How Does Alcohol Affect Exercise Performance? Because alcohol depresses the central nervous system, it impairs balance and coordination and decreases exercise performance. Strength and power, muscle endurance, and aerobic endurance are all zapped with alcohol use. Alcohol also dehydrates the body considerably. To be a little more specific, if you knock down a few alcoholic beverages after a strength-training workout, you’re likely to increase damage to your muscles, experience greater muscle soreness, and diminish strength and power. Your muscleglycogen and tissue-rebuilding recovery from exercise will absolutely be diminished, and you certainly won’t fully rehydrate. These effects have been observed in research. As for endurance athletes, a study of trained cyclists given a small amount of alcohol after 60 minutes of cycling showed a significant decrease in average cycling power output, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, and glucose oxidation.

Their heart rates increased, and they felt more fatigued and less energetic when they consumed alcohol. So basically, drinking alcohol has a negative effect on endurance performance. Also, alcohol use increases the risks of sport injuries. The bottom line: Alcohol will clearly put your training on the skids. It has no place during tournament play, when training occurs the day after a game, or when several games or events are played weekly. Although celebrating with alcohol may appear to be fun, it puts you and your teammates at risk.Women and Alcohol Women’s drinking patterns are different from men’s—especially when it comes to how much and how often they drink. Women’s bodies also react differently to alcohol than men’s bodies do. That means women who drink beyond moderate levels face a variety of health risks from alcohol.

Some specific reasons for this increased risk follow:

• Women typically start to have alcohol-related problems at lower drinking levels than men.

• Women typically weigh less than men.

• Pound for pound, women have less water in their bodies than men do, and alcohol resides predominantly in body water.

These health risks can include the following:

• Liver damage.

Women who drink are more likely to develop liver inflammation than men.

• Heart disease. Women are more susceptible to alcohol-related heart disease than men.

• Breast cancer. Women who have about one drink per day also have an increased chance of developing breast cancer compared to women who do not drink at all.

• Pregnancy. Any drinking during pregnancy is risky. Heavy drinking can put a fetus at increased risk for learning, behavioral, and other problems.