Is It Safe To Train Drunk – The Harsh Truth
We don’t recommend exercising while drunk; the cognitive change alcohol has makes individuals overestimate their ability, which is made dangerous by their slower reaction time (as it’s a depressant) to rectify any mistakes.
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Downsides To Being Drunk While Exercising
Alcohol immediately affects your brain chemistry and hormones, which poses a danger to you and everybody else around. Even if you feel fine, your balance, strength, and endurance are all compromised, making you a hazard around machinery, dumbbells, and weighted plates.
Alcohol also encourages impulsive behavior. Therefore, individuals show more aggression towards others. As the gym is testosterone-heavy, tension is already high, and alcohol can tip it over the edge, for example, an argument (or fight) is likelier to break out because intoxicated individuals lash uncontrollably.
If intoxicated at a local gym, you may embarrass yourself in front of people you’ll see again. As soon as your small intestine absorbs alcohol, your risk management gets worse. This may lead to you doing something you’ll regret, such as:
- Tripping over a running machine.
- Disturbing a fitness class.
- Jumping in a pool fully clothed!
Even with a drop of alcohol, these psychological consequences impact your brain. Check out the research between alcohol and exercise.
What Scientists Have Found About Drinking And Exercising
Scientists have found a small volume of alcohol can benefit the body during exercise.
This is because alcohol increases blood flow, which enhances the mind-muscle connection. It gets your heart pumping blood around your body faster. As a result, blood can flush toxins out of the muscles and supply oxygenated red blood cells through the arteries to enable respiration.
In addition, the feel-good hormones released from exercise and alcohol make it a pleasant experience for individuals who like both, research says. However, when athletes need to self-motivate, statistics highlighted that the smell of alcohol alone weakens willpower.
While scientists have said this, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits significantly, and they don’t recommend exercising while intoxicated either due to the impact it has on your brain and other parts of your body.
The Physical Dangers Of Exercising While Drunk
As well as the psychological implications, the disadvantages of exercising while drunk stretch to physical damage on your body. They include:
We naturally sweat during exercise to cool our bodies down. When sober, the water loss is healthy and allows our muscles to function effectively. However, when drunk, the volume is much higher and can cause headaches, dizziness, or fainting.
This is because alcohol is a diuretic. It removes fluids from your blood through your renal system far quicker than other liquids. This extracts water stores without absorbing all its nutrients, so your body is dehydrated.
The water loss from sweating, coupled with the presence of a diuretic, makes individuals dehydrated when exercising drunk.
Alcohol worsens our immune system – it impairs the function of immune cells and weakens our air pathways. This constrains our body’s ability to fight against germs and bacteria in the area we exercise. For example:
- Air is full of germs through sneezes, coughs, and heavy breathing. This is worse in indoor gyms as the bacteria remains air born because it has nowhere to escape.
- Changing room showers have traces of urine.
- Dumbbells, benches, or bars are full of bacteria from sweat.
Gyms are very unhygienic and most owners don’t clean them often. So, going drunk puts you at a high risk of getting ill because your white blood cells struggle to fight against the numerous bacteria and germs.
Our pain receptors are less responsive when drunk because alcohol numbs our sensory neurons. During exercise, this causes us to push our bodies past their limit because we don’t feel the build of lactic acid or muscle tension.
One scenario is repeating too many reps of an exercise and not noticing your exhaustion. At this point, there have negative returns on our muscles, which leads to bruising, pulling, or ripping.
Another possibility is lifting a weight above your relative strength. As alcohol increases confidence and numbs pain receptors, individuals try to attempt their personal bests drunk! If you use poor form and compromise other muscles, you risk pulling or breaking muscles, tendons, or even bones without noticing. Worse, you won’t feel the damage until you’re sober.
How Different Training Methods Are Affected By Drunk Exercise
For many, the type of alcohol consumed affects the ‘type of drunk’ they become. Consequently, exercising under the influence of different kinds of alcohol can yield distinct outcomes on exercise performance. The variations in physical, psychological, and hormonal effects will differ, leading to a diverse feel during intoxicated exercise for each type of alcohol.
Some examples include:
You Should Never Mix Beer With Cardiovascular Training
The beer is full of yeast, which makes you feel bloated. So, performing long-distance cardio training (such as rowing, running, or cycling ) disturbs the stomach and makes you feel unbearably full. At this point, your body wants to get rid of the beer, so you’re likely to start projectile vomiting.
Don’t Try Gymnastics While Intoxicated With Spirits
Gymnasts constantly spin around their axis to execute tricks. As a result, they must condition themselves not to feel dizzy or off-balance. While this is easily achieved sober, spirits disturb our natural equilibrium (from their high alcohol concentration), so we experience sustained dizzy spells even when stationary.
Therefore, it’s near impossible to execute gymnastics while drinking spirits without being a hazard to you or the people you’re around. The dizziness gained from gymnastics, coupled with the effects of spirits, prevents you from controlling your bodyweight – resulting in constant falling and vomiting.
Don’t Lift Weights After Drinking Cocktails
The sugar content in cocktails creates glucose spikes, which are intensified by alcohol. If you lift weights on the comedown, you risk sleeping with the weights on you. This is because the side-effect from the cocktail, combined with your energy burning from the workout, results in a complete state of exhaustion.
In extreme circumstances, drunk athletes have passed out with weights on top of them.
How Long Should You Train After Being Drunk
It ranges on various factors such as the quantity of alcohol consumed if your stomach is lined with food and the amount of rest you’ve had. Everyone isn’t the same; however, a general rule is to wait 24 hours to begin exercise after alcohol consumption.
However, what if you can’t wait that long? While we don’t advise it, there are some tips to be as safe as possible, which include:
- Drink Water Before, During, And After a Workout
To help your body flush out toxins and stay hydrated, repeatedly sip water. This prevents you getting dizzy and breaks alcohol down into waste. Also, avoid dairy products (such as protein milkshakes) because they don’t react well with alcohol and can make you vomit. - Minimize Your Movement During Exercise
The type of exercise you perform also influences your reaction to alcohol. Use slow movements to give your body the best chance of not getting injured. Examples include walking, stretching, or lightweight lifting. However, high-demand workouts such as calisthenics, boxing, or swimming can disorientate you and make you feel worse. - Attend The Spa
Saunas and steam rooms make you sweat – removing the alcohol from your body. This helps to speed the breakdown of alcohol but also lightens any hangover symptoms. We recommend using these facilities instead of exercising. However, if you want to work out, go to the sauna and steam room afterward. - Eat After Exercise
Consuming an abundance of carbohydrates isn’t the most protein-rich source of food; however, after alcohol, it helps to adsorb its contents. We recommend having toast, rice, or potato after drunk exercise because it slows the rate alcohol is processed.
Our Opinion On Exercising While Drunk
In our opinion, exercising while drunk is a complete no-go. As you aren’t in control of your body, you are putting everyone, including yourself, at risk, especially in a weighted section with sharp edges, heavy machinery, and equipment to trip over.
However, we feel passionate about the fact not everyone is the same; a single unit of alcohol will influence everyone differently. The science doesn’t consider this and assumes it’s the same for all.
Even if you have drunk before, know your limits, and don’t notice an impact from the alcohol, we don’t recommend exercising. We know it is inconvenient, but you’ll thank yourself later on in life.
The bottom line? Don’t work out after consuming alcohol.
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