How Does Smoking Affect Your Workout & Bodybuilding?

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ot getting proper nutrition, skipping warm-up, ignoring post-workout recovery, not getting adequate sleep, irregular training routine, improper hydration, lifting heavy weights relative to one’s body strength, and overtraining are generally regarded, as factors that can sabotage one’s fitness goals. Not to say this is wrong, yet it’s not the big things that count to fitness always, it’s often the habits and the little things that you do every day (often without your notice) that will make or break you!!

What did you just read? Habits? Yes, guys, we are talking about one bad habit that has been the significant health threat the world has faced for decades.

Most people in the modern world take to smoking when they are young. The negative effects of smoking are often connected; to lung cancer, but tobacco smoking is the major cause of an accelerated decline in ventilator function and physical fitness.

Cigarette smoking has a direct negative impact on general health and also harms fitness level.

In this blog, we’ll elucidate how smoking hurts various components of physical fitness like endurance, muscle strength, performance and stamina.

Also Read: Does Alcohol Consumption Damage Muscle Growth & Fitness?

First of all, WHY DOES SMOKING BECOME ADDICTIVE?

The underlying factor for tobacco addiction is nicotine. Nicotine is one of the chemical compounds produced after the combustion of tobacco.

When a person smokes a cigarette, tobacco smoke reaches the alveoli of the lungs, where nicotine is rapidly absorbed. Blood concentration of nicotine rises quickly, and a high level of nicotine reaches the brain in 10 to 20 seconds. The rapid absorption of nicotine after a puff; triggers the release of dopamine and other neurotransmitters in the brain that produce pleasurable sensations and rapid behavioural reinforcement. The rapid rise in nicotine levels and related effects during smoking makes smoking a dependence or an addiction.

Also Read: How Do Fast Foods Impact On Fitness & Muscle Building?

SMOKING CAN AFFECT STAMINA & MUSCULAR STRENGTH

The lungs are the first organ to be affected by smoke.

1. The inhaled tobacco smoke moves from the mouth through the airways ultimately reaching the alveoli (the tiny air sacs of the lungs where gas exchange takes place). Smoke contains many highly reactive chemicals like benzene, acrylonitrile, nicotine, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, ammonia, arsenic, carbon monoxide, and several other toxins which are adsorbed and condensate on the inner wall of the lungs in to a sticky brown mass, called tar.

2. Eventually, the tar coats and breaks down the thin alveoli walls and leads to the loss of alveoli elasticity. When a larger number of alveoli are damaged, the air gets trapped in the lungs and a normal gas exchange rate is affected.

3. The amount of oxygen that reaches your bloodstream reduces. What this further means is that, less oxygen is delivered to your muscles.

4. Lactate build-up occurs when there isn’t enough oxygen in the muscle. This causes muscle burning, reduced ability for muscle contraction and nausea. Less oxygen availability lowers the highly efficient aerobic energy production and destroys your stamina profoundly.

This does not stop here, to compensate for the low oxygen levels, you start to breathe faster and deeper, which puts pressure on the heart and makes you feel exhausted.

LUNG CAPACITY ↓ = OXYGEN UPTAKE ↓ = EXHAUSTION ↑

AEROBIC GLYCOLYSIS ↓ = EXHAUSTION ↑

Also Read: 5 Major Reasons You’re Not Getting Results Of Muscle Gain

SMOKING CAUSES IMPAIRED OXYGEN DELIVERY & INCREASED HEART RATE

As explained earlier, when smoke reaches your lungs, the chemicals are uptaken by the blood. We also mentioned carbon monoxide as one of the components of smoke. Let’s learn what this chemical does here…

1. As we all know, haemoglobin in RBCs binds to and transports oxygen around the body. When you smoke, carbon monoxide (which has 210 times greater affinity for haemoglobin than oxygen) binds to haemoglobin and impairs the ability of red blood cells to transport oxygen. The binding of carbon monoxide impairs cellular uptake of oxygen and the worst oxygen supply to your muscles. Your intense training places a high oxygen demand. When muscles are deprived of the proper amount of oxygen, your performance is limited.

2. Additionally, nicotine narrows your blood vessels and limits the amount of oxygen that flows into your organs. The decreased oxygenation will cause your heart rate to increase as a result of which blood pressure increases. If you do a high intensity workout in this condition, your heart rate might exceed the acceptable threshold and cause serious damage to the heart.

3. Smoking inhibits protein synthesis and increases proteolysis, which leads to loss of muscle mass.

We hope the information provided in this blog can help you stop or stay away from smoking if you are thinking about starting now…

It’s as simple as that, improve your habits to improve your body…. It’s always the little things that make big things happen…

Also Read: Steroids - What Are They? Are They Safe?

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