Question: Does drinking alcohol once a week ( In moderation, like 6 to 7 drinks of 7% per drink of alcohol contents ) affect building muscle or muscle we have? - John C.

My Answer:

As a group, bodybuilder are more health conscious of the foods we put into our bodies than the Average Jane or Joe.  I picked up the following line from Arnold Schwarzenegger in regards 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?” - From Arnie Goes Crazy

This question comes to me more often than “can I build muscle and burn fat at the same time.”  It’s a valid question and one that requires a bit more than what 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 drink 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 JD Squats (Jack Daniels Squats)

While it’s true that alcohol has many negative effects on muscle building and the worthless calories from each drink can add up, especially on a fat loss quest where you’re always hungry and every calorie counts, you can still indulge.

But first, 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.

The REAL Effects of Alcohol on Your Body

Many of us associate the effects of alcohol on the body with the heart, lungs, liver, brain, memory, etc. Furthermore, if asked about effects of drinking alcohol in terms of our fitness goals, most people will let you know about the infamous beer belly.

You know what I’m talking about right?

Drink too much and you end up storing too many calories as fat.

Many people will choose low calorie alcohol drinks or low carb alcoholic beverages in an attempt to avoid the fat storage issue. They feel that by making this choice the only bad effects of alcohol - increased fat storage - will be minimized.

But what you didn’t know is that only about 5% of the calories from alcohol are stored as fat! [14]

Then it hit me as it should hit you right about now…

The effects of alcohol on the body are far more damaging than can be predicted by the number of empty calories in some alcoholic beverage.

The truth is…

1- Alcohol really affects the amount of fat your body can and will burn for energy!

In a study done by the American Journal of Clinical Research [4] they concluded that just 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 thru the liver, the by-product is called Acetate. It would appear that acetate puts the proverbial brakes on fat burning.

Your body can use many types of fuel. Protein, carbohydrates and fat. In many cases, the fuel used is dictated by it’s availability.

Trouble is…

Your body tends to use 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!

What it all boils down to is this…

a) You consume a couple of alcoholic drinks or more. b) Your liver metabolizes that into acetate. c) 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 consumption of alcohol lead to an increase in appetite over that of any other carbohydrate type drink. [5]

Researchers over in the Research Department of Human Nutrition and Center for Advanced Food Studies in Denmark [8] concluded that consumption of alcoholic beverages, and wine in particular, may enhance total energy intake at a meal relative to a soft drink, when served with no restriction.

3- Decrease in Testosterone and an Increase in Cortisol

A study 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! [6]

The only real question to ask yourself is this…

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 way you can. That means go lite on the drinking because it does affect your hormones.

What more…

Is that the effects were even worse if you exercise before drinking. [1] This means that if you are going out and will be drinking more than a small amount of alcohol, you might as well skip the gym.

Not shocking is a study done by the Department of Radiology, Sahlgrenska Hospital, Goteborg, Sweden [2] that determined increased waist to hip ratio of alcoholics may include not only changes in adipose tissue, but also in muscle tissue distribution.

In layman’s terms.. that means more fat around the waist and less overall muscle mass.

4- Decrease in vitamin and mineral absorption

When you consume 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 nutrients. Alcohol stimulates both urinary calcium and magnesium excretion. [13]

This just 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 blood stream. It is well known that alcohol competes and influences the processing of nutrients in the body. [12]

5- Decrease in protein synthesis of type II fibers

This means the actual building of muscle is slowed down by 20%+ or more. This included a 35% decrease in muscle insulin-like growth factor-I (GF-I). [9]

6- Dehydration

A common side effect of alcohol is dehydration. Alcohol is a diuretic. Drinks containing 4% alcohol tend to delay the recovery process. [11]

Considering 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 thing 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 at the times when you would normally sleep, can have effects on the quality of sleep. Clearly high quality sleep is extremely important to the rebuilding and growth process of muscle. Without proper rest and recovery, your gains will be affected.

Alcohol consumption 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. [10]

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 takes 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 experienced.

At this point you might be totally discouraged to ever drink any alcohol again. But there’s some good news.

Here’s proof…

In the November 2004 issue of the International Journal of Obesity [7] they did a study on the effects of moderate consumption of white wine on weight loss.

Each group consumed 1500 calories. 150 calories came from white wine in one group and 150 calories from grape juice in another.

The conclusion?

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 white wine is as effective as an isocaloric diet with 10% of energy derived from grape juice.

It’s simple: Moderation is the key! (with 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 fit into your goals.  However, 6-7 drinks would be detrimental to your muscle building efforts.  You’re better off having 1 drink a night for 7 days than 7 drinks in one sitting.  Again, moderation.

My friend Todd Scott of How to Get Six Pack Abs, has an excellent method for those who DO wish to drink 6-7 beverages in a night.  He’s got a neat little plan outlined in his nutrition section that details what to do if you know you’ll be out for a night of drinking.

In any event…

The effects of alcohol on your body when it comes to building muscle and burning fat are quite clear. It is a lot more than just some extra calories stored as fat. If you consume too much, it can derail your goals a lot longer after your head has hit the pillow and you’ve gone to sleep.

References:

1. Heikkonen, E., Ylikahri, R., Roine, R., Valimaki, M., Harkonen, M., & Salaspuro, M. (1996). The combined effect of alcohol and physical exercise on serum testosterone, luteinizing hormone, and cortisol in males. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research, 20, 711-716

2. Kvist, H., Hallgren, P., Jonsson, L., Pettersson, P., Sjoberg, C., Sjostrom, L., & Bjorntorp, P. (1993). Distribution of adipose tissue and muscle mass in alcoholic men. Metabolism, 42, 569-573

3. Raben A, Agerholm-Larsen L, Flint A, Holst JJ, Astrup A. (2003). Meals with similar energy densities but rich in protein, fat, carbohydrate, or alcohol have different effects on energy expenditure and substrate metabolism but not on appetite and energy intake. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 77, 91-100

4. Siler, S.Q., Neese, R.A., & Hellerstein, M.K. (1999). De novo lipogenesis, lipid kinetics, and whole-body lipid balances in humans after acute alcohol consumption. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 70, 928-936

5. Tremblay, A., & St-Pierre, S. (1996). The hyperphagic effect of a high-fat diet and alcohol intake persists after control for energy density. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 63, 479-482

6. Valimaki, M.J., Harkonen, M., Eriksson, C.J., & Ylikahri, R.H. (1984). Sex hormones and adrenocortical steroids in men acutely intoxicated with ethanol. Alcohol, 1, 89-93

7. Flechtner-Mors, M., Biesalski, H.K., Jenkinson, C.P., Adler, G., & Ditschuneit, H.H. (2004). Effects of moderate consumption of white wine on weight loss in overweight and obese subjects. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 28, 1420-1426

8. Buemann, B., Toubro, S., & Astrup, A. (2002). The effect of wine or beer versus a carbonated soft drink, served at a meal, on ad libitum energy intake. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 26, 1367-1372

9. Lang CH, Frost RA, Kumar V, Wu D, Vary TC. (2000). Inhibition of muscle protein synthesis by alcohol is associated with modulation of eIF2B and eIF4E, 3, 322-31

10. Alcohol Alert, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, No. 41 July. 1988

11. Shirreffs, Susan M., and Ronald J Maughan. 91997). Restoration of fluid balance after exercise-induced dehydration: effects of alcohol consumption, Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol. 83, No. 4, pp. 1152-1158

12. “Alcohol, chemistry and you,” Kennesaw State University, chemcases.com, Aug. 2002

13. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Report to Congress, 1990

14. “Why alcohol calories are more important than you think,” Christian Finn, TheFactsAboutFitness.com

Photo of the martini by Kyle May Used under a Creative Commons license

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Escalating Density Training - Part 1

Got the videos and all the other stuff. The “other stuff” isn’t much. Just a collection from other trainers that have an association with Charles. Some of it I chucked in the trash because it’s not worth much and has nothing to do with EDT.

I have studied the videos and today I started EDT on legs. I will say that it was challenging but I may not have started with enough weight but heck, this was my first time doing the program so I will give myself a break. After all, this is supposed to be about managing fatigue, not developing it. So I think I did okay, after all, I was really seriously sweating and breathing hard.

Am I sore right now? No and I don’t know if I will be but that isn’t a factor in determining if you had a good workout or not, is it?

I did 3 PR Zones on the program today. Each PR Zone is 15 minutes in duration. The goal in each PR Zone is to pick two exercises that are antagonistic. I chose the leverage squat machine (because I wanted to be as safe as possible and this really feels good on my knees and back) and the decline leg curls.

I chose a weight that was challenging to get 10 reps on each exercise. Then I drop down and do only 5 reps on each exercise. The idea is to get as many reps as possible during the 15 minutes. There is no preconceived number of reps to attain and you can rest as long as you want during this 15 minutes. The idea is to manage fatigue not develop it. But you also don’t want to sit around and drink coffee and have a discussion about politics between sets either. That’s not the idea. I think I did something like 5 or 6 sets back to back before I actually took a breather.

The idea is once the 15 minutes is up, you total up your reps and then at your next session like the one you did today, you attempt to get more reps in the same amount of time. I think I got 50 reps on both the squat and leg curls. And that was PR Zone 1. I did two more PR Zones and got about the same number of reps on those as well. I was able to maintain the 5 reps during all my sets but you can drop down to 4 then 2 then 2 then 1 if you need to. There is no predetermined number of reps that you need to finish with, just start with 5 and let your fatigue determine how much you should finish with.

I am doing back and chest tomorrow and I will give you a report on that as well.

So far so good but nothing earth shattering or ground breaking. Just another way to do superset training. Of course there is a fat burning program as well and I am using this on a couple of my female clients and I will report on that also when the time is right.

Escalating Density Training part 2

Okay, I did chest and back on my EDT program yesterday. I did it a bit different as I focused on ALL chest and back. I am back into bodybuilding and want to possibly compete sometime next year….no promises there as it depends on how I am doing in the next couple of months. Afterall, I am 52.

I set my PR Zones up and did HIGH incline bench press followed by a unique exercise I developed called Chain Pullup Rows on the incline bench (killer pullup for the back for those who can’t do pullups).

Each exercise was no more than 5 reps and I monintored how I felt. Although I hit fatigue on my pullups, I was able to continue with the 5 reps on the bench press. Again, maybe I started too low in weight but there is no rule that says I can’t finish the sets doing 5 reps either. I just have to beat the number of reps I did on this workout at my next one.

I followed this by a low bench press and pulldowns. Same scenario.

I really put out some volume on both of these workouts. Even though I got in almost 5 minutes rest between the two PR Zones, I was really sweating. But I ask myself is that all this is going to do, make me sweat? I had an okay pump but again that isn’t the primary reason for training although it is highly coveted by bodybuilders and it does feel great.

As I sit here today, I would have assumed that my legs and and hammies would be screaming from the workout on Tuesday. Notta! No pain, no discomfort. I know that with a normal workout, I usually have a fair amount of DOMS. Is that normal? Is THIS how I should feel? Don’t know for sure.

What I do know is this: This program is boring. Yes, boring. You have 15 minutes to do this superset of exercises and try to accumulate as many reps as possible in that amount of time. Then your goal is to beat that in the next workout. You are constantly moving from set to set and in one way, that is great. This thing really does burn some calories and gets you sweating big time. That I like because I hate cardio. My breathing and heart rate are highly elevated during the 15 minutes. So this is better than cardio in my opinion. But trying to get my mind wrapped around this is going to be tough if I don’t see the results promised.

Getting clients to do this program may be easier than it is for a trainer. They will probably see some incredible results and that is good. And if you stand there with the client encouraging them then it will be good for them. On the other hand, it really reduces the trainer to nothing more than a record keeper. You better have the client do the counting so you can learn your cheerleading skills.

I will say, this is a different program but it is not the program to end all programs. It is simply nothing more than another club in your golf bag of workouts. Don’t give up on the other things but it would be great to periodize with this program if you are looking to strip some fat. At this stage, and I know that Mr. Staley swears this to be true, but I don’t see how this thing is goingg to build all this great muscle. I know I have only done two workouts with it and it will take some time and I will give it time. So we will see.

I will continue to give you reports as I go along. I feel it is highly important for all of us, ISSA trainers on this board, to help one another along and give reviews of programs like this. I believe in full disclosure, not marketing garbage telling me everything I want to hear and tickling my “I hope it will..” button.

If this thing works, then I will highly recommend to you to buy it. If it doesn’t, I will tell you to stay away from it. And that’s my opinion.

Escalating Density Part 3 Final

Okay, did the last part of this EDT program. I can say that it is a good program but again, nothing spectacular. All you have to do is use your imagination and you can come up with some great combinations as well.

Now the one thing I can say I did notice is that I have experienced no DOMS. None at all. But I have also not retained the after training pump that I normally have for a day or so. That part I don’t like but I do like the working hard part; I am sweating like crazy.

I did decided to modify the program and do something that really challenged me though. I know the EDT program is about managing fatigue but I also believe you need more time under tension in order to get the benefits of growth. Therefore I decided to develop my own hybrid program. It goes like this:

I have 3 PR Zones like the original program calls for. But I have reduced the training time from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. Instead of 5 reps per set, I am doing 10 reps. I have to say, that got me working hard and also kicked my butt. And here is what I found out: I am getting just as many reps, with the same weight at 10 reps as I did with 5 reps in 10 minutes instead of 15. Crazy, huh? So am I working harder? Well it sure feels like it and the muscle felt like it was worked to the bone. The pump was good also and stayed with me a bit longer too.

I did change it up a bit today also for legs. I matched squats with leg curls for a 10 minute PR Zone. BUT I did 10 reps on the squats and 5 reps on the leg curls. I am following some advice that Charles Poliquin gives in his Poliquin Principles book where he says that if anyone is getting any growth on their hams on more than 8 reps chances are they are using performance enhancing drugs. I have noticed that my hammies are getting bigger and stronger on reps less than 8 so I am sticking with the 5 on this one. It worked quite well and felt great and my legs were trashed! Am I fatigued? No not really but I am sleeping much better at night though.

Well that is my final review of the Escalating Density Training program. Would I suggest that you purchase the program?  Only if you are bored and have become stagnant with your own training or that of your client’s.  It has given me a bunch of new ideas and I am experimenting with them and I know simply because of the new variety I am developing I am going to see some change.

Do I believe that you can lose 1/2% bodyfat per week with the EDT program like they claim?  Not on your life. That is purely marketing and only one man’s opinion and experience and I am not talking about Mr. Staley either.

Experiment with the training you are now doing. Hey NOTHING is wrong if you grow from it so go for it. Mix it up and see what kind of concoctions you can come up with and maybe you too can write a book on it.

Have a strong and healthy day.

J.R.Smith c.f.t., s.p.n., s.s.c., m.e.s.
NBFE board registered
Lifestyle & Weight Management Specialist - NESTA
Sports, Fitness and Medical Exercise Specialist
Total Healthcare Fitness
Human Performance Systems for Body, Back and Mind
Somerset, Kentucky 42503
606-271-0981
www.totalhealthcarefitness.blogspot.com
www.postrehab.com
www.issaonline.com
Member KAFP
Member Somerset Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce

This article was submitted by J.R. Smith c.f.t., s.p.n., s.s.c., m.e.s.  Follow up questions about his EDT experience or his own modifications to this sytem can be directed to him thru Total Healthcare Fitness.

Want More Information?

Information about Escalating Density Training or EDT by Charles Staley

Amazon Customer Reviews

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