Training Effect
Every time you get drunk, you lose approximately
14 days of training effect. You lose all you
have worked to gain. One night of drinking
and two weeks of training effect are erased.
You are wasting your time and your career.
Training Hormones
Alcohol suppresses your training hormones for
up to 96 hours (four days). Basically
you are at practice but the hormones you need
to gain training effect and condition are
not. You practice but no improvement comes.
Performance Potential
The effect of recent heavy drinking lowers your
performance potential by 11.4% before you
even step on the field. The best you can be
is about 88.6% of your best (100%).
Muscles
Your muscles will become fatigued quicker. Lactic
acid levels which fatigue your muscles, increases
much earlier and primary muscles that you
depend on shut down or are slower and weaker.
Lungs
Your breathing will be much heavier and you
will hyperventilate much earlier in practice
or a game. You will not be able to catch your
breath during breaks in activity. Your breathing
rate will be very high and you will hyperventilate
or lose control of your breathing. Your lungs
are trying to get oxygen to your working muscles
and clear carbon dioxide (CO2) from your system
but they cannot. Your muscles begin to suffocate
Heart
Your heart rate will be much higher and over
time your cardiac output will decrease. The
oxygen rich blood will not reach your working
muscles. The lactic acid will build up in
the muscles and you will slow down and be
weaker.
Muscle Fuels
It will take you longer to reload muscle fuels
(glycogen). Normally we can reload our
muscles with fuels in 8-12 hours, but after
drinking it can be 16-24 hours.
Recovery
You will take much longer to recover from the
stress of training. Normal recovery from maximal
stress is 24 hours but after drinking, it
can be 48-96 hours.
Dehydration
Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes
you urinate. You lose lots of body fluids
and all your physiological functions decrease.
Hormone Conversion
You cannot turn pre-hormones into training hormones.
Out with all your urine go most of your water
soluble vitamins, including the B vitamins,
some of which are responsible for converting
pre-hormones into training hormones. Until
these levels are back you cannot make hormones
for training.
Muscle Repair
Your ability to repair damaged muscle is reduced.
When we train muscle is damaged. We
repair it by making protein into new fibers.
Drinking slows down this repair process. It
is in your speed muscles that this process
is most reduced.
Reflex
Alcohol slows down the reflex in regard to reaction
time. Alcohol affects reaction time and hand
eye coordination, which are two of the most
important functions in sports.
Conclusions
Alcohol is a metabolic poison, clear and simple. t
affects the entire body and all body systems,
especially those that control high performance. No
serious athlete should use alcohol.
Marijuana negatively affects the CNS (Central
Nervous System). When you smoke pot, it
is in your CNS for thirty days. It also accumulates
over time. This means if you smoke it
daily, it is building up in increasing levels. Marijuana
is every bit as damaging to your brain and CNS
as alcohol is to your muscles, lungs and heart. Combine
both and you are nowhere near the athlete you
could be. Listed below are the most serious
effects on athlete performance, from marijuana
use.
Motivation ~ Focus
Most athletes who are marijuana users have motivational
problems. It is hard enough to maintain focus
day after day and game after game when we
are healthy and rested. If you use drugs
it creates additional distractions in these
areas. The ability to be highly focused and
motivated is jeopardized by marijuana use.
Processing ~ Multi Tasking ~ Confusion
To function effectively our CNS (central nervous
system) must make quick, responsive decisions
and also sort out situational priorities,
strategies as well as the order in which we
must determine the importance of options as
well as responses. We also must have
the ability to take in all outside input and
establish which of those signals are most
important. In athletics if we cannot multi
task or do many things at once our effectiveness
decreases. Marijuana affects the brains complex
ability to do many things at once and to sort
out that inflowing input, establish priorities
for action and response.
Visual Tracking ~ Depth Perception
Marijuana use also affects the visual system.
Recent studies have shown that losses occur
in the ability to visually track or follow
moving objects. It also decreases the ability
to determine accurate visual depth, or for
example in basketball, baseball or lacrosse,
to tell how far or near an incoming object
is or to determine at the same time, the velocity
or speed at which it is traveling. This
would be critical in making pre-movements,
for instance, to catch an incoming pass or
block a shot.
Reflex ~ Reaction ~ Precision ~
Accuracy
Marijuana reduces our reflex or reaction time. You
are slower at reacting to outside stimulus. Precision
and accuracy are also affected.
Myographic (Muscle) Impulses ~ Biomechanics
Even the electrical impulses that our brain
sends to our muscles to make them react or
even contract and relax are affected. This
has an affect on the exactness of our movements
or biomechanics. This means our skill level
is decreased.
Movement Memory ~ Coordination
One of the main sites in the brain affected
by marijuana is the area which is responsible
for movement memory, or the ability to remember
the exact way to create skilled movements over
and over. Missed movements or uncoordinated
skills make you less effective.
Confusion ~ Critical Evaluation
Of Self
The cumulative or collective build up of chemicals
in your brain and CNS creates many negative
impacts on your ability to be at your best. nfortunately
it also affects a part of the brain that has
to do with our critical evaluation of self.
This is very dangerous for any athlete at any
age or level, because it allows you to somehow
rationalize that using marijuana is o.k. or
that it has no affect on your performance. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. Marijuana use
will prevent you from reaching your full potential.
Rerouting Functional Users
If you want to be a great athlete and reach
your full potential, you must be focused.
Athletes who use marijuana regularly become
functional users. Some are still very good,
but nowhere near the athlete they could be.
The human brain is so amazing that it basically
learns how to reroute these functions and
abilities that are affected by the chemicals
to other parts of the brain, which have no
ability to do those tasks. They take over
and learn how to function as best they can,
however it is far from optimal.
Recreational Drug Use And You
One thing is for sure; athletes are concerned
with performance. Our goal is to train with
the best methods possible and to get rid of
as many negative factors as possible. Alcohol
and Marijuana have ruined many careers. If
you use them, you will never be as good as
you could have been.
Remember when you are not training,
That somewhere, someone is training…
And when you meet them,
They will beat you…
Matveyev USSR
|
Remember when you are partying,
That somewhere, someone is not
partying…
They will beat you…
Underwood USA |
Nothing in the sport world
is truer. |
