Does alcohol affect strength and reaction time?
LB: One of the things about alcohol is [it] delays the body’s reaction time. So imagine this: if you’re lifting weights, and you aren’t really paying attention to what you’re doing, you can get seriously hurt. It also impairs judgment, [so you think] “Oh I can lift more than I think I can,” and then all of a sudden you have a torn rotator cuff. STACK: Explain how alcohol impacts glycogen synthesis. LB: When we exercise, our body is using stored carbohydrate to fuel us through our exercise, both in the muscle [and] from the liver. If somebody consumes alcohol, alcohol is basically the obstacle or the hurdle, so it takes that much longer for the liver to synthesize the glycogen, so it delays recovery. That means for that subsequent exercise bout, [you will] feel a lot more fatigued. STACK: How does alcohol excrete vitamins from the body? LB: Because it is a diuretic, it is dehydrating to the body. You don’t just lose fluid, but you lose other things along with what is in the composition
