Can Athletes Combine Smoking and Peak Performance?

Nothing sparks more curiosity than paradoxes and contradictions. A prime example is the athlete who smokes.

You’ve likely seen this in films or even in real life—the strong, physically capable individual who can run long distances yet is also a heavy smoker.

This puzzling mix raises the question: Can someone truly perform at their best while regularly smoking cigarettes? And further, how realistic is it to maintain this lifestyle in the long run?

In today’s post, we’ll explore the relationship between smoking and athletic performance, from running to weightlifting and beyond.

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How Smoking Affects Running and Physical Performance

If you’ve ever gone for a jog, you know how demanding it can be. But for smokers, those first few minutes often feel brutal—lungs burn, breathing becomes shallow, and muscles quickly grow fatigued.

Smoking takes a heavy toll on an athlete’s cardiovascular system, lung capacity, and oxygen levels.

Let’s break down how cigarettes affect each area.

Cardiovascular Health and Endurance

Every coach will emphasize the importance of strong heart and lung health in building endurance.

Your cardiovascular and respiratory systems work together to supply energy and focus during any activity, whether it’s running, lifting weights, or even physically demanding jobs that require constant movement.

Pushing your body—whether by sprinting faster, lifting heavier, or working with little rest—naturally elevates your heart rate and breathing.

For athletes who smoke, however, years of damage and vessel constriction reduce both stamina and performance. Their endurance simply cannot compare to that of a non-smoker.

That said, some athletes do adapt, appearing physically fit despite their smoking habits. But adaptation comes with a cost—dependence on nicotine and significantly higher health risks. In fact, smoking doubles the risk of heart attack compared to non-smokers.

Additionally, professional teams competing at national or international levels are unlikely to recruit athletes whose performance may be compromised by smoking or similar habits.

Lung Function and Blood Oxygenation

Cigarette smoke contains thousands of toxic chemicals, many of which are known to cause cancer. These not only damage the lungs but also impair performance, even in athletes who seem resilient.

Smoking compromises both cardiovascular and respiratory systems. The carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke replaces oxygen in the bloodstream, drastically lowering consistency and stamina for athletic performance.

Beyond reduced lung capacity, long-term smokers who maintain an athletic lifestyle face heightened risks of severe conditions like cancer, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema.

Continuing to smoke while pursuing physical excellence puts athletes on a dangerous path that can limit both their performance and their health.

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