I have a couple of guy’s that use plenty of juice and lift a ton of weight and eat clean . They also smoke, they say it doest effect anything because there such clean eaters and sleep well. Does any one else smoke and think it doesn’t effect there gains . These guy’s are real gym rats . We lift 5 days a week and do all the cardio we need to , I don’t smoke my self because I think this is a life style . They think I’m crazy becuase I don’t party like a rock star like they do. Just wondering if any one else have friends like this .
Smoking contains SO MANY carcinogens. Maybe it isn’t hurting their gains right now, but it’s seriously deteriorating their long-term health.
Here’s a little story…
My grandma, as long as I can remember, was a dynamo. She had ceramics and porcelain classes in her basement, ran a little porcelain doll business, did Mary Kay, drove everywhere herself, etc. She was lean and appeared to always be in good shape. As long as I can remember, she never smoked.
However, she smoked heavily when she was younger, I found out later. Just a few years ago, she started slowing down considerably. Pretty soon she had to take hits of oxygen multiple times during the day. Eventually, she had to have heart surgery, though I’m not sure of exactly was done. Even after heart surgery, which helped her breathing considerably, she still needs to hit the oxygen several times a day.
Her doctor says it’s the smoking she did earlier in life finally catching up with her. It’s sad, because she’s such a vibrant, lively old lady. But you can’t do that to your body for long without paying some price.
I think that this is a great question, and I have never seen it asked on this site.
I can tell you, as a smoker that smoking defiantly hurts my gains, and without a doubt my endurance. Anytime I do drop sets, pyramid sets, super sets, and whatever else, my cardiovascular, and repertory system can’t keep up. Therefore my lifts probably aren’t as heavy as they should be.
I don’t know the science behind it, but smoking is also used to help lose, or control weight gain (throw some Nicorett into your weight loss routine), so it makes gaining weight for a hard-gainer that much harder.
I know what you’re thinking, if I’m serious about lifting, and I know that smoking is putting possible restrictions on my chances of becoming the next Mr. O then why do I still do it. I don’t know. I don’t have any bad habits aside from this one, but I just can’t seem to kick it.
My advice for everyone is don’t even try. It’ll grab you by the balls before you know it.
Out of all the people I know personally, or through magazines who have physics I admire, I have never heard ONE of them say that they smoke!
You want to know just how much effect smoking has on health? Just ask anyone who trains, who has successfully quit, how they felt before, and after. Odds are they will tell you there is a huge difference.
[quote]Prisoner#22 wrote:
You want to know just how much effect smoking has on health? Just ask anyone who trains, who has successfully quit, how they felt before, and after. Odds are they will tell you there is a huge difference. [/quote]
yup, i’ll vouch for that. when i quit smoking way back in high school my workouts were unlike anything that i had experienced before. and the results just sped up, big time. and back then i didn’t even know wtf i was doing in regards to training and nutrition.
so ya, there’s some anectoal evidence for you… for whatever it’s worth.
It will undoubtably affect peak performance. Sure if they quit they would problably improve maybe a little, maybe alot. If they are happy with what they are doing, more power to them. It better to train, eat clean and smoke, then to just plain smoke.