Smoking and Powerlifting

[narcolepticpug]

OK i Smoke about a pack a day or so... i could see this effecting any cardio, but i dont do any kind of cardio. and iv read it effects building mass, but i dont care about mass.. but can it effect my strength gains atall

[ArchDukeOfTops]

believe it or not I've seen a lot of guys smoking at meets.

Once you get to a certain point, it seems overall health and wellness doesn't seem to matter anymore. Sad but true.

Seem like everytime I see someone who has a noteworthy physique, they are smoking and drinking in a bar.

Smoking definately ain't gonna help ya, and I suggest quitting. They have a fairly new drug out that a lot of people are having success with. That being said, I think you can smoke and still get strong as hell.

[GDA]

i can think of a lot of other reasons to quit, but overall strength development just isnt one of them.

[ukstrongman]

Nicotine is a stimulant. It raises your metabolism, and may make it harder for you to bulk. So if you are bulking, i'd suggest quitting. Of course there are may reasons that everyone knows about why you 'should' quit, but this is the only thing i can think of strength related.

Substituting a cigarette with some form of caffeine may help with the withdrawal simptoms as both caffeine and nicotine are alkaloids and therefore have a similar effect on the human body. Caffeine has a weaker effect however, and is less addicitive.

[narcolepticpug]

believe it or not I've seen a lot of guys smoking at meets.

Once you get to a certain point, it seems overall health and wellness doesn't seem to matter anymore. Sad but true.

Seem like everytime I see someone who has a noteworthy physique, they are smoking and drinking in a bar.

Smoking definately ain't gonna help ya, and I suggest quitting. They have a fairly new drug out that a lot of people are having success with. That being said, I think you can smoke and still get strong as hell.

my stance on it is. if it doesnt effect what you love to do... have your guilty plessures. like with me, i dont drink caffine, i rarly drink alcohol, i dont eat fast food, i dont miss any workout days. and thats pretty damn good, so if smoking wont effect my gains, no reason to quit. ill quit when i have kids or somthing. and i donno why. but i cig betwen exersices is a moral booster for me

[Titania]

O/T but do you have Narcolepsy?

[James456]

Just take into account that its easisest to get stronger while getting bigger

[narcolepticpug]

O/T but do you have Narcolepsy?

no.. but i got the nickname pug, when i was i kid(i donno why) probly cuz i was short chuby and hyper. and i allways thought it would be funny to have a little hyper dog with narcolepsy....

i could see having narcolepsy and lifting as kinda dangerous.

[Titania]

no.. but i got the nickname pug, when i was i kid(i donno why) probly cuz i was short chuby and hyper. and i allways thought it would be funny to have a little hyper dog with narcolepsy....

i could see having narcolepsy and lifting as kinda dangerous.

LOL @ the hyper narcoleptic dog
The reason I asked is because I do have narcolepsy but fortunately, it has never been a problem when I am training!!
People often think of epilepsy when I tell them I have narcolepsy but the two are totally unrelated. I just fall asleep. That's all

[narcolepticpug]

LOL @ the hyper narcoleptic dog
The reason I asked is because I do have narcolepsy but fortunately, it has never been a problem when I am training!!
People often think of epilepsy when I tell them I have narcolepsy but the two are totally unrelated. I just fall asleep. That's all

i used to have this friend named mandy, she was the sweetest girl you could ever meet, and she had narcolepsy. she was so funny cuz she would be like for instance one time were were driving somewere and having a conversation, she started to nod off, and slid down the seat to the floor(poor girl) i had to pull over and wake her up. befor i met her i thought that if you had narcolepsy you could just nod off instantly, but it takes a little bit, and she only would do it if she wasnt physicly active for a little while.

[narcolepticpug]

by the way, Titania. your bb acomplishments are amazing and i love your goals. more power to you.

[Titania]

Cheers NP

Sleep attacks can be instan........zzzzzz!!

Usually they creep up though.

[narcolepticpug]

maybe she didnt have as bad of a case. that would freak me out though

[GDA]

my stance on it is. if it doesnt effect what you love to do... have your guilty plessures. like with me, i dont drink caffine, i rarly drink alcohol, i dont eat fast food, i dont miss any workout days. and thats pretty damn good, so if smoking wont effect my gains, no reason to quit. ill quit when i have kids or somthing. and i donno why. but i cig betwen exersices is a moral booster for me

but honestly dude .. youd have to do all of those other things with a good bit of frequency to reek the same havok on yourself that smoking regularly will. then again i've had cancer and i absolutely loved smoking so im pretty against it for a variety of reasons. former smokers are the worst breed of nonsmokers.

[Kiknskreem]

If I didn't smoke I couldn't enjoy powerlifting because I wouldn't enjoy life. (no tobacco) (yes, pain in the butt month before a tested meet)

[jawter]

former smokers are the worst breed of nonsmokers.

So True.




As a "Former" smoker that just quit in Febuary of this year after a two pack a day habit for twenty years, I can tell you that quiting now is easier than later. Use the pactch, gum, sex or what ever it takes but quit.

For various reasons I found it hard to quit until my doctor prescribed Chantix. This stuff did the trick and I put down the ciggarettes for good in less than three weeks.


I'm done with my soapbox preaching and wish you the best.

Richard

[midian]

I actually heard once that something in cigarettes is good for muscle recovery. Checked it on pubmed and it apparently checked out (don't think it'll do anything, cigarettes contain the substance but in such low dosage that you would sooner die from niquotine poisoning than actually notice anything). But either way quitting is better is the general consensus.

I smoke somewhere between 25-30 a day, tried quitting nearly unleashed world war three while at it But if you can quit it's just better overall, just quitting for powerlifting seems like a thin motivation at best, atleast it would be for me.

If you try and quit i wish you the best of luck and some hints that helped me a lot when i had quit. Avoid smokers but especially anti-smokers, when you are quitting you do not want to hear how easy it is from people who never smoked. Find out what works best for you, patches, gum, mints (mints work best for me). Get **** loads of snacks in your house. Brush your teeth after every meal if you can, definably in the morning if you're like me and the first thing you do when you wake up is smoke. Get stuff in your house that you can tear apart, punch, kick. Keep busy, getting bored is your biggest enemy. Don't tell everyone that you quit or people won't stop asking you how it is going and at some point you don't even want to hear the work smoke or cigarette. Do tell the people closest around you and tell them what they can expect from you, it won't even be harmful to make rules (like: if i'm pissed please try to be okay with it cuss you won't be helping me if you get pissed too). Go running or even sprint, if you feel like you're gonna die it's a mission succes, you don't feel like smoking when you feel like your lungs are going to explode.

That's about it, good luck with either way you go.

[mochi]

i don't know the science of it, but after i quit i felt about 10x better in all aspects of life (serious)

[Yorkshire Lad]

i don't know the science of it, but after i quit i felt about 10x better in all aspects of life (serious)

The science is quite simple, cigarettes are full of many, many toxins, not just the ones you know about.

[mochi]

The science is quite simple, cigarettes are full of many, many toxins, not just the ones you know about.

oh i meant the science of strength and its relation to smoking. but i agree with what you said

[GDA]

... well they also control you. being controlled isn't strong.

[m.montoya]

I've smoked for almost 20 years and just recently have gotten down to 1 or 2 a day-by using smokeless tobacco.Really not much better as I'm still addicted to nicotine,just using it in another form.I always had a thing about not smoking until after I trained and ate.The only thing I notice now is my lungs are a lot better off but now I worry about consequences from dipping.Plain and simple just never start and quit if you can.

[BigLarge]

I smoked for a while and noticed that it was f-cking up my workouts.... so I tried quitting but was already addicted.

This is why I now dip Kodiak Wintergreen instead.

[m.montoya]

I smoked for a while and noticed that it was f-cking up my workouts.... so I tried quitting but was already addicted.

This is why I now dip Kodiak Wintergreen instead.

Kodiak-good stuff! That's what Jim Wendler dips.

[theduffman]

OK i Smoke about a pack a day or so... i could see this effecting any cardio, but i dont do any kind of cardio. and iv read it effects building mass, but i dont care about mass.. but can it effect my strength gains atall

About the only way I could see it effecting you is killing your appetite... and it might make it harder for you to do more than five reps but if you're doing strength training you're rarely going to go above five anyway