Last weekend was my bachelor party. Needless to say, my best man chose the king of all locations for the event, Las Vegas. Currently, I am following the Juggernaut 2.0 program by Chad Wesley Smith of Juggernaut Training Systems. I just started the last mesocycle of the program, "accumulation" in the 3s wave. On the flight to Vegas I was thinking about the effect of the copious amounts of alcohol on my training. Was I about the throw away the last 4 months (9 day workout week) of training? With my competition in early April, was I jeopardizing my chance at reaching my goals? Let's take a look at the effects of alcohol on training, recovery, and life.
We know that alcohol take priority in the body. When you drink alcohol, the liver must process it and excrete it from the body to resume its regular function. Alcohol can act as a cellular messenger, therefore interrupting the muscle building process. Important hormones used in muscle protein synthesis and other key physiologic processes are also effected by alcohol consumption. Testosterone, estrogen, HGH (yes it occurs naturally in the human body), cortisol, insulin, and IGF-1 are all affected by drinking.
It is not rocket science to figure out if you have too many drinks that your workout the next day or two days following that your performance would be suboptimal. Now for the longer term effects: alcohol and hangovers produce a myriad of unwanted symptoms all of which interfere with your ability to recover and prepare for the next workout. With excessive amounts of drinks, more acetaldehyde builds up in the body. Acetaldehyde is the first byproduct of alcohol metabolism and is thought to be 10-30x more toxic than alcohol itself. It has been shown to cause symptoms of sweating, nausea, and vomiting. Alcohol also messes with your immune system by provoking a cytokine response which leads to muscle aches, fatigue, headaches, and cognitive effects such as memory loss. Needless to say with all of that going on, how could you expect your body to prepare itself for the next onslaught you have programmed?
How it affected me personally: Vegas got the best of me as one would expect at your bachelor party, so after about 3am on Saturday (Thurs-Sun trip) I only had about 3-4 drinks the rest of the weekend due to the hangover. I was taking the red-eye back to Boston on Sunday night and had my deadlift workout scheduled for 4pm on Monday. Noon on Monday rolls around, and I still feel off so I push the workout back one day. The next morning my alarm goes off, I get up and try to eat my preworkout meal (sweet potato, banana, protein shake), and I'm still feeling uneasy and overall "foggy." I ultimately had to push the workout to Wednesday morning and shift my workout schedule for the next two weeks to make up the two days lost. Was it worth it? The bachelor party was amazing, and I'd do it again. In terms of how it affected my progress and hard work over the past 4 months, we'll find out on April 2nd where I'm shooting for 600/400/705 at 196 BW.
References
Stromberg, J. (2013). Your complete guide to the science of hangovers.
Swift, R., & Davidson, D. (1998). Alcohol hangover. Alcohol Health and Research World, 22(1), 54-60.