To Drinkers: It’s OK to drink alcohol the night you workout, here’s the REAL Science!

[ManwittaPlan]

Go out and live your life and get laid.

The girls who were way into fitness were also the most lame f****.

Alcohol does help tremendously if you have no game.

[Strawng]

The girls who were way into fitness were also the most lame f****.

Alcohol does help tremendously if you have no game.

Tbh, I’ve had the same “experiences” with “fitness” girls LMAO

I think the biggest problem with cutting out alcohol is it can limit your social life. Also, in moderation, it’s a good way to “grease the tires” (srsly no pun intended) to get people talking & open up more (again srsly no pun intended).

I have to be careful with alcohol because my everyone in my family is an alcoholic, & I’ve had my own issues with it in the past. I wasn’t as bad as someone like snails, but I got to a dark place. I actually just visited home & need to get back on track with more sober living, because I’m taking it too far.

As far as gains go, I think my biggest limiting factor with alcohol is the damn hangover. For some reason, I’ve been getting pretty brutal hangovers after even just 3-4 drinks since I turned 25. Lifting ain’t gonna happen after a night out.

I also tend to get in a pretty pissy mood when I’m hungover. I mean, I love alcohol, but it sure as Hell don’t love me back

[EliKoehn]

Tbh, I’ve had the same “experiences” with “fitness” girls LMAO

I think the biggest problem with cutting out alcohol is it can limit your social life, & in moderation, it’s a good way to “grease the tires” (srsly no pun intended) to get people talking & open up more (again srsly no pun intended).

I have to be careful with alcohol because my entire family are alcoholics, & I’ve had issues with it in the past. I actually just visited home & need to get back on track with more sober living, because I’m taking it too far.

As far as gains go, I think my biggest limiting factor with alcohol is the damn hangover. For some reason, I’ve been getting pretty brutal hangovers after even just 3-4 drinks since I turned 25. Lifting ain’t gonna happen after night out. I also tend to get in a pretty pissy mood when I’m hungover. I mean, I love alcohol but it sure as Hell don’t love me back

Curious about these air quotes lol. Is it more on the side of fake fitness girls or overrated experiences?

[Strawng]

Curious about these air quotes lol. Is it more on the side of fake fitness girls or overrated experiences?

Moreso women who make “fitness” their whole personalities (Instagram, Crossfit, meal prep, etc.) & live and die by the gym

IME, they generally tend to be pretty lousy at other “physical activities”, if you nomsayin’

To be fair, I’ve also heard the same thing about bbers & gym bros from girls Ik.

[Realclout]

If you drink after working out you should just quit because you AIN'T gonna make it ESPECIALLY if you drink the day after ALCOHOL is awful.

[EliKoehn]

Moreso women who make “fitness” their whole personalities (Instagram, Crossfit, meal prep, etc.) & live and die by the gym

IME, they generally tend to be pretty lousy at other “physical activities”, if you nomsayin’

To be fair, I’ve also heard the same thing about bbers & gym bros from girls Ik.

Yeah, and IME they're pretty susceptible to trends and fads instead of faithful practitioners of the ol' tried and true.

I haven't even looked at Instagram in over half a year, and haven't used it (or any mainline social media) in almost two... don't regret it. I imagine it's only gotten worse in the meantime. I possess the same negative froth of human emotion and behavior that social media makes worse, and won't pretend like I don't, but that doesn't mean that social media still doesn't make it worse. Apparently a lot of the psychology literature has come out pointing to it as a well-documented fact. Makes me wonder if there will be some kind of exodus soon in the years to come, or if it'll stay relatively the same.

[GayCumLord]

been drinking a cider past 3 days, 0 str loss. Might make this a regular thing (SRS)

[Strawng]

Yeah, and IME they're pretty susceptible to trends and fads instead of faithful practitioners of the ol' tried and true.

I haven't even looked at Instagram in over half a year, and haven't used it (or any mainline social media) in almost two... don't regret it. I imagine it's only gotten worse in the meantime. I possess the same negative froth of human emotion and behavior that social media makes worse, and won't pretend like I don't, but that doesn't mean that social media still doesn't make it worse. Apparently a lot of the psychology literature has come out pointing to it as a well-documented fact. Makes me wonder if there will be some kind of exodus soon in the years to come, or if it'll stay relatively the same.

I’m the same & Good Lord I pray that an exodus happens & soon!!!

[ManwittaPlan]

I also tend to get in a pretty pissy mood when I’m hungover. I mean, I love alcohol, but it sure as Hell don’t love me back

Yes…for me it seems to be more trouble than it’s worth BUT it can be your best friend when you’re having fun !

[ManwittaPlan]

Moreso women who make “fitness” their whole personalities (Instagram, Crossfit, meal prep, etc.) & live and die by the gym

IME, they generally tend to be pretty lousy at other “physical activities”, if you nomsayin’

To be fair, I’ve also heard the same thing about bbers & gym bros from girls Ik.

Yeah everything is then a chore or work it’s no longer fun…and it reflects in other aspects of their lives they just can’t see it.

[GayCumLord]

If you drink after working out you should just quit because you AIN'T gonna make it ESPECIALLY if you drink the day after ALCOHOL is awful.

how u gonna neg me when you dont even lift boyo (SRS)

[XinXom]

No, not everyone already knows this. There is a lot of misinformation out there claiming that drinking after a workout will absolutely destroy your gains. That you would undo all of the hard work you put in at the gym if you have a few too many. I would hope that everyone has enough common sense to know that binge drinking can lead to major health issues, and of course it’s not “ideal”. This post isn’t about that, and of course I knew it’d be controversial. I am simply stating that there is not enough research done to show that alcohol alone “does” affect your muscle building ability after a workout. Something that most articles on the subject seem to vehemently oppose based on unsubstantiated claims and one junk science experiment. I do not “want” to believe this is true, I could care less. If real science can prove that alcohol directly and negatively affects protein synthesis, then fine with me. But there is nothing to show that, and I’m just tired of all the biased and unsubstantiated claims in the articles surrounding this subject.

First off There is good research and yes drinking does turn off MPS however its not significant because missing a single activation is not a big deal hell if you didn't plan to eat protein it does nothing. The claims you are making about it not turning off MPS are false. The claim that is has a negligible impact is true. Like they have tested and seen when you are processing alcohol you don't build muscle but its not hard to understand missing one activation doesn't matter so much. Missing a workout due to hangover would obviously have a more profound impact. While I don't doubt there is a lot of misinformation you are in fact contributing to it if your claim is "it does nothing". The truth is drinking after a workout is about the same as not eating at all in that you miss a chance to trigger MPS but you will rebuild and recover before your next lift so while its not optimal its not that important. For those who do want to min max this distinction is important as ostensibly you could drink when you would be otherwise fasting already with no real downside. TLDR drink a shake after gym wait 3-4 hours then drink as opposed to chugging a shake then doing shots right after as you just added extra calories for no reason. As someone who has no issue getting stronger and all the issues getting smaller this doesn't matter so much to me personally but if your goal is to spread good information best to spread good information. I find it strange or more accurately bias you have an issue with sample size then link something you have no issue with that has as similar tiny sample size and doesn't even measure MPS at all then claim it has no impact when repeated study's show it turns it off. The misconception is that missing one activation is going to kill your gains not that it doesn't have an effect.

[fatacad]

First off There is good research and yes drinking does turn off MPS however its not significant because missing a single activation is not a big deal hell if you didn't plan to eat protein it does nothing. The claims you are making about it not turning off MPS are false. The claim that is has a negligible impact is true. Like they have tested and seen when you are processing alcohol you don't build muscle but its not hard to understand missing one activation doesn't matter so much. Missing a workout due to hangover would obviously have a more profound impact. While I don't doubt there is a lot of misinformation you are in fact contributing to it if your claim is "it does nothing". The truth is drinking after a workout is about the same as not eating at all in that you miss a chance to trigger MPS but you will rebuild and recover before your next lift so while its not optimal its not that important. For those who do want to min max this distinction is important as ostensibly you could drink when you would be otherwise fasting already with no real downside. TLDR drink a shake after gym wait 3-4 hours then drink as opposed to chugging a shake then doing shots right after as you just added extra calories for no reason. As someone who has no issue getting stronger and all the issues getting smaller this doesn't matter so much to me personally but if your goal is to spread good information best to spread good information. I find it strange or more accurately bias you have an issue with sample size then link something you have no issue with that has as similar tiny sample size and doesn't even measure MPS at all then claim it has no impact when repeated study's show it turns it off. The misconception is that missing one activation is going to kill your gains not that it doesn't have an effect.

I agree almost 100% of what you said, maybe 62% but you are missing the main points of my post. You are saying that alcohol DOES in fact inhibit MPS, ok so show me the proof? I hope you are not referencing the study with 7 athletes
who only showed 23% decrease in MPS after consuming a whey protein shake and after performing brand new lifts… because I went over this in my original post. Show me your proof? Or is it just something you feel? You do have a lot of good an knowledgeable advice on the issue but like I said before, my post isn’t an opinion piece it’s a science piece. Alcohol may be unhealthy but show me the science that it affects your gains in any way besides feeling too ****ty to work out the next day.

[XinXom]

I agree almost 100% of what you said, maybe 62% but you are missing the main points of my post. You are saying that alcohol DOES in fact inhibit MPS, ok so show me the proof? I hope you are not referencing the study with 7 athletes
who only showed 23% decrease in MPS after consuming a whey protein shake and after performing brand new lifts… because I went over this in my original post. Show me your proof? Or is it just something you feel? You do have a lot of good an knowledgeable advice on the issue but like I said before, my post isn’t an opinion piece it’s a science piece. Alcohol may be unhealthy but show me the science that it affects your gains in any way besides feeling too ****ty to work out the next day.

So you read the study where EVERY single person i it had blunted MPS from drinking and your conclusion is the sample size is bad. TBH I don't feel the need to scour google for you I'm perfectly fine with you believing whatever you want. If however you want to tell the masses go ahead and drink it has no effect on your gains the burden of proof is in fact on you to prove that it has no negative impact not the other way around. Its not personally im0portant to me as things like calories and not wanting to workout the next day are far more relevant and important to me. If you are going to make a claim that drinking has no impact on gains then please show me a study where they measure MPS while someone is drunk and it doesn't go down. Ill wait

[Tommy W.]

Whether it compromises gains is unprovable. The "I drink and make gains" statement is irrelevant. Maybe that person would have made better gains with no drinking. That person will never be in the exact position again to be able to make a direct comparison however I still hold to the saying "the more you care about fitness\training the less you'll drink.".

[desslok]

So you read the study where EVERY single person i it had blunted MPS from drinking and your conclusion is the sample size is bad. TBH I don't feel the need to scour google for you I'm perfectly fine with you believing whatever you want. If however you want to tell the masses go ahead and drink it has no effect on your gains the burden of proof is in fact on you to prove that it has no negative impact not the other way around. Its not personally im0portant to me as things like calories and not wanting to workout the next day are far more relevant and important to me. If you are going to make a claim that drinking has no impact on gains then please show me a study where they measure MPS while someone is drunk and it doesn't go down. Ill wait

Yeah he is kind of arguing the wrong point. Does it blunt MPS? Sure. But what is the real world implication of that? Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what real world effect of “maximizing MPS” has. Do I reach my genetic potential a week sooner if I “maximize MPS”? 2 weeks? 2 days?

[EliKoehn]

Yeah he is kind of arguing the wrong point. Does it blunt MPS? Sure. But what is the real world implication of that? Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what real world effect of “maximizing MPS” has. Do I reach my genetic potential a week sooner if I “maximize MPS”? 2 weeks? 2 days?

Well, doesn't it directly have to do with the amount of hypertrophy which can occur, per the amount of tissue being developed?

[AdamWW]

Well, doesn't it directly have to do with the amount of hypertrophy which can occur, per the amount of tissue being developed?

It's correlated, connected, etc, but it doesn't necessarily equate to more growth.

AFAIK, maximizing MPS basically just gives you the best opportunity... it 'loads the gun' in a sense.

However, if you maximize MPS measurement by diet and also training to their peak without actually progressing (which you CAN do), it doesn't mean you'll grow.

For example, you might show the same proxy measurements for MPS doing a sub-optimal training session as you would on a closer-to-optimal one, but if the former doesn't actually increase in terms of overload over time, nothing will happen....


Another example is a scenario where you might maximize MPS, but also overload muscle-protein-breakdown... if the net balance is negative (MPS < MPB), you don't grow new tissue.

[desslok]

Well, doesn't it directly have to do with the amount of hypertrophy which can occur, per the amount of tissue being developed?

Right, but no one can say what “maximizing MPS” does in relation to “not worrying about MPS”, or “blunting MPS”. For example, lets say that you have been training a couple of years already and you can only gain .25 pounds of muscle per week. If you “Maximize MPS”, do you really really hit that .25 genetic max harder than the .25 pounds if you don’t really care about maximizing MPS? And if you blunt it for a couple hours, does that take it down to .249 pounds? .24? What if I am near my genetic potential?

[desslok]

Well, doesn't it directly have to do with the amount of hypertrophy which can occur, per the amount of tissue being developed?

Here is another way of thinking about it. Lets say you need to drive 300 miles. Your car conveniently gets 30MPG. The gas tank holds 22 gallons of gas. If you put 10 gallons of gas in the tank, you will get to your destination. If you “Maximize” the gas tank with 22 gallons, do you get to the 300 miles faster? Better? More “optimally”?

[Tommy W.]

Here is another way of thinking about it. Lets say you need to drive 300 miles. Your car conveniently gets 30MPG. The gas tank holds 22 gallons of gas. If you put 10 gallons of gas in the tank, you will get to your destination. If you “Maximize” the gas tank with 22 gallons, do you get to the 300 miles faster? Better? More “optimally”?

That's a funny analogy! Whether it's valid in this context I'm not sure but funny nevertheless

[fatacad]

Yeah he is kind of arguing the wrong point. Does it blunt MPS? Sure. But what is the real world implication of that? Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what real world effect of “maximizing MPS” has. Do I reach my genetic potential a week sooner if I “maximize MPS”? 2 weeks? 2 days?

Exactly!

[fatacad]

If you are going to make a claim that drinking has no impact on gains then please show me a study where they measure MPS while someone is drunk and it doesn't go down. Ill wait

https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/A...Affect.16.aspx - Posted as a link in my original post.

Here are excerpts for the lazy people:

"The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of alcohol consumed after heavy eccentric resistance exercise on measures of muscle power. After familiarization and an initial eccentric exercise bout to control for the “repeated-bout effect,” 10 recreationally resistance-trained men completed 2 identical heavy eccentric squat bouts (4 sets of 10 repetitions at 110% of concentric 1-repetition maximum) 1 week apart. Each exercise bout was followed by ingestion of a beverage containing either alcohol (1.09 g ethanol·kg−1 fat-free body mass) or no alcohol (placebo; volume of alcohol replaced with water). Vertical jump (VJ) peak power, VJ peak force, VJ jump height, change-of-direction ability (shuttle run), sprint acceleration (sprint test), and muscle soreness were measured before (PRE), 24 hours after (24H), and 48 hours after (48H) each eccentric exercise bout."

"Consuming alcohol after the exercise bout did not affect any of the performance outcome measures. When consumed after a non-novel heavy eccentric resistance exercise bout, alcohol did not affect soreness or recovery of muscular power."

"Although short-term anaerobic performance does not seem compromised as a result of acute postexercise alcohol ingestion, practitioners and athletes should be aware of potential long-term effects of such alcohol use."

So there's your study. Yes a whole 10 people which is what I hate about these. But 10 sure beats the 7 person study saying the opposite. It doesn't mention MPS because it's a fake term. It doesn't really exist. It's an idea invented by bodybuilders who constantly look for the most optimal way to build every ounce of muscle fiber. Your muscles will not grow at a faster rate if you do this magic thing or eat this magic protein.

[fatacad]

show me a study where they measure MPS while someone is drunk and it doesn't go down

If when you say "it doesn't go down' you mean puking it up... then unfortunately there are not many studies on that because if you puke up all of your food, you'll die. And bodybuilding probably isn't for you.

[XinXom]

"So there's your study. Yes a whole 10 people which is what I hate about these. But 10 sure beats the 7 person study saying the opposite. It doesn't mention MPS because it's a fake term. It doesn't really exist. It's an idea invented by bodybuilders who constantly look for the most optimal way to build every ounce of muscle fiber. Your muscles will not grow at a faster rate if you do this magic thing or eat this magic protein"

This is where you lose me. I get that you want this to be true but the research doesn't support this idea. Not only that but your study shows exactly what I would expect it to given my current knowledge of MPS so it doesn't prove anything at all to me. Personally I find it irrelevant as the other issues with drinking are far more severe than blunting a MPS activation which I already said is probably not important. However if you want to make a blanket statement MPS is fake and that alcohol has no impact your going to get people who take it as truth and then slam a bottle of scotch and a protein shake for their entire days calories and let me tell you based on the science we do have that's not so good even if they could magically not miss workouts or eat more when drunk and not track it etc. If a 3-4th activation are shown to have little effect then blunting one at the end of a day one day a week should result in no real change. You however acting like MPS is made up and that it has no impact is in no way support by any literature or science just your own bias. I'm not too surprised as you thinking 10 is much more statically significant than 7 makes me think you have never taken a college stats class or even know why that would be important. If your going to claim MPS is made up and doesn't matter your more than welcome to swap to omad and get drunk with your meal and let me know how it goes for you.

[EiFit91]

I’m the same & Good Lord I pray that an exodus happens & soon!!!

May the lord send fiery rain to destroy those filthy social media heathens!!

Concerning fitness girls: Sex doesn’t really affect their TDEE (?)

[paulinkansas]

Concerning fitness girls: Sex doesn’t really affect their TDEE (?)

We need to conduct an experiment on this ^^^ theory. I'll volunteer.

[EiFit91]

We need to conduct an experiment on this ^^^ theory. I'll volunteer.

Maybe they downregulate by masturbating less later?

And then others masturbate more after sex - the sexual hyperresponders?

[Strawng]

Concerning fitness girls: Sex doesn’t really affect their TDEE (?)

Maybe they downregulate by masturbating less later?

And then others masturbate more after sex - the sexual hyperresponders?

Nope. IME, they downregulate by just laying there & letting you do all the work.

[EliKoehn]

One thing I'm relatively interested in, is putting this question in a historical context. Alcohol was a ubiquitous part of the pre-modern world in many societies, and served a useful function as a sanitizing agent, often making hydration itself feasible in the first place, as sources of water were not always readily potable.

This same scenario coincided with a world pretty much exclusively powered by muscle: draught animals and human labor (and I guess some wind/water-powered machinery occasionally, but that was the exception). So obviously, society's survival entailed and required a high level of activity from its able-bodied members.

What did this mean for the physiques of people who worked arduously every day and also potentially drank copiously, whether out of necessity or cultural norm?

Obesity hasn't been a problem (or even a stigma, for that matter) until well into modern times, and life expectancy figures tend to omit infant mortality and death from accidents, which both reduce the numbers considerably, making the long-term health implications of this scenario harder to discern.