Alcohol Should Be Avoided While Building Muscle

It may seem hard to believe, but many people are not sure if alcohol has any kind of negative effect on muscle building. The answer is a resounding yes. Consuming alcohol definitely has an adverse affect on you workouts.

Most serious body builders will reach for a protein drink before anything else. There is a very good reason for this. Protein is critical to effective muscle building and protein synthesis should not be interfered with. Alcohol will definitely impair protein synthesis.

The process that joins amino acids together to form complete proteins is called protein synthesis. When a person drinks alcohol the process is slowed by 20%.

Another key factor in muscle building is the body's testosterone level. You have probably noticed that women are not able to build as much muscles mass as men; this is because they have 15-20 times less testosterone than men have. It is easy to see that testosterone levels are important to muscle building.

But what does testosterone have to do with alcohol consumption? Alcohol is known to decrease the testosterone levels while increasing the estrogen levels.

Everyone know that it's important to keep the body hydrated. When you consume alcohol, the kidneys have to work really hard in order to produce the massive amounts of water that are needed to process this toxin. The body does think of alcohol as a toxin. When this much water is produced so quickly, it is very easy to become dehydrated.

Nerves are controlled by the muscles. Nerves produce the stimuli that contract muscles using electrolyte minerals that dissolve in water. Water also lubricates the joints and protects them against injury while working out.

Consuming alcohol also robs key vitamins from the body. It destroys vitamins such as A, B, and C. It also depletes phosphorous and calcium stores in the body. Knowing that some of the most important vitamins for building muscles are vitamins B and C, you can understand why drinking alcohol while trying to build muscle really is a big deal.

When you are body building, the idea is to deplete the stores of fat while increasing your muscle mass. Nutritionists agree that alcohol contains no nutritional value at all; it is nothing more than empty calories. Additionally, it contains twice the carbs and calories than protein does.

It is important to note that the calories that are taken in as the result of alcohol consumption are the first calories that will be burned for energy. What this means is that the fat that is stored will remain stored until all of the alcohol calories have been burned for energy. This isn't really an optimal situation for somebody that wants to lose fat and build muscle.

While we have looked at most of the major points on alcohol and bodybuilding; however, you have to consider the other affects of alcohol on the body. Prolonged use can lead to liver damage, diabetes and a host of other medically related problems. It will be increasingly difficult to build muscle if you suffer any one of these. Is it really worth the cost?