Does Smoking Affect Exercise Performance?

Smoking and exercise are two opposite lifestyle choices. Where the one damages cells, tissues, vital organs, and increases the risk of developing serious health complications, the other helps keep blood flowing, muscles strong, and the body healthy.

Can smokers exercise, too? Does it affect performance? The short answer is yes. Smoking is a destructive habit that wreaks havoc on the lungs in particular, which are responsible for the gas exchange that keeps your blood rich with oxygen and removes waste products. If you can’t breathe correctly, your muscles simply won’t function correctly or for as long.

If you’re planning on reaching your ultimate workout goals, you might want to ditch your smoking habit first. Here’s how smoking affects your performance.

What’s In A Cigarette?

To better understand why smoking is a such a destructive habit, we need to take a closer look at what’s in a single cigarette. The ugly truth is that cigarettes contain about 3-7,000 chemicals, so we’ll just name a few of the more toxic ones for your consideration.

• Formaldehyde ( for preserving your good looks, of course)
• Arsenic (just in case you’re feeling too healthy)
• Hydrogen cyanide (that’s rat poison, by the way)
• Acetone (in case you want to strip some paint off of the inside of your lungs)
• Butane (need lighter fuel?)
• Ammonia (at least your lungs will look clean, right?)
• Cadmium (for your car battery)
• Tar (in case you’re paving your driveway)
• Uranium (for energy)

This is only a small percentage of the dangerous chemicals and additives found in cigarettes. Most of these chemicals are found in or created by the chemical fertilizers and pesticides used on tobacco crops, which then find their way into tobacco products.

How can a body function properly with these awful chemicals flowing through it? Anything you inhale through your lungs will enter your bloodstream, as the gas exchange between blood vessels occurs there. The bottom line? Things like formaldehyde, uranium, and acetone aren’t helping you reach peak performance.

Tissue Hypoxia

Smoking compromises both lung function and red blood cell function. Your red blood cells are responsible for transporting precious oxygen to organs and tissue and removing the waste products they create (including carbon dioxide). Tissue hypoxia refers to a lack of oxygen within the tissue, and guess what precious resource your muscle tissue needs during a workout?

Without proper oxygenation, most organs and muscle tissues will function at a lower capacity. You’ll find that you can’t lift as heavy, run as long, or push yourself as much as you’d like to at the gym if you’re a smoker. Your body simply can’t get enough oxygen due to the incredible number of chemicals and toxins present in your blood and the damage you’ve already done to your heart and lungs.

When the body struggles to get enough oxygen, fatigue sets in rather quickly. After all, your body depends on oxygen to ensure cellular function, and without it, the body goes into overdrive. Your heart works harder, your lungs work harder, and you generally have a rough time catching your breath and getting your workout done.

Heart Function

The lungs oxygenate blood and exhale waste products and the heart circulates the blood throughout the body. When you’re a smoker, your blood pressure is significantly higher than non-smokers, which means your heart is already working harder than it should be. When you exercise, you’re working your heart in a healthy way; the two are simply incompatible.

High blood pressure can damage blood vessels and cause cardiac tissue damage as well. When your heart is already damaged and you send it into overdrive with an intense workout, you could cause stroke, heart attack, or other complications.

Your body is struggling to maintain proper functionality when you’re a smoker. While you certainly mean well with your workout routine, you’ll probably want to ditch the smoking habit before you try to make a health-conscious decision like creating a workout routine so you’re not working against yourself the entire time.

Quitting Today

With alternatives like tobacco-free products (like on https://blackbuffalo.com/), nicotine gum, vape pens, and more, giving up smoking cigarettes is easier than ever. There are thousands of resources available online to help get you started and see you through to the end of your cessation journey. The sooner you quit, the quicker you can jump into your workout routine and get into the best shape of your life.

Remember that smoking and working out are inherently incompatible. You can’t expect to get anywhere if you’re constantly damaging your body with cigarettes! There’s never been a better time to quit, and you owe yourself and your body better than what you’re giving with cigarettes. Don’t become another statistic; drop the cigarette habit and take control of your personal health once and for all.