Alcohol as a pre-workout drink (not as crazy as it sounds)

[kwerk]

I have had this theory for a while and might have posted before about it. Basically alcohol has a J-curve dose-response and is a STIMULANT at low dose. It works in a biphasic fashion, just because a lot is harmful doesn't mean a little bit isn't beneficial. Many drugs, vitamins, anti-oxidants, poisons, and even exercise itself work in this biphasic manner.

There are actually a few studies to back this up.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11900782

The stimulant effects of alcohol were assessed in humans. Twenty social drinkers were tested in dyads in the laboratory on three separate occasions, held 7 days apart. For their first session, one-third of the group consumed a dose of alcohol that was calculated to reach a target peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05 g/dl, one-third of the group consumed placebo-alcohol, and one-third consumed diet Sprite. For alcohol and placebo-alcohol conditions, subjects were told that they may or may not be given alcohol. For the soda condition, subjects were told they were consuming soda. Subjective stimulation, activity levels, and speech production were assessed over a 15-min period after beverage consumption (posttreatment) and compared to measurements taken prior to beverage consumption (baseline). Scores on the stimulant subscale of the Biphasic Alcohol Effects Scale (BAES) were significantly greater for the alcohol condition relative to the soda condition. There was also a trend for stimulant scores to be greater for the alcohol condition relative to the placebo-alcohol condition. Activity levels were significantly greater for the alcohol condition compared to either the placebo-alcohol or soda conditions.

So I have taken to drinking beer as a workout drink at the gym. Don't worry I don't drive there, one of my gyms (actually it's a golf/country club) has 4 locations near me and 1 is within walking distance so I run there.

Before/during workouts I drink this stuff called 8-bit pale ale because A. it's delicious and B. it looks like an energy drink and nobody at the gym knows I'm actually drinking beer!



Like I said this works on a J-curve as illustrated below (upside down J) so only 1 or 2 beers will do it. The goal is NOT to be drunk, only slightly buzzed. It really does let you get more reps though. It's also a vasodilator, boosts testosterone and is neuroprotective against ischemic injury at LOW doses, stimulates your adrenal gland and causes your liver to dump sugar in to your blood.

 

[kwerk]

I wonded if chew or dipping tabacco has any ergogenic properties. Pretty popular with baseball players.

 

[kwerk]

I suppose it depends on waht you're trying to achieve. It wouldnt be beneficial with regards to weight training. I havent done a sports degree, but I have done my CYQ in sports and exercise fitness, level 1 and level 2.

My thoughts on the matter?

1. Degraded protein synthesis
2. Reduced testosterone

I suppose it could help numb pain.

But with numbing, would come bad posture.

So no, I cant see it helping very much. The cons out weigh the pros

Well the dose would be low enough that you'd hardly feel it, and in the Op I posted a link of a study that shows very low dose alcohol actually increases testosterone (and aggression in other studies).

I dont think anybody has tested very low doses with protein synthesis, but another thing that would be interesting would be to have a slightly high dose for a day and purposely inhibit protein synthesis, then do the next workout "sober" (or even low-dose) and see if there is a compensatory effect, like your muscle cells upregulate protein synthesis after the alcohol stress of the previous time.

Alcohol is shown to work as a heat stress agent which activates all kinds of cool "heat shock proteins" (google it), that do good stuff for you.

Interestingly, in yeast, different doses of ethanol induce different responses. Over 4%v/v ethanol doses optimally induce heat shock promoters, while 6–8%, induce the same two major changes in integral plasma-membrane protein composition as sublethal heat stress. These changes include reduction in levels of the plasma membrane ATPase protein, and acquisition of the plasma membrane heat-shock protein Hsp30 (Piper et al. 1994). In humans, a beneficial induction of plasma antioxidants is achieved with one drink (5% v/v alcohol) while an increased pro-oxidant state occurs after three drinks from volunteers averaged over 360 minutes. One drink of red wine, beer, or stout provided equivalent increases in plasma antioxidant activity without induction of pro-oxidative stress (*****ett et al. 2004). Thus, at different doses, different physiological responses occur from benefit to harmful response.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2836146/

Heat-Shock Proteins (HSPs) are involved in growth and development of uscles, however, the exact role that hyperthermia and HSPs play in muscle hypertrophy and muscle repair is unknown. Here, for the first time, we present our findings on the effects of heat shock (HS) in representative cell culture models of cardiac (HL-1), skeletal (C2C12) and smooth (A7R5) muscle cells. We used fully differentiated cells, and exposed them to a mild heat shock protocol (43ºC for 20 min). Cells were returned after HS to their normal culture environment and 24 hrs after HS, we measured cell area. Surprisingly, we discovered that HS induced significant hypertrophy in all three types of muscle cells. To begin deciphering the molecular machinery involved with the hypertrophic response we used a real-time PCR array that included specific genes involved in hypertrophy, cell signaling and transduction, and excitation-contraction coupling. In C2C12, 6 hrs after HS, we found an increase in the expression of Hsp genes and downregulation of IP3R-1, TLR2, MHC6, and Titin. This is the first report to show that HS promotes cardiac, skeletal, and smooth muscle hypertrophy that associates with changes in a small subset of genes.

http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/24/1_MeetingAbstracts/1047.3

 

[kwerk]

As it causes dehydration, might be useful in the short term, for sprint or burst style events, but for longer training or endurance/stamina style training or events it won't help much overall. Much better with anphetamines if you want to drug up, buy some Canadian vicks, has OTC ingredients not available here.

What is the stuff you see powerlifters sniffing sometimes? I saw a video once where the guy looked to be sapping a vial of poppers and inhaling it right before bench pressing.