How does smoking affect sport performance?

Answer 1

Smoking significantly decreases your sporting ability mainly through your lungs. As it decreases your lung capacity which means you cannot get enough oxygen to your muscles. one of the main impacts of smoking on athletic performance is a decrease in lung function, leading to a decrease in stamina and performance as muscles that get inadequate oxygen become fatigued more quickly.

Answer 2

In the short term it will affect your lung capacity and ability to get enough oxygen to support the physical exertion of sports. It will also affect your bodies ability to process the lactic acid in your muscles leading to lower performance. In the long term it will permanently damage and destroy lung tissue which will never recover.

Answer 3

Smoking makes your lungs look like burnt steak. And you can die.
(The good news is that even if your lungs are pretty black from smoking, then, if you stop, your lungs will do their best to recover).

Cigarette smoke has many unpleasant contents; and one of the worst is carbon monoxide, CO. CO is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas that is highly toxic. Whereas oxygen, O2, attaches to red blood cells in the lungs and then detaches readily at the destination, CO attaches more strongly and won't ever let go! So those red cells to which CO clings are rendered useless; and only when the cells die (after about six weeks) and are excreted, does the CO leave the body.


Any inhalation of CO is harmful and will affect the body's performance; and it follows that if you inhale enough CO, you will contaminate more and more red cells, and you will die.


CO also occurs in the exhaust of petrol (gasoline) engines. If you start to feel headachey and drowsy, you should suspect CO, and open the car windows to get some fresh air.