A Man's Great Tragedy

Beer: your muscles worst nightmare?

Muscles are what make men quintessentially ‘manly’: we carry girls' bags and unscrew lids for them. It is an area of competition between men. Ordinary men arm wrestle with their mates, and those that prove their mettle at that can progress to fight against Swedes, Turks and Germans in the World’s Strongest Man competition.

Alcopops are for girls, guys drink lager

Beer is another characteristic of men. Alcopops are for girls: guys drink lager. Or, if you’re really manly, ale. Drinking is another area of competition amongst men, for everyone knows that no leisure activity can be the slightest bit fun unless there is something riding on it, like money or, even better, man points.

Boat races, pub golf, the yard of ale; the list of activities in which men engage to prove themselves more of a man than their mates is endless. Even a normal night down the pub turns into a competition. Who can drink the most without becoming inebriated? Who can down their drink quickest?

But at the heart of this preoccupation with muscles and beer is a great contradiction, for it seems that you can’t have great quantities of both at the same time. Alcohol is extremely detrimental to the process of getting lean, affecting muscle-building in several ways. Indulge me while I dazzle you with science and ruin the fun of drinking beer forever.

Alcohol limits the release of growth hormones, which are vital in developing muscles. With the decrease in growth hormones likely to be anything up to 70%, that’s some serious harm done to your potential guns. Alcohol also decreases the concentration of testosterone in the body. Its importance to the development of muscles is therefore best demonstrated by greater amount of muscle mass men carry than women. That’s two pretty major hormones in the muscle-building process that copious amounts of beer limit.

The bad news doesn’t stop there. The body has to expend energy in order to expel alcohol from the system. Logically, this leaves less available energy for the gruelling workout sessions that some men choose to subject themselves to.

What is it you want most: a six-pack or a six-pack of Fosters?

Is it not demoralising that a man cannot engage in one activity that he loves without having to forego the other? That a man determined to turn himself into the next Hunter or Saracen cannot cut loose on the lagers, or that a serious drinker will forever be unable to impress the ladies with his pulsing muscles?

I can’t say for certain, but I’m guessing that the majority of alcoholics are thin, weak specimens of men, and those who have managed to build up their muscles while drinking what they consider to be too much should be given short shrift and turned away from meetings. Every man I know that is restrained with his alcohol looks like they could compete with the best arm wrestlers around. The clear assumption is that men must choose between two of the things they covet most. What is it you want most: a six-pack or a six-pack of Fosters?

This is the great tragedy of being a man. Women may complain about the pains of childbirth or the tribulations of the menopause, but no woman has to choose between two of the things that come most naturally to them. No woman must give up one activity vital to their gender in order to fully devote herself to the other. No, this pain is reserved for men alone. And we don’t bear it well. Those who choose top-notch guns and pecks and those who plump for the lure of alcohol and drunken oblivion divide into separate, mutually suspicious camps. At the root of this divide is jealousy.

The grass is always greener on the other side, and both side yearns for what the other has got. Like being separated from a twin at birth and having the feeling that something is missing, skinny drinkers the world over with horrendous hangovers ache to be just like the muscled jock that jogs past their window. In the same way, said jock feels a deep sense of loss every time he sees said skinny drinker, now recovered from his hangover, drinking too much, abusing passers-by and doing things he’ll regret later. Thus is the inevitable result of forcing men to make an impossible choice. Evolution has made every man only half-satisfied, denied either the muscles he craves or the cold beer he wants just as much.

Clearly, it is possible to enjoy the odd beer while still working towards the body you, and the ladies' desire. But constraint isn’t fun, and it certainly isn’t manly. Constraint won’t win you any drinking contest of any sort. Hell, it’s so unmanly that there isn’t even a game based around it. Last One To Finish Their Pint Wins, anyone? But in exercising what should be a manly right to drink too much, a man thus prices himself out of competing ably in games of strength. Similarly, there are no games of any sort based on weakness. Proving yourself to be a weakling doesn’t make you more of a man. This is an inherent contradiction at the very heart of what it is to be a bloke. It can also only serve to encourage drug use.

For the record, I chose pints over weights. I don’t regret my choice, except on the odd morning. But I do have to look at that guy flexing his muscles with an expression of envy. Part of me wishes I could have biceps like that, that I could carry my girlfriend's bag for her, open the ketchup bottle without asking for help or move a chest of drawers without sweating like a pig.

Part of me yearns for muscles that I could be proud of. And I’m pretty sure that when that guy sees me necking my seventh pint, winning pub golf or vomiting outside a nightclub, part of him wishes he could do that too.

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