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Drinking alcohol after sport is a social ritual that has become ingrained in Australian culture, and it seems professional athletes are no exception, despite being paid generously to be in peak physical condition.

Watching many types of professional sport in Australia, we’ll often see players drinking the sponsor’s brand of alcohol on camera after the match.

But given the state our bodies are in after exercise, and what alcohol does to our system, drinking after sport is a bad idea.

Fatigue and recovery following sport and exercise

High intensity actions such as running, jumping, tackling and changing direction . If the exercise is of long enough duration, the fuel stored in our muscles for energy (glycogen) .

In a hot or humid environment, the body also from sweating, reducing the blood volume (which is important for getting oxygen around to all our muscles and organs), and electrolyte stores (important for muscle contraction).

The body is in a state of dysfunction and repair after vigorous sport and exercise. Athletic qualities such as strength, power and endurance can be depleted for several days after an intense workout. This can be improved with appropriate and timely .

Not the drink of champions

Alcohol ingestion after sport and exercise worsens all major aspects of post-exercise recovery. Alcohol of exercise-induced muscle damage by of hormones that usually aid this process (such as testosterone).

For athletes with a soft tissue injury, it’s even worse, as alcohol and encourages swelling at the injury site.

It’s unclear if alcohol , but when athletes drink large quantities of alcohol, they tend to eat less nutritious foods (especially if they are sick the next day!).

This indirectly of energy stores in muscle. For those of us trying to shed a few kilos, alcohol is also a bad choice considering it’s highly energy-dense, with little nutritional value.

But if athletes are dehydrated, isn’t drinking something better than nothing? Alcohol is actually a diuretic that and contributes to dehydration.

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, when drinks containing 4% alcohol were ingested following exercise, there was an increase in urine output and a delay in the recovery rate of blood volume. Drinking nothing at all would be better.

Alcohol consumption is also known to when consumed after a rugby match, either directly through alcohol’s and staying asleep, or indirectly as a result of a late night on the town.

With poor sleep, impaired muscle repair, energy restoration and delayed rehydration, it’s not surprising drinking alcohol immediately after exercise significantly impairs recovery of both and in the following days. And we can assume the impact of a hangover on a training session would also be dire.

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What should we drink after sport and exercise?

With all the negative effects on rehydration and recovery, it’s not surprising the American College of Sports Medicine altogether.

Instead, to ingest a mixture of carbohydrate, protein and electrolyte immediately after sport and exercise to speed up the recovery process. For example, sports drinks and have both been demonstrated to assist muscle repair and rehydration.

A combination of plain water and foods containing these nutrients would also do the trick, but ingestion of large amounts of plain water on its own does not aid muscle repair, and without the addition of electrolytes, much of this water .

Given the money spent on staff dedicated to nutrition, sports science and medicine within professional sport, it’s hard to believe these messages are not getting through to the athletes. The athletes’ health should come before the demands of alcohol sponsors.

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, Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science,

This article was originally published on . Read the .