punching bags and alcohol

I've been thinking, alcohol disrupts hypertrophy training, but it also gets in the way of martial arts? Especially in relation to the force of the blows.

 

Alcohol lowers blood pressure and raises heart rate, so everything becomes harder work.

When I was a young man and drinking often, I would quite enjoy a run at the end of the night. It made it physically more difficult but I cared less about gassing, so it was an interesting effect.

 

this reminds me of my younger days, we'd often the the night on a run, usually convincing each other it would be cheaper than a taxi, but then taking detours.

 

I might be speaking complete nonsense, but alcohol relaxes you and relaxes your muscles so you might get better form/blows onto the bag. I have been told many times I am too rigid/stiff when punching and the ultimate trick to the perfect punch is relaxing your muscles completely which the alcohol may aid you in getting.

 

Well, you are named after a whiskey, so I think you might be biased.

The aim of powerful punching is not to relax your muscles completely. You wouldn't even make contact with the bag, let alone hit it harder. The aim is to contract agonist muscles with as much speed and force as possible while keeping antagonist muscles relaxed.

 

Even in the seemingly unrelated sport of darts, where they even used to consume alcohol during professional competitions, the professional level has seen a significant adjustment over time.

On stage, however, it has been unlawful to consume alcohol while watching a game since 1989.

Combat Sports are risky and should be treated seriously, thus a fighter must give their all before engaging in a match.

They all have that one performance where they feel they might have fought better, and this disappointment seems to remain with them. This is true of many boxers as well.

 

Developing power involves engaging the kinetic chain (foot, leg, hip, shoulder, arm, etc) in a coordinated manner. One part linked to the others.
Alcohol degrades coordination so is very unlikely to aid in power generation.
The only way I can see it helping is in lowering inhibitions so you put everything into it and so aren't holding anything back.

 

This may seem extreme but overwhelmingly, coach advise in boxing is to stay 100% away from alcohol, for many reasons that should not be too surprising.

Between cognitive decline, inflammation, dehydration just for starters, it's safe to say that people who drink make poorer decisions, and few places shine a lamp on that better than a boxing gym. Forget long term issues like hypertrophy limits, you risk short term, same day issues with alienating people, having a cardiac arrest, or at best, not hitting your potential. But generally, you'll be slower, cloudier, and more sluggish.

It's not even good to drink after training, which many do for anesthetic purposes. it basically shuts down all sorts of important health and recovery processes, not the least of which is burning excess fat, before you even get to the neurochemical issues like GABA suppression, the so called "hyper aroused" state. It's important to balance the body, chemically, and combining hard training with alcohol is going into opposite extremes, burning the candle on both ends, whatever you want to call it.

I'm no angel and the last to lecture people on their consumption, except in this one case. Alcohol is bad for training, and forget about fighting, if you're drunk and fighting you already lost more than a fight.

 

Reminds me of a few times getting home after nights out.. usually when it was really cold, a particular New Years Eve being a memorable one.. Would break into a run and would find myself unable or unwilling to stop.. You're right it's like more stamina would magically appear, when you know it shouldn't.

A bit like the ability to take more of a beating the drunker one is.. (it never happened to me!)
Had to dish one out once, I thought the guy would never stay down, it was ridiculous.

 

Have you looked at the practices of Zhan Zhuang/standing post? Its a good starting point for becoming aware of areas of residual tension in the body and working conciously on releasing it.