Research

Hormonal

Acute ingestion of alcohol (1.09 g ethanol/kg lean mass) immediately after heavy resistance exercise significantly attenuates post-exercise mTOR and S6K1 phosphorylation in resistance-trained men, thereby blunting the signaling pathway responsible for muscle protein synthesis.

If you train hard, avoid drinking alcohol for at least 3 hours after your workout. This study shows that alcohol blunts the specific cellular signals (mTOR) your body needs to build muscle. If you must drink, wait until several hours post-exercise to minimize the interference with your training adaptations.

ModerateRefutesMEDIUM confidence
The major finding of this study was that post-exercise alcohol ingestion attenuated RE-induced mTOR and S6K1 phosphorylation 3 hours after a bout of RE in resistance-trained men, indicating decreased activity of these protein kinases within the mTOR signaling pathway.
Chris McGlory et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 2016

Why this rating

Small sample size (n=10), acute single-bout design, and specific to resistance-trained men; lacks long-term hypertrophy data.

Source

Skeletal muscle and resistance exercise training; the role of protein synthesis in recovery and remodeling

Chris McGlory et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 2016

DOI 10.1152/japplphysiol.00613.2016

narrative_reviewCited 131×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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