer 1 oz high ball) is the caloric value. They all have the same amount of alcohol, but the dood is right at the end, if you’re counting calories, then 1 oz of whiskey is better than a glass of beer or wine. But saying that one drink a day is toxic to the body is overstating things quite a bit.
The choice is always yours to consume alcohol, and what is a safe and responsible amount. Everything we ingest, every activity we take part in will have a positive or negative effect on our overall health. It is up to you to decide if it is worth it.
Cheers (or not).
Some rousing debates, for sure!
I think the thing to take away from all of this discussion is that not everyone should believe everything they read, just exactly as it is written. Doing your own research and formulating your own opinions is an important part of educating yourself.
However, I’m quite certain that the point of this post was not to claim these ideas about alcohol as blind gospel truth that should be taken and adhered to religiously, but more to incite some community discussion on the topic. Which has obviously been a success.
Thanks for making us all think!
Thanks for that post, great to hear from an expert in the area! I’m always wary of articles that take a strong stance on controversial issues without quoting any research of any kind (keeping in mind of course that even quality research can be twisted to support non-truths). To be honest, I really don’t believe 95% of the information that is presented in articles that are written about training or nutrition. Too many people have a financial stake in these areas to make their view unbiased. Additionally, very few people have the technical knowledge or experience to actually know what they are talking about.
Like Shannon said, we should always take a critical eye to everything that is presented on the internet or other media. Almost everyone is trying to work an angle of some sort or stir up the pot.
Turts
Thanks Shannon! That was the reason for this post, we love to get controversial topics on the website because it gets everyone posting, and posting builds the community.
I also just wanted to get people thinking about the potential danger of consuming too much alcohol and how it can possibly affect your training. Take what you want from this article and do your own research.
Matt, Thank your friend for the insight on the post. It was much appreciated!