A small amount of alcohol in your diet can actually be beneficial. The problem is keeping it a small amount. One beer tends to lead to six. I've found that avoidance is easier than moderation. Let's face it we're all or nothing guys. If we weren't we wouldn't be so dedicated to building strength, BB or whatever the passion that brought you to this forum. When we party we tend to party hardy. I'm no exception.
Alcohol will definitely kill your gains when consumed in too great a quantity. Even if it's Saturday night that you get a little to liquored up it can still affect Monday's work out, which for me is chest and upper back, my favorite day bar none. I love to bench, just love it, always have.
When you get drunk you get dehydrated and you are also poisoning your body with the contaminants that the alcohol carries with it. Ethanol itself is a poison as well in high enough doses, but depending on the amount of contaminants in what you're drinking you will notice a different feeling the next day when drinking different alcoholic beverages (beer vs. whiskey for example). The point is that you dehydrate your muscles, which carries away glycogen and flushes things like creatine, ect. out of your system. So if you get hammered on Saturday night and spend Sunday recouperating you still won't be back to peak on Monday. It'll take you two-three days to get back to normal, let alone making gains.
I've experienced it enough first hand to just stay away while training hard, and I would definitely avoid it if I ever do make the decision to do a cycle. My experience is that you don't plan for the best in human nature, you prepare for the worst.
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Originally Posted by NMacFar
