Alcohol as a performance enhancer

[kwerk]

I've always suspected alcohol might actually be a performance enhancer when it comes to lifting weights, or any sport that doesn't require fine motor skills.

I have a pull-up/dip tower thing in my basement and to test this I did an experiment. On friday I did 8 dead hang wide grip pullups while completely sober. Today I did 13 reps using the same timing and technique, after drink 5 reasonably strong beers. That is a 60% improvement.

Try it yourself, see how many push ups you can do completely sober, then how many you can do after a few bevies.

Of course you are at more risk of injury so you shouldn't do anything like squats and should probably have a spotter.

 

[kwerk]

I think it's a combination of alcohol having almost twice as many calories per gram as carbs, the anesthetic effect stopping the pain signals reaching your mind, and maybe little a boost in strength of the neural signals going to your muscles.

I doubt it would work for running unless you were able to drink continuously throughout the run, and added electrolytes to the beer.

 

[kwerk]

I have noticed this before actually. A lot of it is mind over matter which is dulled when drunk so i guess it makes sense.

It would be same for doing the splits. Technically most people can do the splits at any time, but their mind/CNS stops them because the body perceives it as a potential injury.

 

[kwerk]

But even if you could, pointless, totally pointless. Any energy you burn and good effect from the exercise is ruined by the calories intake from the beers.

As for performance enhancing, try go playing a game of table tennis or something and see if you win. Your motor reflex and co-ordination will be compromised, your reaction time is delayed.

But you might still think you won, because you are drunk. lol

It's more like a training aid than a performance enhancer. Obviously you wouldn't use it for a competition, but say you were stuck for a long time at a certain weight for barbell curls or whatever and wanted to shock your body into getting past that plateau. For the next couple of workouts you could get slightly drunk and crank out more reps than normal and shock your biceps in to adjusting. Then go back to being sober again and you could curl a higher weight than before.