Fall

Spring

Does Alcohol Minimize Athletic

Performance
Gerardo Villarruel
Research and Techniques
Leslie J. Drake
April 4, 2016

Ottawa University

08
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Abstract
Students amongst the athletic population have had a higher increase in
consumption of alcohol. Especially when it comes to college athletics. Specifically, we
find 37 percent of respondents seem to have taken banned performance-enhancing drugs
(compared to 4.9 percent who directly admit to doing so when asked), and 46 percent
seem to have consumed more than five drinks in a week. . We look into many reasons
student athlete involved drinking can be debatable is alcohol may result in physical and
cognitive performance deficiency to the performance demands of the athlete. We analyze
the primary reasons of drinking which are observed in the collegiate athletes who are part
of the related problems, also looking into the external and internal motives. Previous
research has been conducted showing the acute consumption of reasonable levels of
alcohol, which did not affect muscular performance. How alcohol consumption
diminishes your cardiovascular system, although alcohol also affects thirst quenching,
rehydration, or social reasons. Muscle endurance also decreases because it lowers the
level of testosterone, which is the hormone in your body in charge of muscle bulk.
Muscular strength affected negatively by alcohol consumption, which causes the skeletal
muscle to weaken by tissue damage caused through lifetime.
Introduction
Alcohol consumption has been in all time high and college athletes have been
seen being more involved in use. College athletes are seen in situations and experiences
where they are faced with decisions on whether they drink or not. Negative affects
through out the body when using acute levels and chronic use, which cause damage to

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your cardiovascular system. Many reasons are brought up into affect where athletes
experience specific levels of stress amongst parents, family, coaches, and friends.
Student-Athlete Alcohol Use
Diana Doumas states in her article Alcohol-Related Consequences results that
the highest level of alcohol related consequences (Doumas 2013). This article was
intended for a scholarly audience with a higher level of education looking for research
purposes. There is not many bias in this paper since it states what current research shows.
The intention of this article is to inform the audience about student athletes consumption
of alcohol. Throughout the general college population, student athletes have a much
higher risk to be involved with heavy drinking. Student who are either involved in
athletic activity which can include varsity, intermural, and club sports can typically
increase the chances of drinking more heavily and also drinking more frequently than
non-athlete students. Many reasons student athlete involved drinking can be debatable is
alcohol may result in physical and cognitive performance deficiency to the performance
demands of the athlete. As well as athletic performance being the problem many other
problems may arise due to drinking for example academic and social problems,
suspensions or even team removal. Many explanations have been given on possible
reasons why student athletes are involved with drinking. Athletes face the stress that is
being demanded to them either by school or by their team, expectations from parents and
coaches, or even the basic stress of having to win (Doumas 2013).
Motives
Doumas also states in her article Alcohol-Related Consequences drinking
motives as predictors of alcohol-related consequences among student athletes and non-

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athletes (Doumas 2013). Motives for drinking have also been closely thought of and
reasons why a student athlete may catch himself drinking. External motives like drinking
to increase pleasure in social situations, maybe a party or any type of social gathering,
there is also the situations of possibly only drinking to avoid rejection of fellow
teammates. Internal motives like drinking to stabilize negative mood swings either
depression of some sort, drinking just to make yourself feel better. Primary reasons of
drinking are observed in collegiate athletes who endorse social and enhancement to cope
is the biggest predictor of alcohol related problems. Many of these motives are split into
four groups which correspond with reason why athletes may be seen drinking;
enhancement, social, coping, and conformity (Doumas 2013).
Drinking Situations
In the article, Alcohol and the Athlete OBrien discusses drinking of alcoholic
beverages involved with injuries amongst athletes. OBrien is a research at one of the top
universities researching this topic, much of hos information is for a scholarly audience
and includes no bias since he is only stating facts from research. Drinking and athletes
has been paralleled among each other for a long period of time. Alcohol has been the
most common used substance among athletes since ancient times. Suggestions show that
alcohol related injuries are more prevalent population due to risk taking mentality and the
age of the individual, the ages most commonly associated with drinking are 18-24 year
old males. Alcohol consumption also appears to have a causative effect in sports related
injury, with an injury incidence of 54.8% in drinkers compared with 23.5% in
nondrinkers (p < 0.005) (OBrien 2000).
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In Social Drugs Martin P. Schwellnus and Wayne E. Derman discuss alcohols
effects of the body as well as other substances (Schwellnus 2000). This article is intended
for a general audience who just is concerned about any type of drug. There might be a bit
of bias because it is opinionated and shows what the authors believe about social drugs.
Reason alcohol can be seen, as a social drug is major sport events promoting the use of
this substance through their supporters and spectators. These major sport events promote
the consumption for all type of viewers, like viewers from home or at a lesser extent to
those athletes or fellow athletes. An ethical question is whether these drugs should be
associated with sport, an activity that portrays health and vitality (Schwellnus 2000).
Acute Effects of Alcohol
Margaret Gutgesell and Randolph Canterbury both discuss in the article Alcohol
usage in sport and exercise effects of alcohol on human exercise and sport performance
through The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) (Gutgesell 1999). Their
research is intended to be for a scholarly audience researching acute effects of alcohol in
the body, as well as researching trying to find an article that includes no bias. Of course
have a different demand on the body towards the amount of performance, which is being
exerted. Exercise is a complex human activity that includes using a various amount of
your bodys organ system. Alcohol can have serious effects on some of these systems
including your central nervous system, muscle energy stores and the cardiovascular
system. Acute alcohol ingestion can exert a deleterious effect on psychomotor skills;
reaction time, eye-hand co-ordination, accuracy and balance (Gutgesell 1999). These
psychomotor skills can be impaired with the minor amount of alcohol consumption and
can lead to a clumsiness affect, which can lead to self-injury. Alcohol consumption causes

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vasodilation that is associated with reflex tachycardia, which causes your heart to beat at
an excessive rate.
Chronic Effects of Alcohol
In the article Alcohol usage in sport and exercise by Margaret Gutgesell and
Randolph Canterbury chronic effects of alcohol are also explained. Skeletal muscle loss
and cardiovascular performance begin to get impaired with long periods of consumption.
Their research is intended to be for a scholarly audience researching acute effects of
alcohol in the body, as well as researching trying to find an article that includes no bias.
Men may start to experience damage to their heart while women have a slimmer chance
or heart damage during a longer period of time. High blood pressure may begin to be a
problem, both males and females have relative risks of myocardial infarction (Gutgesell
1999).
Adolescent Alcohol Use
In the article When is Sort Participation Risky by Andrea E. Vest from Child
and Adolescent Development at Arizona State University she explains alcohol use
amongst high school students and the peer relations involved (Vest 2013). She provides
valuable information needed to determine alcohol use in adolescents. This article is
intended to the general public from anyone to parents, coaches, etc. because they might
be concerned. There is some bias since everyone might see different why adolescent
athletes experience drinking. Amongst alcohol students nearly 41% of all school seniors
have experimented with alcohol use in the last month. Adolescents who participate in
sports tend to use more alcohol then teens that are seen to be in non-sport activities (Vest
2013).

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One of the central theoretical perspectives that helps explain peer influence on
alcohol use is Banduras (1989) social learning theory, which suggest that adolescents
behavior is shaped by the behaviors of those around them (Vest 2013). Research has
shown that two central predictors of alcohol use in adolescents involve popularity and
their friends alcohol use. Other factors that may influence an adolescent in drinking
involve; friends, sport teammates, sport friends, non-sport friends and popularity as
mentioned before. Showing that adolescents tend to be more involved with alcohol
consumption if other people around them are.
College Athletes
Jason A. Ford from the Department of Sociology at the University of Central
Florida discusses in his article, Substance Use Among College Athletes college athletes
have a higher rate of substance use, especially alcohol (Ford 2007). Ford is very qualified
to publish this scholarly article with no bias just stating all of the facts he has gained from
his research. College athletes are at greater risks for alcohol use: Athletes report more
extreme styles of alcohol consumption, binge drinking at higher rates, are more likely to
binge when they drink, and get drunk more often (Ford 2007). Student athletes have
been described as a special population amongst students. Being able to also manage
success or even the lack of success or managing multiple relationships with coaches,
teammates, family, friends, teachers which increase the possibility of drinking highly.
Many of these things show a higher concern since college athletes must maintain a high
level of athletic performance while responding to stress.
Stephen Weiss from Adams State University discusses in his article, CrossAddiction On Campus discusses the college setting where an amount of frequent and

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heavy amount of alcohol consumption is used (Weiss 2010). For about two decades there
has been evidence growing that student-athlete behaviors tend to be more risky, abusive,
and maladaptive than those who are non-athletes. Indications show that college can serve
as a buffer against certain risk behaviors, which likely increase the likely of alcohol
consumption.
James N. Druckman from Northwestern University states in his article
Measuring Drug and Alcohol Use Among College Student Athletes (Druckman 2015).
Specifically, we find 37 percent of respondents seem to have taken banned performanceenhancing drugs (compared to 4.9 percent who directly admit to doing so when asked),
and 46 percent seem to have consumed more than five drinks in a week (compared to
about 3 percent who openly admit to doing so) (Druckman 2015).
Elite Student Athletes
In the article Sporting Activity and Drug Use by Patrick Peretti-Watel from the
Regional Centre for Disease Control of South-Eastern France discusses the likely hood of
drug and alcohol consumption amongst elite athletes (Peretti 2003). Published in 2003
this article may include some bias, which is being directed to anyone who is interested in
further information about elite student athletes. Elite student athletes (ESA) who are older
are more prone to drink alcohol at least once a month then other athletes. ESAs
practicing a team sport are also more likely to drink at higher levels (Peretti 2003).
Experiment Research
Matthew J. Barnes from Massey University School of Sport and Exercise
conducted some previous research that suggested athletes competing in sports involving
strenuous eccentric muscular work or those suffering from soft tissue injury should stay

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away from alcohol consumption. Barnes is very qualified to discuss this topic because he
has been involved with running experiments for many years. Publishing articles intended
more to a scholarly crowd stating no bias and only facts. Previous research that had been
conducted suggested that acute consumption of reasonable levels of alcohol did not affect
muscular performance in the days following a drinking session. The objective of Barnes
in his research was to investigate whether alcohol acts with muscle to magnify exerciseinduced muscle damage (EIMD).
They found twelve males who volunteered to participate in this study. Due to an
obvious learning affect the results of two males was dropped immediately from the
analysis, as the strength was higher then the pre-exercise that was being studied. The ten
males were age 23.5 5.1 years, body mass 169 28 pounds (Barnes). All of the ten
subjects were healthy and had at least two years of resistance training experience at a
recreational level at least twice a week making them good subjects to participate in the
study. Massey University Human Ethics Committee approved the protocol that was used
and each subject provided written consent. At least a week before the trail the subjects
were familiarized with the protocol and the subjects were told to stay away from alcohol
consumption and also any type of exercise for at least 48 hours and no more then 60
hours before the start of the test (Barnes). Fours hours after they ate a standardized solid
meal the subjects started to complete 100 eccentric muscular contraction of the
quadriceps muscle of one leg. They did three sets and each set was separated by five 5
minutes recovery time. Thirty minutes after finishing the exercise they consumed a
standardized meal again and subjects began drinking a drink containing 1 gram of alcohol
per kg of their body weight as vodka in orange juice (37.5% alcohol volume; Smirnoff)

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(Barnes). After the drinking of alcohol the other leg was exercised and other beverages
were consumed using the same process as before.
After finishing all of the exercises and checking all of the data that they obtained
that alcohol when consumed after strenuous eccentric exercise, an acute amount of
alcohol does magnify the temporary loss of muscular performance associate with
exercise-induced muscle damage but does not in any way affect performance in
unexercised muscles (Barnes). It showed that alcohol appears to impair the normal
recovery phases. The study gave evidence that the management of alcohol is important in
muscle performance and if optimal recovery of performance is required alcohol
consumption should not be involved.
Research
The article The effect of exercise, alcohol or both from the Department of
Medicine, Clinic and Policlinic, University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland and Department
of Physiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland by P. M. Suter. Suter who
published this article in 2008 is very qualified to discuss this topic because he has been
involved with running experiments for many years. Publishing articles intended more to a
scholarly crowd stating no bias and only facts. Asked themselves two question in the
things that they were researching: one, is alcohol a usable source of energy during
exercise and two, does alcohol as a fuel during exercise offer any advantage or
disadvantage over other energy substrates (Suter 2008). They explain how alcohol is
consumed on a daily basis by a major amount of the population. They talk about how
alcohol consumption diminishes your cardiovascular profile; also as many of us know its
no hidden secret that exercise increases and benefits your cardiovascular system but

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many people tend to use exercise as a moment to be involved with alcohol consumption
whether it is for thirst quenching, rehydrating, or just for social reasons. In this article
they have a full section on the effect of alcohol on exercise performance. The American
College of Sport Medicine on alcohol gave advice and athletic performance is to not be
involved with alcohol consumption, specifically before an exercise event. Alcohol in
acute consumption is only being discussed due to different effects from chronic
consumption.
These studies and research found that although it is well known that alcohol
promotes effect on the central nervous, muscle energy stores on the cardiovascular
system (Suter). No matter what alcohol is never used by the muscle as a source of energy,
the liver may use it for energy since it is the main place for alcohol oxidation. Something
I found very interesting while reading the article was they talked about how all of the
effects on alcohol were negative. There were a few exceptions on alcohol that might
benefit someones athletic performance these included: a decrease of pain and anxiety,
which might help you, get an edge in performance. Also they explained how acute
alcohol consumption involved with athletic performance could vary widely including
how the exercise would be performed, the type of exercise performed, intensity in the
exercise and its duration, nature of performance measured, and the training level. They
aimed at studying thirteen well-trained male cyclists, which included a 60 minute-trail,
and intensity in the workout more than 80% of VO2 max, where they performed after
drinking alcohol or a non-alcoholic beverage to measure the differences (Suter 2008).
Blood levels always remained low reaching 18mg per 100ml at the start of the exercise
and at the end not exceeding 20mg per 100ml, which is less than half of the Swiss legal

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value of driving a vehicle (Suter 2008). Although they werent huge differences the study
showed a significant decrease in average cycling power of individuals, averaging a 4%
decrease. These results also showed that consumption of an alcoholic beverage did
decrease athletic performance in those who participated in alcohol consumption before a
performance.
Research
The final article Negative effects of alcohol ingestion by Gail B. Reiken who is
an assistant professor of Movement Science and Leisure Studies at William Paterson
College in Wayne, New Jersey discusses how there are health related components of
physical fitness these include: cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, endurance, and body
composition which are the most important thing if a person wants to obtain and keep a
good health-related physical fitness (Reiken 1991). Reiken is very qualified to discuss
this topic because he has been involved with running experiments for many years.
Publishing articles intended more to a scholarly crowd stating no bias and only facts so is
work is taken seriously due to all the time that has been invested. The main discussion of
this article refers to how the consumption of alcoholic beverages affects pretty much
every organ in the body and every system of the body negatively. Explains how chronic
consumptions tends to change the heart and circulatory ways in many ways which have
no positive affect in the body causing the heart to work harder then actually needed
(Reiken). Muscular strength is also something that is negatively affected by alcohol
consumption, which causes the skeletal muscle to weaken by tissue damage caused
through a lifetime. Muscle endurance would also decrease because it would lower the
level of testosterone, which is the hormone in your body that is helps in the development

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of muscle bulk (Reiken 1991). Also alcohol has been shown to raise people pain
tolerance which could be an advantage to an individual it might cause someone to not
know how much exactly they are really damaging there body. Finally alcohol affects
performance in many weather conditions causing a person to be dehydrating and
potentially face serious injury.
Conclusion
Research has shown consumption of alcohol minimizes athletic performance. It
impairs skill levels as well as decreases cardiovascular performance, muscular
performance, and body compositions. Muscular strength is affected the most by
damaging muscles at a very rapid level. The study gave evidence that the management of
alcohol is important in muscle performance and if optimal recovery of performance is
required alcohol consumption should not be involved. Alcohol should not be used in
student athletes if optimal strength and power is desired and ultimate performance wants
to be reached.

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Work Cited
Barnes, M. J., Mndel, T., & Stannard, S. R. (2010). Post-exercise alcohol ingestion
exacerbates eccentric-exercise induced losses in performance. European Journal of
Applied Physiology, 108(5), 1009-14. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00421-0091311-3
Doumas, Diana M. "Alcohol-Related Consequences Among Intercollegiate Student
Athletes: The Role Of Drinking Motives." Journal Of Addictions & Offender
Counseling 34.1 (2013): 51-64. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Apr. 2016.
Druckman, James N., et al. "Measuring Drug And Alcohol Use Among College Student
Athletes." Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell) 96.2 (2015): 369-380.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 9 Apr. 2016.
Ford, Jason A. "Substance Use Among College Athletes: A Comparison Based On
Sport/Team Affiliation." Journal Of American College Health 55.6 (2007): 367
373. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Apr. 2016.
Gutgesell, Margaret, and Randolph Canterbury. "Alcohol Usage In Sport And Exercise."
Addiction Biology 4.4 (1999): 373. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Apr. 2016.
O'Brien, C.P., and F. Lyons. "Alcohol And The Athlete." Sports Medicine 29.5 (2000):
295-300. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Apr. 2016.
Peretti-Watel, Patrick, et al. "Sporting Activity And Drug Use: Alcohol, Cigarette And
Cannabis Use Among Elite Student Athletes." Addiction 98.9 (2003): 1249.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Apr. 2016.
Reiken, G. B. (1991). Negative effects of alcohol on physical fitness and athletic
performance. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 62(8), 64.

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Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/215766855?accountid=28502
Schwellnus, Martin P., and Wayne A. Derman. "Social Drugs" And Sports Performance:
Alcohol, Caffeine, And Nicotine." International Sportmed Journal 1.1 (2000): 1.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Apr. 2016.
Suter, P. M., & Schutz, Y. (2008). The effect of exercise, alcohol or both combined on
health and physical performance. International Journal of Obesity, 32, S48-52.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2008.206
Vest, Andrea E., and Sandra D. Simpkins. "When Is Sport Participation Risky Or
Protective For Alcohol Use? The Role Of Teammates, Friendships, And
Popularity." New Directions For Child & Adolescent Development 2013.140
(2013): 37-55. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Apr. 2016.
Weiss, Stephen. "Cross-Addiction On Campus: More Problems For Student-Athletes."
Substance Use & Misuse 45.10 (2010): 1525-1541. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 8 Apr. 2016.