Key takeaways
- Athletes smoking and performing peak physical performance.
- Smoking affects cardiovascular health, endurance, lung function.
- It impairs muscle recovery, mental focus, motivation.
- Quitting smoking improves health, muscle recovery.
- Consult GP, use NRTs, vaping for help.
Nothing is much more interesting than contradictions or paradoxes. One such case is that of an athlete who smokers.
You’ve probably seen it in movies and real life. The athlete or physically powerful individual can run quite a mile, but is a heavy smoker.
This odd combination may have you think, “Is it possible to attain peak performance even when consuming cigarettes?“ and probably how sustainable it is for anyone to keep up with this kind of lifestyle.
Let’s learn more about smoking and running, lifting, and other athletic activities in today’s post.
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How Smoking Affects Running and Physical Performance
You’ve probably tried jogging or running at least a few times. If you’re a smoker, the first five minutes will have had you panting for sure – your lungs feel like they’re burning, and your muscles are aching everywhere.
Smoking will have taken its toll on an athlete’s blood vessels, lungs, and oxygenation levels. Let’s take a closer look at the effects of cigarette smoking on each one.
Cardiovascular Health and Endurance
Any coach will say that to build endurance, you’ll need to have a strong heart and lungs.
The cardiovascular and respiratory system will work hard to give you the energy and focus you need to power physically through any run or lift.
Lifting something heavier than usual, running faster than you normally would, or even doing anything, such as bussing tables with minimal rest, will increase your heart rate and breathing frequency.
Due to the damage and constriction in their heart and lungs, athletes who have been smoking for a long time will have lower endurance than their non-smoking counterpart. Their aerobic performance and endurance is miles apart.
However, it’s entirely possible for athletes to adapt to smoking and running. They can look physically fit once their body adapts to cigarettes.
Unfortunately, that also means they’ll always need and crave cigarettes and are putting themselves in unnecessary risks. Smoking doubly increases anyone’s risk of a heart attack than that of a non-smoker.
Furthermore, any professional team competing in national or international events won’t consider athletes who are at high-risk of unpredictable performance due to smoking and other vices.
Lung Function and Blood Oxygenation
The thousands of dangerous chemicals in cigarette smoke are life-threatening and are the major cause of cancer. They also affect everyone’s lungs, even the perceived strong lungs of an adapted athlete who smokes.
Both your cardio and respiratory systems are affected by smoking. The carbon monoxide in cigarettes displaces oxygen delivered by your blood, significantly affecting the endurance and consistency of an athlete who smokes.
Aside from impaired lung function, athletes who keep smoking are at a high risk of developing lethal health problems, such as cancer, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema among others, if they continue their athletic activity while consuming cigarettes.
Muscle Recovery and Improvement
With insufficient oxygen sent to their muscles, athletes who smoke have reduced stamina and a poor capacity to repair any micro-tears to their muscles (which are needed to build strength), significantly affecting their physical performance.
Moreover, constricted blood vessels limit the nutrients they supply to various muscles, delaying their healing process.
Combined with how smoking also causes chronic muscle inflammation, a smoking athlete’s body will take a while before it can recover and start building new muscle.
While some athletes can still smoke and compete, their developmental trajectory is unpredictable, making them unappealing to many amateur and professional teams. So, if you want to go pro, it’s advised that you stop smoking for good first.
It’s a good thing that studies show joining a team that doesn’t smoke will most likely urge you to stop smoking for good too.
How Smoking Affects Mental Performance
To be a good athlete, it takes more than being able to run fast, recover your muscles efficiently, and keep up with the competition. Many top athletes have sharp minds that adapt and are motivated to break their limits, further boosting their physical aspects.
The chemicals in cigarette smoke and nicotine addiction also impair the mental and emotional health of athletes in various ways.
Focus and Motivation
Nicotine is the main culprit of cigarette addiction. If you haven’t smoked and had your nicotine hit for more than few hours, your body will strongly crave it.
For athletes who train multiple hours a day, nicotine withdrawals will become an immense distraction. In most cases, they’ll most certainly ask for breaks just to smoke.
This may affect tight team practice schedules and overall performance over time.
It’s also not a good look for any professional team. Having an athlete who smokes will affect everyone’s morale and also isolate them as a team member, especially if they’re stubborn in not attempting to quit.
Teams with an isolated team member will most likely consistently lose against healthy and unified opposing athletic groups.
Stress Level Management
Smoking is wrongly perceived as helpful for stress management. Athletes may also have the same idea — doing daily training and exhausting your mental and physical capabilities is greatly stressful.
And, their excuse is that smoking a cigarette gives them relief from this pain. This isn’t true.
Smoking only gives relief to nicotine withdrawals in exchange for plenty of health risks. In the case of athletes, we can add that it increases the risk of their poor performance.
The athlete might feel relieved for a short period. They may feel calm and light until the hit of nicotine wears off. During several hours without nicotine, they might notice their stress levels increase and their physical pain much more intense than before.
Looking into the future, the continuous cycle of nicotine addiction affects their performance significantly. Without quitting cigarettes, they won’t have any means to calm down without a hit of nicotine.
Anxiety and Depression
Smoking has always been associated with increased anxiety and depression. A smoker’s hijacked reward system makes them feel that nothing is better than lighting a cigarette, further reinforcing the habit and making them feel miserable without it.
Athletes who are often physically and mentally tired have a higher chance of being depressed and anxious than their non-smoking counterparts.
Facing consistent stress without the right kind of relief after every training session, athletes do not feel rewarded in running or lifting weights – the body doesn’t release endorphins doing them.
Instead, their bodies depend on nicotine to release it and dopamine.
With an impaired natural reward system that motivates us to improve and reach our goals, it’s rare for any athlete to keep smoking while shooting hoops or kicking some goals and hope to enhance their capabilities.
Helping An Athlete Quit Smoking for Good
There’s no doubt that an athlete who stops smoking improves their health, recovers their muscles faster, and makes them better team players with high growth potential over time.
But, it’s important to recognise that nicotine addiction, even for athletes, is very challenging to handle. By providing them with the right kind of help, you can help them quit for good.
Consulting a GP
GPs have helped many smokers, including athletic ones, for decades to stop smoking for good. They can create a tailor-made smoking cessation and nicotine abstinence programme for any athlete – even putting into consideration their training schedules and other small details – to help them find success on their quit journey.
A GP can also prescribe various quitting aids to support an athletic smoker keep their head up during the strongest of withdrawals and cravings
Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) Products
NRT products are the gums, lozenges, and patches athletes could use to keep themselves afloat during strong withdrawal periods. They’re also handy in helping them concentrate if they can’t focus during practice sessions.
Nicotine Vaping Products (NVPs) from Pharmacies
Some athletes don’t find NRT products helpful with their cravings, so GPs can prescribe them the second-line option – NVPs from pharmacies.
Unlike their illegal counterparts, NVP products sold in pharmacies are made under stringent pharmaceutical standards on the manufacturing process and ingredients, are toxicologically assessed for inhalation, are locally insured, and are specifically designed to help you stop smoking.
The latest Cochrane Review found high-certainty evidence that NVPs are more effective than NRT in helping people stop smoking.
Summary
It’s rare to see an athlete who smokes and runs, and while it’s quite something to look at, athletes who smoke (and those who don’t) must always remember that smoking will never let them reach their full potential as professional athletes because their physical and mental capabilities will continue to drift downward due to smoking.
So, quit smoking today and start seeing some outstanding gains in your next practice.
We know you’re reading this because you or someone you know is athletic and stresses that smoking does not affect their performance. We hope you found this information helpful. We can also help improve anyone’s chances of living a smokefree lifestyle.
Smokefree Clinic gives you access to many medically reviewed and trustworthy resources that can inform and aid you in your path to wellness, so have a look around!
If you’re ready to get started, Smokefree can connect you to Australian healthcare professionals who excel in helping patients quit smoking for good.
Link Reference
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11010434/
- https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpendo.00543.2002
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743523002323
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5153470/
- https://www.cochrane.org/news/latest-cochrane-review-finds-high-certainty-evidence-nicotine-e-cigarettes-are-more-effective