Is your exercise wasted if you drink a few glasses of wine after your work out? How dangerous is it to work out on a hangover? We found out the truth for you.
Drinking before a work out
The exercise will have effect even though you had a beer or a glass of wine before the work out. The effect may be less but not significantly so. If you feel intoxicated it may be a good idea not to exercise. Choose exercises that need less coordination.
Alcohol after Training
Drinking after your training may affect your muscle mass depending on how much you drink, but it’s still better to exercise than to skip your work out completely. The Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport has carried out research based on 11 men drinking orange juice only or orange juice with vodka after working out their legs. When their stamina was tested 36 hours later there were only a slight difference in performance of the two groups.
Training Hungover
From a health perspective its never recommended to get a hangover but it’s still better to work out than not regardless of if you have a hangover or not. The work out effects will be somewhat less but not wasted. There has been no evidence to prove that exercising while hungover has any negative effect on your heart. If you are a healthy individual there is no reason not to exercise the day after a night out.
Team Sport and Technical Challenges
The day after a heavy night out you should refrain from sports that requires fast decisions or sports that requires your motor skills to be on top form.
Alcohol and Poor Sleep
When you drink alcohol your sleep pattern will be disturbed and your cortisol levels will increase. This weakens your stamina to exercise the day after drinking and slows down your ability to recover. To increase your recovery ability make sure to eat straight after training and eat protein before going to bed the night before.
Your Metabolism isn’t Affected
Your metabolism is important when it comes to fat burning, the good news is that it is not affected by a single night out.
Calories
The body will use the alcohol you have been drinking as a source of energy, which will lower the body’s capacity to burn fat. It is therefore possible that you will gain weight after a night out drinking as the body is filled with calories. One gram of alcohol contains seven calories.
Sweating out Alcohol
Most of the consumed alcohol will be broken down in your liver through your urine, 2% of the alcohol is expelled through breathing and only 1% is expelled through sweat. Therefore, drinking water would be a faster way to expel alcohol from your body than sweating it out.
Alcohol and dehydration
Always make sure you are dinking a lot of water as alcohol dehydrates the body and make you more likely to get muscle injuries when you work out the day after drinking.
From a health perspective it is more likely a healthier choice not to drink alcohol, or at least not so much that you get drunk. However, if you think having a glass of wine or two or a beer with friends makes you feel psychologically happier it most probably is a good idea to treat yourself even though it does not have a beneficial health effect. It can be a good thing to know that you don’t have to skip your training the day after you have had a few glasses and that having a glass of wine or two after working out is alright and more beneficial than if you were not to work out at all.
