“Big No No for Recovery”: Exercise Scientist Unravels Consequences of Alcohol on Your Fitness Journey

Exercise scientist Dr. Mike Israetel explained five ways alcohol affects your fitness, and it does seem like drinkers need to rethink their thought processes. The bodybuilding coach said that alcohol is “poison” for the body and, depending on how much you drink, can have adverse effects on your fitness journey. The Renaissance Periodization founder explained how alcohol will particularly harm your recovery.

The fact that alcohol is bad for your body is common knowledge. However, those who still consume it and think training harder will compensate for occasional drinking are mistaken. The PhD holder in exercise physiology explained how alcohol affects your fitness in the short and long term.

Firstly, “In a high concentration, it poisons you a lot and f**k’s up your recovery at a basic biochemical level. Bad!” said Israetel in his Instagram video. However, this was just the beginning of how alcohol affects recovery. “Alcohol directly and via hormonal pathways, interferes with muscle growth and repair,” said the fitness influencer.

The presence of alcohol in the bloodstream even disrupts hormones that support recovery. Hence, according to the fitness influencer, the popular beverage attacks muscle growth and recovery on multiple fronts. Even if you’re drinking enough water to recover, adding alcohol to the equation throws the balance off yet again.

“Alcohol dehydrates you, which is a big no, no, for recovery,” the exercise scientist explained in the video. On top of all of these, the substance harms sleep, which is the human body’s most crucial mechanism for recovery. Although you might feel like you’ve slept enough, alcohol disrupts “sleep quality” and hurts how much you recover from a training session.

But why is recovery so important for someone on a fitness journey?

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Recovery is crucial for maintaining and improving fitness

While training hard is essential to improving your fitness levels, you need to recover from that session to make progress in the gym. While many people ignore recovery, fitness influencers like Mike Israetel are trying their best to raise awareness. Muscles grow when they recover, and alcohol disrupts that process.

Hence, if you do not recover, your performance in the gym will suffer. According to Mike Israetel, reduced recovery and lack of quality sleep can affect your strength, endurance, and cardiovascular capacity during the workout. This will lead to no improvements in fitness, and repeating this cycle of consuming alcohol might ultimately result in your fitness levels regressing despite regularly going to the gym.

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Hence, Dr. Mike Israetel recommends that even people not looking to make gains in the gym should stay away from alcohol.