How Stoptober can Increase your Gains in the Gym

image

As any British readers of Natural News will be aware, this month UK smokers are struggling through an attempt to give up tobacco for a full 31 days and successfully kick their habit for good. The NHS-backed Stoptober initiative aims to improve the nation’s health and lower the increasing levels of heart disease and cancer taking their toll on the UK’s population. But this doesn’t apply to you, right?

As a reader Natural News it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that you take good care of yourself by exercising regularly and eating well. Sure, you still enjoy a drink and treat yourself to a takeaway every once in a while. Maybe you’re a casual smoker, too. The number of guys I see leaving the gym and lighting up within a few feet of the entrance is beyond measure. Whilst you’re probably unlikely to get lung cancer or heart disease due to your balanced diet, active lifestyle and age, the impact that smoking can have on your performance and gains at the gym extends beyond a cardiovascular workout.

Online pharmacist Chemist Direct recently interviewed a range of health and fitness professionals to get the full lowdown on the science behind smoking’s effect on your circulatory system, your psychology and your recovery time.

Dr Robert Kominiarek is rightly dubbed “America’s Fitness Doctor”. Not your standard GP, Dr Rob is a veteran of the United States Army, dedicated triathlete and general man’s man (with a passion for Italian motorcycles, I might add). Having dedicated his life and career to eating healthily, exercising regularly and helping others do the same; he’s an authority on how unhealthy habits can affect your exercise gain.

As you may already be aware, smoking introduces carbon monoxide into the bloodstream, restricting how much oxygen-rich blood flows through your circulatory system and decreasing athletic performance. What you may not know is the full significance of this on the body. As Dr Rob puts it:

“Smoking a single cigarette can immediately affect physical capability in exercise when the inhaled carbon monoxide binds to red blood cells, displacing oxygen and preventing its delivery to muscle cells. A study at UCLA found that young adults experience a four percent decrease in oxygen uptake right after smoking. At the same time, smoking constricts blood vessels, which prevents the proper redistribution of blood and oxygen to the muscles during exercise. This forces muscle cells to switch to an inefficient metabolic process that hampers exercise and prompts the accumulation of lactic acid within the cells.”

As we know, the formation of lactic acid is what causes muscles to ache, hampering our ability to push through those last few reps or metres. Whilst a four percent decrease in oxygen may seem minimal, the cumulative build up over the course of a few months’ workouts can be drastic. As Dr Rob elaborates:

“A study of young adults found that smokers’ endurance was 7.2 percent less than non-smokers, and that smokers were more likely to quit at increasing levels of exercise.”

That four percent decrease from just smoking one cigarette before exercise will continue to eat further into your performance the more regularly you smoke, growing to 7.2 percent for regular smokers.

What’s more, there are a multitude of other implications that you may not have considered. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine suggested that young men and women who smoke are significantly more likely to incur exercise-related injuries. The study, conducted amongst cadets in Army basic training, revealed that smokers were twice as likely to incur injuries than non-smokers.(1)

Of course, greater risk of injury means potential time-off from exercise during recovery, but the recovery time for smokers is greater than non-smokers, as smoking inhibits the body’s ability to heal through low oxygen levels in the blood. (2) Furthermore, smoking is recognised as an appetite suppressant. As any heavy-weights trainer will tell you, your diet is just as important as the exercises you perform when trying to gain muscle mass. Not getting sufficient nutrients into your body will make your workout all for nought.

As the action of exercise, particularly weight-lifting, is a process of tearing and repairing muscle fibres, smoking will severely inhibit your body’s ability to put on muscle mass. Smoking, therefore, is just as detrimental to bodybuilders’ performance as it is to triathletes’.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. Chad Fuqua, a certified personal trainer at The Houstonian Club in Houston, Texas, noted that, at least amongst younger smokers, the ill-effects of smoking can be undone relatively quickly:

“Within a couple of weeks of quitting, as the carbon monoxide begins to filter out, people will begin to notice their endurance levels increase along with increased recovery time following their workouts. Within 3-6 months, lung capacity should improve by a minimum of 10 percent. Within 6-8 weeks, people will also notice their lean muscle mass increasing as more oxygen is getting to their muscles and aiding in the recovery process”.

If your workout routine’s stalled and you’re at loss as to why, it’s more than likely that it’s those cigarettes you smoke at the weekend or after a particularly tough day at the office that are holding you back. It’s not too late to mend your ways and increase your output, and with the rest of the country pulling together to give up, you could find yourself having more productive gym sessions come November.

 

(1)    Altarac, M, et al., “Cigarette Smoking and Exercise-Related Injuries Among Young Men and Women,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 18(Suppl 3):96-102, April 2000.

(2)    Silverstein, P, “Smoking and Wound Healing,” American Journal of Medicine 93(1A):22S-24S, July 1992

Jamie Waddell
Jamie Waddell is a men's lifestyle, technology and fitness writer based in London.