How smoking and exercise work together

How does nicotine affect the body

Nicotine works as a stimulant: it increases the release of norepinephrine and inhibits its reuptake. Due to this, the sympathetic nervous system is activated - the resting heart rate increases and the pressure rises.

Nicotine also improves cognitive functions: concentration, attention and working memory, promotes an increased release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that provides pleasant sensations.

All this contributes to the emergence of addiction.

Nicotine can be obtained not only through smoking tobacco, but also through placing it on the mucous membrane (snus, snuff), as well as with the help of nicotine replacement therapy - in the form of tablets, chewing gum, patches, sprays.

Such forms are more often used by athletes to obtain - in their opinion - some kind of positive effects. But since most people get nicotine more often from cigarettes, we start with smoking.

How smoking affects overall endurance

Since smoking increases resting heart rate, cardiac contractility, and cardiac output (the amount of blood that is pumped out of the heart per minute), it seems to help aerobic work. After all, the more blood the heart pumps, the more oxygen will be delivered to the muscles. But in reality, there is no advantage.

After smoking, the amount of carbon monoxide (CO), or carbon monoxide, increases in the blood. It binds to hemoglobin and prevents it from carrying oxygen.

In smokers, the body is supplied with oxygen less efficiently, which hits the sports performance.

This is especially important for sports in which the main work falls on the leg muscles: running, cycling, skiing, skating. In one study, researchers compared how smoking affects endurance while working with arms and legs. It turned out that if people smoked before pedaling with their feet, they got tired much faster than non-smokers, but there was not much difference when working with their hands.

The fact is that there are much more slow muscle fibers in the legs, which require oxygen to work. Therefore, the lack of oxygen after smoking greatly reduces the possibilities: you get tired faster and can do less.

How smoking affects strength training

The effect on strength training is not as pronounced as in the case of endurance sports. Smokers even have a slightly increased ability to voluntarily tense their muscles. In the end, though, this does not affect the ability to generate force.

Scientists found no difference in maximum strength, muscle mass, muscle contraction, muscle capillary volume, and short-term muscle endurance in smokers and nonsmokers.

The difference comes when strength endurance comes into play - the ability to produce strength over time. Here smokers lose to non-smokers: their muscles get tired faster.

Scientists suggest that this effect is due to a decrease in the activity of cytochrome oxidase, an enzyme that is involved in creating energy in the mitochondria of cells. This is confirmed by a study conducted with twins: with the same genetic profile, amount of muscle mass and strength, smokers' siblings fatigued their muscles faster than those who did not smoke.

Thus, if you are doing a set with high weights and low reps, smoking will not provide a negative effect, but if you work on multi-repetitions, you will do less than if you did not smoke.

The effect does not depend on gender, number of cigarettes per day and smoking history. If you smoke, your muscles will tire faster.

But there is good news: cytochrome oxidase activity returns to normal within 7–28 days after quitting cigarettes.

How other forms of nicotine affect performance in sports

Many athletes, especially in team sports - hockey, American football, baseball - take nicotine in non-smoking forms, hoping for an ergogenic effect. However, a meta-analysis on the effects of nicotine on athletic performance did not support its benefit.

Of the 16 studies, only two showed an improvement in performance: one noted a 17% increase in endurance, and the other a 6% increase in peak torque. In other works, scientists did not find any effect.

Recall that the studies involved people without addiction, and even on them nicotine did not have much effect.

If you are used to receiving this stimulant, you should not expect any effect at all.

This may be why the use of nicotine is not prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. What is the point of prohibiting, if there is still no sense from it?