Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Alcohol and Muscle Building, Don't Mix Them Please

By Ricardo d Argence

There are people who wonder if alcohol affects muscle building. The studies and research shows that if you drink alcohol, your workout will not be as effective, as well as that you will deplete your body of important vitamins.

A key ingredient in you diet when you exercise if protein, you should not interfere with this. Unfortunately, alcohol impairs protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is the process where amino acids are joined together to create complete proteins, consumption of alcohol has been shown to slow this process by 20%.

There are another factors that affect your muscle gains like the level of testosterone in the body.Have you noticed that women do not have the same amount of muscle as men? The women have 15-20 times less testosterone than men do since this is because of low levels of tetosterone. What does that have to do with alcohol? In the body alcohol decreases the amount of testosterone and increases levels of estrogen.

Consuming alcohol causes the kidneys to use large amounts of water in able to process the toxin. Yes, the body recognizes alcohol as a toxin. Do not let this happen you will quickly become dehydrated.

Contracted muscles are a result of stimuli produced by nerves, in addition nerves control muscles through the electrolyte minerals dissolved in water. More water will lubricate the joints and protect them from injury during a workout.

Drinking alcohol robs your body of key vitamins. Alcohol depletes Vitamins B, C and A; in addition to calcium and phosphorous. If you consider the most important vitamins to develop healthy muscles are B and C, that is just one more reason that drinking alcohol while building muscle is such a big deal.

When you build muscle, you are looking to deplete stores of fat and increase muscle mass. Alcohol works against this effort. Alcohol contains what nutritionist call empty calorie, which is calories with no nutritional benefit. It also has twice as many calories as carbohydrates and protein.

While we are on this subject, it should be noted that calories consumed while drinking are the first ones to be burned. Alcohol calories are burned first, then fat stores are a energy backup. You will find that there are things that don't work and do work when exercising. You need to know which exercises will help you meet your goals and what will work against you.

Alcohol affects on bodybuilding have been examined, but you also have to consider how alcohol affects the rest of the body. If you are trying to gain muscle mass, and are considering using prducts to help you, you need to be aware of the dangers of such products. Before you buy any product you need to research the pros AND the cons of that product. If you suffer from any of these, it will prove difficult to build muscle. Is it really worth the cost? - 15255

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