How does smoking affect muscle building?

It is generally known that smoking has a negative effect on health and limits athletic performance. Nevertheless, many fitness enthusiasts reach for a cigarette before or after exercise to reward themselves for their training efforts. But how harmful is cigarette smoke for the muscles and can muscle building take place despite nicotine intake?

We would like to look into the question of how well stimulants such as nicotine and alcohol can be combined with muscle building and what influence smoking has on strength training. We also explain why nicotine-containing products such as snus are still popular even among competitive athletes.

What influence does smoking have on muscle building?

Most sports fans follow a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet and sufficient exercise, even outside the gym. But every now and then you come across gym-goers who light up a cigarette or go for a drink after training. It's certainly no secret that smoking is harmful to muscle building.

Cigarette smoke attacks your lungs and causes a number of cardiovascular diseases that limit your ability to exercise. In addition, there is of course the well-known risk of cancer, which increases with every cigarette smoked.

Smoking also creates several bottlenecks that reduce your muscle growth. For example, your muscles need a lot of oxygen during training so that lactic acid does not form in the muscle fibres and your muscles become acidic. Cigarette smoke contains tar and carbon monoxide, which constricts the blood vessels and settles in the lungs. As a result, less oxygen reaches the muscles and your training performance and resilience drop.

In addition to oxygen, important nutrients for protein synthesis no longer arrive where they are needed. First and foremost, of course, this includes protein, the basic material for muscle mass. Muscle mass can only be formed at a slower rate and some of the toxins contained in cigarettes even inhibit muscle growth.

To summarise, it can be said that

● Cigarette smoke causes cardiovascular problems and increases the risk of cancer.
● The toxic substances cause blood vessels to constrict and muscles cannot be adequately nourished.
● Oxygen and nutrients only reach your muscle fibres at a slower rate and protein synthesis is reduced.
● Your resilience decreases as your body absorbs less oxygen.

Why is the combination of smoking and alcohol so harmful?

Smoking alone causes enough damage to muscle building, but what happens when alcohol is also involved?

Alcohol is considered another major fitness killer and rightly so. Alcohol drains your body of energy and makes you feel tired more quickly. Alcohol also dehydrates the body, making it more difficult to remove harmful substances and slowing down the metabolism. Last but not least, alcoholic drinks are usually full of empty calories, which unfortunately only make your fat pads happy, but not your muscle fibres. Cigarettes, by the way, have no calories but can promote weight gain.

Why is snus still popular with athletes?

Snus in sport is not uncommon; football and hockey players in particular are increasingly turning to the consumption of oral tobacco. Snus is ground tobacco with other ingredients, which is packaged either loose or in small pouches. Unlike cigarettes, the pouches are not burnt during use, but simply placed under the upper lip.

The effect of snus is versatile and, among other things, snus is also said to improve performance. Nicotine ensures that nervousness and tension are reduced during sporting competitions and more adrenalin is released. For this reason, many professional athletes turn to nicotine pouches.

Conclusion - Smoking has a bad effect

Smoking has a number of negative effects on health and is also detrimental to muscle building. An adequate supply of oxygen and nutrients to the muscle cells is necessary for an effective build-up of muscle mass. However, toxins in cigarettes restrict this supply and reduce the resilience of your lungs. The body's performance drops and muscle growth is only possible to a limited extent. The worst thing for muscle growth is smoking in combination with the consumption of alcoholic beverages, as these dehydrate the body and are full of empty calories.