Alcohol can ruin your muscles
If you're a bodybuilder, or a bodybuilder wannabe, there's something that you need
to know about and to avoid. That thing is alcohol.
Alcohol is an enemy of bodybuilders. If interrupts and inhibits muscle development,
and adds unwanted fat to that lean sleek body that you've been trying
to build. Drinking alcohol may seem like a manly thing to do to some, but those
who know better know that it has turned many a ripped physique into
unhealthy, fat slobs.
Just what does alcohol do to your body that causes this?
1. It increases estrogen levels and decreases testosterone levels
Estrogen and testosterone are antagonistic -- they tend to cancel each other out.
You need elevated testosterone levels in order to help grow and maintain
muscle mass. By drinking alcohol, you reduce your testosterone levels, making
it difficult if not impossible to maintain your level of muscularity.
2. It hinders protein synthesis
You need protein in order to build muscle mass and to repair existing tissue in
your body. If your body can't take the protein you feed it and convert it
into the material it needs to build and repair tissue, then your bodybuilding will
stop, and your muscles will start to slowly wither away. Alcohol has
been known to inhibit protein development by as much as 20%.
3. It causes your body to lose vitamins and minerals
Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes you pee a lot. Hence the joke that
when you go to a bar to drink beer, that you're not really buying beer, you're
merely renting it. When you pee a lot, you end up pushing out minerals and vitamins
that are essential to good health and to muscle development. These
vitamins and minerals include vitamins A, C and the B complex, along with minerals
such as calcium, phosphorus and zinc. With any sort of nutrient
deficiency, you become unhealthy. And if you're unhealthy, you can't put in the
requisite effort to build and maintain your muscle mass.
4. It causes dehydration
Because alcohol is a diuretic, you lose water. If you drink alcohol, you end up
having to drink lots of water afterwards in order to replenish the water
lost in the urine. Being dehydrated causes your body to unable to create the new muscle fiber.
5. It causes the storage of fat
Most alcohol contains a lot of calories. Calories that aren't "burnt" are converted
into fat, which is stored normally in a person's waist. Which is why
heavy beer drinkers have "beer bellies". Drinking too much alcohol on a consistent
basis means that fat will be deposited around your body taking away
the muscle definition that you exercised so hard to get.
An occasional drink won't cause harm. But becoming a "one of the boys" drinker is
a guarantee that your muscular physique will disappear.
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20081029