PROACTIVE APPROACH to a great threat…In the interest of sports, we feel compelled to spend some effort in the area of educating young, aspiring athletes, concerning the use of recreational drugs. The combination of use for both of these substances has ruined many careers. It is our hope that your generation of athletes begins to change this self destructive culture.

The American Athletic Institute has conducted studies in the area of recreational drug use and athlete performance. Here are some of the findings:

• TRAINING EFFECT: Every time you get drunk, you lose approximately 14 days of training effect.
• TRAINING HORMONES: Alcohol suppresses your training hormones for up to 96 hours (four days).
• PERFORMANCE POTENTIAL: The effect of recent heavy drinking lowers your performance potential by 11.4% before you even step on the field. This study was on National Team level athletes. It would be a far great effect on a college or high school athlete. Perhaps as much as 20-30% decrease in performance potential.
• MUSCLES: Your muscles will become fatigued quicker.
• LUNGS: Your breathing will be much heavier and you will hyperventilate much earlier in practice or a game.
• HEART: Your heart rate will be much higher and over time your cardiac output will decrease.
• MUSCLE FUELS: It will take you longer to reload muscle fuels (glycogen). Normally we can reload our muscles with fuels in 8-12 hours, but after drinking it can be 16-24 hours.
• RECOVERY: You will take much longer to recover from the stress of training.Normal recovery from maximal stress is 24 hours but after drinking, it can be 48-96 hours.
• DEHYDRATION: Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes you urinate.
• HORMONE CONVERSION: You cannot turn pre-hormones into training hormones.
• MUSCLE REPAIR: Your ability to repair damaged muscle is reduced.
• REFLEX: Alcohol slows down the reflex in regard to reaction time.
• REACTION: Alcohol affects reaction time and hand eye coordination which are primary functions in most sport.

• MOTIVATION and FOCUS: The ability to be highly focused and motivated is jeopardized by marijuana use.
• PROCESSING and MULTI TASKING: In sport many things happen continuously and simultaneously. Marijuana affects the brains complex ability to do many things at once and to sort out that inflowing input, establish priorities for action and response.
• VISUAL TRACKING and DEPTH PERCEPTION: Marijuana decreases the ability to determine accurate visual depth, or for example in sport, to tell how far or near an incoming object is or to determine at the same time, the velocity or speed at which it is traveling. This would be critical in making pre-movements, for instance, to catch an incoming pass or block a shot.
• REFLEX, REACTION, PRECISION and ACCURACY: Marijuana reduces reaction time to outside stimulus. Precision and accuracy are also affected.
• MYOGRAPHIC IMPULSES and BIOMECHANICS: Marijuana as an effect on the exactness of movements or biomechanics. This means our skill level is decreased.
• MOVEMENT MEMORY and COORDINATION: Marijuana effectsmovement memory, or the ability to remember the exact way to create skilled movements over and over. Missed movements or uncoordinated skills make you less effective.
• REROUTING FUNCTIONAL USERS: Players, who use marijuana regularly, become functional users. The human brain is so amazing that it basically learns how to reroute these functions and abilities that are affected by the chemicals to other parts of the brain, which have no ability to do those tasks. They take over and learn how to function as best they can, however it is far from optimal.