Improve your waterskiing this summer by taking a beer break

I’m taking the summer off from drinking alcohol. This is not a super easy decision for me– I love summer in the midwest, and I love craft beer. Craft beer PLUS summer has always been a no-brainer pairing for me in the past, being the first thought related to grill-outs, lakeside campfires, and adorable Northwoods pubs. However, as I’ve grown older I’ve come to realize that beer can directly affect my MOST favorite thing in the summer, which is slalom water skiing. One of the two must go.

What quantity of consumption am I talking about here, anyway? Very specifically I’m talking about having a few craft beers most nights, and maybe a little heavier on weekends. That’s it. I’m not talking about being a brown-bag alcoholic under a bridge somewhere. If you have a serious problem with drinking, this article is not for you and you need to see a doctor. I am not a doctor (nor a lawyer for that matter, FWIW). Let’s say for the purposes of this article we are talking about 8–14 craft beers (or glasses of wine, or whatever your poison is) a week.

Alcohol is a class 1 carcinogen (and processing it in your body creates another one, Acetaldehyde) and the safest amount of alcohol recommended by a recent global study is none. I could go on and on about all the negatives of alcohol but I’m going to try to stay in my waterski-related lane here. Let’s just say ethanol is good as a fuel for combustion or as a disinfectant but it is poisonous to humans and not great for skiing. This is in stark contrast to what I observed during my 1980’s childhood where we were told to “Say No” to drugs but alcohol was generally billed as a fairly harmless social pleasantry and a “privilege” of being a grown-up. There was even a big marketing push back then to bill wine as being healthy and good for the heart! That’s the power of marketing for you. I suppose everyone still smoked back then, too, and even that was considered pretty normal.

Enough background, let’s get into it. Here’s what alcohol affects for me personally related to my favorite sport:

1. This is a morning sport. There is nothing better than skiing on on a glass-calm lake with no other boaters in sight. No matter what the weather is going to be later in the day, mornings are generally calm and if you ski public water you know most other boaters are not going to be up that early. No matter how fun it was to stay up late drinking with friends, there is NOTHING better than waking up early and skiing while feeling GREAT. Nothing. Alcohol profoundly disrupts my sleep even in small quantities. Without it, I pop out of bed at 5AM feeling completely rested and ready to go these days. This is AMAZING and by far the best part of taking a booze break.
2. Alcohol causes inflammation everywhere. I’ve noticed this more as I start to get into my 40’s. Sore joints, particularly ankles and knees. It also inflames your guts quite a bit, so if you’re one of those skiers with fairly “urgent” bathroom trips in the morning just before a set you might want to consider the source of that inflammation. That all goes away completely when I take a break from beer. This is a lasting effect, too. If I measure my blood pressure every day it takes 5 full days alcohol-free for it to drop. Think about that. 5 DAYS of inflammation from one moderate drinking session!
3. Alcohol slows your recovery. You will be sore for longer after a strenuous set and your injuries will take longer to heal. It also affects bone density and strength.
4. Hangovers & crappy sleep make skiing really, really hard. Again, alcohol, even in small amounts, has profound affects on the quality of your sleep. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a really “fun” summer night, up late slamming craft beer with friends, then I’m prying myself out of bed and standing on the swim platform of the boat on a perfect morning just wondering what the hell I was thinking the previous night. Dehydrated, groggy, foggy. We need agility and balance, and on top of that our brain is doing insane subconscious math to ski on water. All of that slows down the morning after and it takes a toll on performance.
5. Weight gain. When I take a break from drinking I lose 10 pounds every time like clockwork. 190lb is drinking weight, 180lb is non-drinking weight for me. 10 pounds riding on a ski makes a big difference. Your ski only weighs what, 2 pounds? Water weighs 8lbs per gallon so imagine strapping a gallon of water to your ski vest and skiing. That’s going to affect every aspect of your skiing.
6. Temper & patience. This sport is frustrating because it is so hard. My fuse is very short with bad sleep quality. Crappy sleep caused by alcohol raises anxiety and shortens my patience on the water. I find myself so much more even-tempered with a great night’s rest. This allows me to trust a training system and focus on the correct goals vs. slapping the water and throwing skis (it’s happened) when things go wrong. Nobody wants to be on a boat with somebody having a temper tantrum, it just ruins the morning for everyone.

What’s really a bonus for you this summer is that there are AWESOME non-alcoholic beer options out there now.

There have never been better non-alcoholic (NA) options available in beer-land. Companies such as Athletic Brewing (Run Wild IPA) and big brewers like Sam Adams (Just the Haze IPA), Lagunitas (IPNA), and Heineken (0.0) have awesome NA beer options.

I can’t believe how good these beers are, and what I’ve found is that the “missing” taste of ethanol is EXACTLY the worst tasting part anyway. The last time I took a break and drank NA beers for a long period of time I couldn’t believe how bad beer WITH alcohol tasted in comparison, it was like drinking gasoline. I didn’t notice it before because we’re generally conditioned to like the taste over time.

So, give this a go if you want to get further down the slalom course this summer. A couple years ago I took August off of beer and finally ran 32 off that August. Huge difference for me. Last year I made it to nationals by taking it easy on the beer and got further down the course than ever in practice.

This sport requires intense mental and physical inputs, so give yourself the best shot you possibly can to improve this summer by taking a break from booze! Let me know how it goes!