A scientific study suggests that drinking alcohol after working out has severe implications on building muscle mass. The study attempted to see the effects of post-exercise alcohol ingestion and the results were noteworthy. The study took 10 males and nine females and had them complete heavy resistance exercise workouts that included six sets of Smith machine squats. Then they had the participants drink alcohol or placebo. Why do I never get invited to partake in a study that has me get wasted?
From the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research:
Prior to exercise (PRE) and three (+3h) and five (+5h) hours post exercise, muscle tissue samples were obtained from the vastus lateralis by biopsies. Muscle samples were analyzed for phosphorylated mTORC1, S6K1, and 4E-BP1. For men, there was a significant interaction effect for mTORC1 and S6K1 phosphorylation. At +3h, mTORC1 and S6K1 phosphorylation was higher for placebo than for alcohol. For women, there was a significant main effect for time. mTORC1 phosphorylation was higher at +3h than at PRE and at +5h. There were no significant effects found for 4E-BP1 phosphorylation in men or women. The major findings of this study was that although RE elicited similar mTORC1 signaling both in men and in women, alcohol ingestion appeared to only attenuate RE-induced phosphorylation of the mTORC1 signaling pathway in men. The present study provides evidence that alcohol should not be ingested following RE as this ingestion could potentially hamper the desired muscular adaptations to resistance exercise by reducing anabolic signaling, at least in men.
You got that? Just to be sure, why don’t you explain it to me, so we can be absolutely positive that we are on the same mindset.
The scientific study suggests that those who drink alcohol after exercising have lower levels of chemicals which are needed for the growth of the muscles than those who do not drink.
The study’s co-author Jakob Vingren, a biology and kinesiology professor at the University of North Texas in Denton, explains the results in layman’s terms:
“A little bit of alcohol is probably not a problem. But if you’re doing heavy resistance training, if you’re going to go out drinking that night, don’t go to the gym right before. It’s possible the next day you’re going to be worse off than if you hadn’t gone to the gym.”
Woah! “Worse off than if you hadn’t gone to the gym?” I’m all for excuses not to go to the gym, but that’s crazy to think that alcohol would negate all your gains, but again I’m not a scientist, I just crack dildo jokes, so I’m probably not qualified to speculate on the effects of alcohol on muscle mass.
It gets worse because there’s an extremely frightening paradox. You see, another study revealed that “people drank more than usual on the same days that they engaged in more physical activity than usual.”
TIL it’s better to just sit home and get plastered instead of going to the gym.
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