Can Smoking Affects Athletic Performance?

In a study researchers showed that some runners still smoke and this is a bad habit for their health. They said that these runners have less to do with stretching and more to do with smoking.

Smoking is one of the biggest secrets of the fitness world and also is a serious problem, because is not talking about mall walkers who light up once a week. These are men and women who compete in marathons and triathlons and go hiking and train at the gym. And who also have a pretty steady cigarette habit.

Miguel Otero, 29, of Nashville, a regular smoker who light up as soon as he finished running, said: "I tell myself that I'm a healthy smoker because I run."
Otero has a healthy living through exercise and sticking to a vegetarian diet, but smoking away nonetheless.

According to a study 2 percent of the 2,500 people who responded said they smoked, unbeknownst to their running friends. About 4 percent said they smoked but that their running buddies know that.

"Those are two things that just don't go together," said Amy Barrow, 50, of Nashville, who gave up smoking when she was 32 and started running competitively.

She was 16 when she picked up her first cigarette, snuck out of her mother's purse or something like that, Barrow reported. Throughout her young adult life, she smoked a pack and a half of unfiltered Camel cigarettes a day.

About 1990, she took a jog with some friends from the gym and found out she was pretty good at it, bad lungs and all.
"I wondered what would happen if I quit smoking," she added.

Information Provided by: Cigarettes Shop