Does Alcohol Affect Muscle Growth? – So, it’s relatively well established that alcohol can potentially lead to weight gain or fat storage, but does alcohol affect muscle growth? How does drinking alcoholic beverages impact muscle gains? We all want our hard work in the gym to pay off as much as possible, which is why you might want to reconsider throwing back a few beers after pushing through your leg day workout.
Research has demonstrated that consuming alcohol can impede your muscle gains and affect muscle growth. For example, evidence suggests that alcohol impedes muscle protein synthesis—technically called myofibrillar protein synthesis. Muscle protein synthesis is the physiological process by which protein is synthesized in the body to repair and rebuild muscles.
Muscle protein synthesis can be thought of as the opposite of muscle protein breakdown. When you exercise, particularly when resistance training with heavy loads, your muscles experience microscopic damage or breakdown of the protein and structural muscle fibers. 
As long as you eat enough calories and protein and take adequate recovery between workouts, your body repairs this damage and rebuilds the muscles back even stronger in a process called muscle protein synthesis. In this way, muscle protein synthesis is associated with muscle growth or “muscle gains” in strength and size.
However, the relative ratio of muscle protein synthesis to muscle protein breakdown is what determines whether you lose or gain muscle mass, When the rate of muscle protein synthesis exceeds that of muscle protein breakdown, you’ll build muscle, whereas when muscle protein breakdown exceeds muscle protein synthesis, you’ll lose muscle mass.
Drinking Alcohol is KILLING Your Gains!
Consuming protein immediately after a workout has been shown to increase muscle protein synthesis, while consuming alcohol can impair muscle protein synthesis following a workout. If you impede muscle protein synthesis too much, you can potentially shift the ratio of muscle protein synthesis to muscle protein breakdown to either put yourself into protein balance—wherein the rates of both are equal and you are in a state of muscular homeostasis—or you can move into a muscle protein breakdown dominant state and lose muscle mass. 
So, does alcohol affect muscle growth? Either way, alcohol can limit your potential for muscle growth by interfering with the metabolic processes involved in making new protein after exercise to repair and build muscle tissue. One final note when answering the question does alcohol affect muscle growth : consuming alcohol in large quantities may inhibit testosterone production, which, in turn, can impede muscle gains.
How much does alcohol ruin your gains?
Alcohol and Muscle Growth – A small study was conducted on how alcohol consumption affected muscle protein synthesis (MPS). Research participants included eight physically active men performing weight lifting and interval training as part of the testing process.
- They consumed whey protein and alcohol immediately after exercise and again four hours later.
- They also consumed a carbohydrate meal two hours after training.
- Muscle biopsies were taken at two and eight hours following physical training.
- The results showed alcohol levels elevated above baseline post-exercise, with both protein and carbohydrate consumption.
Muscle biopsies indicated reduced rates of muscle protein synthesis (MPS) following physical training. Alcohol consumed with protein reduced MPS by 24% and 37% when combined with carbohydrate, The outcome showed a partial rescue of MPS when protein was consumed with alcohol but still a negative decrease.
Can I lift after drinking?
Hydration – Weightlifters will also need to carefully evaluate how well they hydrate when they consider how alcohol could impact their fitness routines. Alcohol acts as a diuretic, encouraging your body to go through liquids more quickly. You could end up dehydrated if you are not careful.
Is beer OK when bulking?
Summary – You can enjoy a good beer in the evening while bulking. There’s no reason to think it will reduce your testosterone, stunt your muscle growth, or cause extra fat gain. Just don’t make a habit of binge drinking, staying up past your bedtime, or showing up to the gym feeling haggard. Cheers! Shane Duquette is the founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, each with millions of readers. He’s gained seventy pounds and has over a decade of experience helping more than ten thousand naturally thin people build muscle. He also has a degree in design, but those are inversely correlated with muscle growth. Marco Walker-Ng is the founder and strength coach of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, He’s a certified trainer (PTS) and nutrition coach (PN) with a Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences (BHSc) from the University of Ottawa. He has over 15 years of experience helping people gain muscle and strength, with clients including college, professional, and Olympic athletes.
How often do bodybuilders drink beer?
As a group, the bodybuilder is more health-conscious of the foods we put into our physical structures than the Average. I picked up the following line from Arnold Schwarzenegger in regard to soda pop, but it applies to anything that doesn’t directly provide nutritional value or support for the individual. “Why take something the body doesn’t need right now?” Does alcohol affect muscle growth comes to me more often than “can I build muscle and burn fat at the same time?” It’s a valid query and one that requires a bit more than what advice I keep hearing You shouldn’t drink any alcohol if you are serious about bodybuilding people who on a fat loss quest wouldn’t be caught dead with a beverage in their hand drinking completely destroys your muscle-building efforts having even just one drink can ruin a week’s worth of gains and so many more statements made by people who’ve never done a set of Crafted Beers? While it’s true that alcohol has many negative effects on muscle building and the worthless calories from each drink can add up, particularly on a fat loss quest where you’re always hungry and every calorie counts, you can still indulge. If you’ve ever asked yourself does alcohol affect muscle growth, such as, “Will 1 night of consuming alcohol negatively affect my ability to gain muscle or will 1 or 2 beers hurt my gains,” this article is for you? But foremost, let’s take a look at generally what alcohol does to the body in relation to the bodybuilder who’s trying to build as much muscle as humanly possible. Does Alcohol Affect Muscle Growth? Many of us associate the effects of alcohol on the body with the heart, lungs, liver, brain, memory, etc. Furthermore, if asked about the effects of drinking alcohol in terms of our fitness goals, most people will let you recognize the infamous beer belly. Drink too much and you end up storing too many calories as fat. Many masses will choose low-calorie alcohol drinks or low carb alcoholic beverages in an attempt to avoid the fat storage issue. They feel that by getting this choice the only bad effects of alcohol – increased fat storage – will be minimized. Simply what you didn’t know is that only about 5% of the calories from alcohol are stored as fat! Then it off me as it should hit you right about now does alcohol affect muscle growth? Absolutely, but the calories have been framed as the perpetrator. The effects of alcohol on the body are potentially more damaging than can be augured by the number of calories in some alcoholic beverages. The answer to does alcohol affect muscle growth is 1- Alcohol really affects the measure of fat your body can and will burn for energy! In a study of Clinical Research, they concluded that only a mere 24g of alcohol consumption showed whole-body lipid oxidation (the rate at which your body burns fat) decreased by a whopping 73%! When alcohol goes through the liver, the byproduct is called Acetate. It would appear that acetate puts the proverbial brakes on fat burning. Your physical structure can use many types of fuel. Protein, carbohydrates, and fat. In many cases, the fuel used is dictated by its accessibility. Your body, tends to utilize whatever you feed it for fuel right? As your acetate levels increase, your body burns more acetate as fuel. What this means is Fat burning takes a back seat! Is that what it all boils down to You consume a couple of alcoholic drinks or more>>Your liver metabolizes that into acetate>>Your body uses the acetate for fat as fuel 2- Increase in appetite In another American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study, there was evidence to suggest that uptake of alcohol leads to an increase in appetite over that of any other carbohydrate type drink. Researchers in the Research Department of Human Nutrition and Center for Advanced Food Studies in Denmark concluded that consumption of alcoholic beverages, and wine, in particular, may enhance total energy intake at a meal relative to a gentle drink when served with no restriction.3- Decrease in Testosterone and an Increase in Cortisol A survey of 8 healthy male volunteers observed that after drinking alcohol, the effects of a significant decrease in testosterone and an increase in cortisol (a muscle destroying hormone) lasted up to 24 hours! If you are serious about building muscle and burning fat, you want all the free testosterone levels you can get and you want to reduce cortisol in any fashion you can. That means go lite on the drinking because it does affect your hormones.4- Decrease in vitamin and mineral assimilation When you take in large quantities of alcohol, your liver is busy converting the alcohol to acetate and any vitamins and minerals that it might process are taken up by the detoxification process. Alcohol interferes with the metabolism of most vitamins, and with the absorption of many foods. Alcohol stimulates both urinary calcium and magnesium excretion. This only means that you’ll get less of a benefit from the “healthy” meal you may be consuming. Food in the stomach will compete with ethanol for absorption into the stock stream. It is well recognized that alcohol competes and influences the processing of nutrients in the body.5- Decrease in protein synthesis of type II fibers This implies the actual building of muscle is slowed down by 20%+ or more. This included a 35% decrement in muscle insulin-like growth factor-I (GF-I).6- Dehydration A common side effect of alcohol is dehydration. Alcohol is a natural diuretic. Drinks containing 4% alcohol tend to delay the recovery process. Seeing how important water is to muscle building and general health, it’s clear that dehydration can put a damper on your progress. After alcohol consumption, the first matter you might want to do is drink coffee. But that’s a diuretic as well. How to avoid dehydration? Drink more water.7- Sleep Alcohol consumption, especially the times when you would normally sleep, can have effects on the quality of sleep. Clearly, high-quality sleep is extremely significant to the rebuilding and growth process of muscle. Without proper relaxation and recovery, your gains will be affected. Alcohol ingestion can induce sleep disorders by disrupting the sequence and duration of sleep states and by altering total sleep time as well as the time required to fall asleep.8- The next day A rather obvious conclusion, but if you plan on drinking on a Friday night in excess, then the leg workout you thought of doing on Saturday morning won’t be top-notch. It engages a bit to recover, your body to detoxify and for you mentally to be prepared to workout. Not to mention you need energy for the workout ahead. Sure, you can hit the weights, but my point is It’s not going to be the best workout you’ve ever known. At this full stop, you might be totally discouraged to ever drink any alcohol again. There’s some great news. Here’s proof In the September 2004 issue of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, they did a survey on the effects of moderate consumption of alcohol on the Human body. The conclusion to the question does alcohol affect muscle development? An energy-restricted diet is effective in overweight and obese subjects used to drinking moderate amounts of alcohol. A diet with 10% of energy derived from beer is equally effective as an isocaloric diet with 10% of energy derived from grains and other raw materials. It’s simple: Moderation is the key! (With the first place being abstinence as you already know).1-2 drinks per day for the general public, is considered moderation. As a bodybuilder looking for the best possible muscle gains, maybe 1 drink per day or even 1 drink per week would meet your goals. However, 6-7 drinks would be detrimental to your muscle-building endeavours. You’re better off having 1 drink a night for 7 days than 7 drinks in one seating. Does Alcohol Affect Muscle Growth The effects of alcohol on your body when it comes to building muscle and burning fat are quite readable. It is a lot more than just some excess calories stored as fat. If you take in too much, it can derail your goals a lot longer after your head has hit the pillow and you’ve gone to sleep.
Can you drink alcohol while bulking?
Summary – You can enjoy a good beer in the evening while bulking. There’s no reason to think it will reduce your testosterone, stunt your muscle growth, or cause extra fat gain. Just don’t make a habit of binge drinking, staying up past your bedtime, or showing up to the gym feeling haggard. Cheers! Shane Duquette is the founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, each with millions of readers. He’s gained seventy pounds and has over a decade of experience helping more than ten thousand naturally thin people build muscle. He also has a degree in design, but those are inversely correlated with muscle growth. Marco Walker-Ng is the founder and strength coach of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, He’s a certified trainer (PTS) and nutrition coach (PN) with a Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences (BHSc) from the University of Ottawa. He has over 15 years of experience helping people gain muscle and strength, with clients including college, professional, and Olympic athletes.