Aside from the more generally known and accepted issues and problems with alcohol use and abuse, drinking alcohol can specifically impact your climbing ability and opportunities for improvement. Learn why you might want to think again about drinking alcohol if you’re interested in climbing hard. If you can stop problem drinking, you're likely to improve both your climbing and your general health.
Problems With Drinking and Climbing
“Chronically, alcohol abuse may eventually impede physical performance; individuals diagnosed with alcohol dependence have displayed varying degrees of muscle damage and weakness,” states the ASCM (American College of Sports Medicine) Current Comment: Alcohol and Athletic Performance. For climbers, this is obviously undesirable, since injury-free, strong muscles are key components of rock climbing performance.
According to the ASCM, participating in an athletic endeavor while intoxicated or under the influence can cause a reduction in grip strength, impaired coordination, slowed response time, increased fatigue and decreased dynamic ability. If you’re a chronic drinker, you may experience systemic problems including the muscle damage/weakness described above, along with potential hormone imbalances and suboptimal nutrient absorption. Studies have also shown that a hangover will decrease your hand-grip endurance on the second day after a night of drinking.
According to the University of Notre Dame’s Office of Alcohol and Drug Education (OADE), even a couple drinks after a workout or climbing day can decrease or entirely nullify any gains you might have made from your efforts. Alcohol interrupts the body’s natural sleep cycle, thereby depriving it of a crucial period in producing human growth hormone (HGH), which is key for muscle growth and recovery.
Alcohol also harms testosterone levels, slows recovery and promotes dehydration, explains the OADE. Furthermore, one night of drinking five or more drinks can impair your physical and mental functions for up to three days afterward; two nights in a row of five or more drinks can impair your physical and mental functions for up to five days afterward. So you can potentially erase an entire week of both peak climbing performance and potential gains by engaging in a couple nights of prolific drinking in a row.
Additional negative effects of alcohol include impairment of your brain’s ability to learn and store new information, as well as an impairment of your body’s ability to break down lactic acid. Alcohol consumption also increases your body’s fat storage and can increase your body-fat percentage, as explained in the UC San Diego Athletic Performance Nutrition Bulletin: Alcohol and Athletic Performance.
Signs of a Drinking Problem
Heavy drinking, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is an individual average intake of more than one drink per day for women or more than two drinks per day for men. Binge drinking is more than four drinks on one occasion for women or more than five on one occasion for men. Binge drinking is more prevalent than heavy drinking, though both are relatively common in the United States. Both indicate alcohol abuse and potential alcohol dependence.
Do I have a drinking problem? Do I have alcohol addiction? Am I an alcoholic? If you’re drinking daily while asking one or more of these questions, the answer is probably yes. Other signs of a drinking problem include drinking with the intention of getting drunk, needing alcohol to perform daily functions, craving alcohol, increased tolerance, not being able to stop drinking once you start and experiencing withdrawal symptoms if you try to stop drinking, among others described by Notre Dame's OAED.
Climbing Performance and Alcohol Abuse Don’t Mix
Consider how much you value your overall health along with your desire for top climbing performance before you partake of your next round of alcoholic beverages. Make an informed decision about drinking by educating yourself. The long list of potentially negative impacts for climbers seeking top performance outweighs any possible benefits of regularly or frequently drinking large amounts of alcohol.
Sources
- Alcohol and Athletes, University of Notre Dame Office of Alcohol and Drug Education, 2008.
- Alcohol & Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 2011.
- FAQs for the General Public, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, February 2007.
- L. Perry Koziris, Ph.D., ASCM (American College of Sports Medicine) Current Comment: Alcohol and Athletic Performance.
- Melinda Smith, M.A., Lawrence Robinson, and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse: Signs, Symptoms, and Help for Drinking Problems, HelpGuide.org, November 2010.
- UC San Diego Athletic Performance Nutrition Bulletin: Alcohol and Athletic Performance, UC San Diego Intercollegiate Athletics.
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