During the metabolizing process, your liver is depleted of glycogen, meaning your body has less glycogen stores.
"The next morning after you have had a few drinks, you have less carbohydrate stores, so endurance tends to be lower," says Georgie Fear, RD, author of Lean Habits For Lifelong Weight Loss: Mastering 4 Core Eating Behaviors to Stay Slim Forever (April 2015). "In addition to a lower amount of endurance, you're more susceptible to getting low blood sugar during athletic performance."
Because of this, Fear tells her athletes if they're going to have a couple of glasses of wine, don't do it the night before a long run or 5-hour bike ride. You want your body to be storing up as much glycogen as it can.
More: 9 Foods That Boost Metabolism Naturally
Effects on Muscle Recovery
When it comes to recovery, experts often reference dehydration once again.
Turner says alcohol extends recovery time, because you actually are going to be promoting more dehydration when drinking it. Campos agrees, and adds that you should postpone your celebratory alcohol after a race or long workout until after you have gotten yourself adequate food and water, post-event.
"You need to go through the recovery and hydration process, first," Campos says.
Alcohol will slow recovery because your body operates as a unit, not a single system. According to Campos, when your liver is engaged and metabolizing the alcohol in your system, it can also engage your digestive system and kidneys—as they all work together—and affect recovery.
More: 17 Proven Ways to Speed Muscle Recovery
Overall Health
In addition to hindering muscle recovery and future workouts, alcohol also affects your overall health.
"If you're drinking in the evening and are having multiple drinks, it can affect sleep," Turner says. "It affects your rapid eye movement sleep, which is where a lot of recovery happens. REM is where the immune system gets rejuvenated, so that could affect muscle synthesis."
Turner also notes other health risks, such as an increase in heart disease and diabetes risk factors for those who drink too much (more than one drink per day for women and more than two drinks per day for men).
You don't need to completely abstain from alcohol to lead a healthy lifestyle, but it's important to remember the potential downfalls the next time you reach for a drink.
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