Antioxidants Don’t Ease Muscle Soreness After Exercise

Aspirin, aspirin, aspirin. Or a steam room / sauna. If I go to a steam room or sauna after a hard workout - no pain. I can work out the next day. If not - I hurt. Aspirin definitely helps as does ibuprofen (which I do not like to use due to possible damage to kidneys/liver, etc).

Earlier someone asked what Venus and Serena do for soreness. I don't know what they do, but I remember reading an article about a female high endurance athlete who had a team of people helping her survive what looks so wonderful to us and yet is very painful for the athletes. I recall that there was a full time nutritionist, a full time physical therapist and massage therapist on her team. My massage therapist used to work with pro atheletes and musicians and the stories she tells are grueling. I myself take a Tylenol when the pain keeps me awake. Yoga, massage, and chiropractic help a lot.

Perhaps the use of antioxidants for relief of muscle pain after exercise is misguided. Basic cell biology tells us the muscle cell depends on mitochondrial function for energy production, and lactate build up causes muscle pain. Supplements like Coenzyme Q-10, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Carnitine and Benfothiamine enhance mitochondrial function by improving oxidative phosphorylation and transfer of electrons in the electron transport chain (ETC). Use mitochondrial energy supplements instead of anti-oxidants for better muscle function and less pain. Alternately, drugs which inhibit mitochondrial function such as statins which deplete CoQ10, and Metformin which inhibits Complex I of the electron transport chain, will make muscle pain worse. Some antibiotics such as tetracycline, and erythromycin inhibit mitochondrial function because mitochondria share many of the same energy pathways as bacteria. For more see:http://jeffreydachmd.com/thiamine-deficiency-and-diabetes/

After shoveling for 5 hours the night before, I am still sore. So I helped to shovel out one of my neighbors before I did not daily a miler this morning. I feel better now :)

It is ridiculous to expect instant effectiveness from antioxidants.

Readers may be interested in a paper titled: "Antioxidants prevent health-promoting effects of physical exercise in humans" that appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences vol. 106 no. 21, pp 8665–8670 (2009).

It reaffirms patients' belief in the judgment of health care professionals when myths are impersonally debunked, as happened here.

Out here in Oregon everyone that hikes takes Arnica Montana. I use the sublingual pellets and use a gel or rub with it on the sore muscles. Works every time.

The conventional wisdom regarding antioxidants with exercise, is that they can improve performance, or enable a level of performance with less apparent effort/stress... but they don't do much for recovery or discomfort. Lester Packer's book, 'Miracle of Antioxidants' (C) 1999 reports that vitamin E improved running, but not swimming, performance. More recent work reviewed by NYTs, shows that taking antioxidants prior exercise, decreases the extent to which the exercise fortifies the body. An individual's response to use of antioxidants can vary relative to their state of health -- when my body was very much systemically inflamed, antioxidants were a healing lifesaver. As my health improved, the benefit of antioxidants waned. * * Taking 'omega 3' polyunsaturated dietary oils (from flax/fish) can enable dramatic improvements in soft-tissue healing. However, these oils are much more prone to oxidation in the body than the saturated fat in dairy. Therefore, it is possible that eating polyunsaturated fats can cause such oxidation, and promote reactions such as "accelerated aging" or "cancers". The cure for that is to also take a little vitamin E, which functions to prevent lipid peroxidation. {For two years i took omega 3 fats without vitamin E, and during/after my running i felt exhausted, and looked like i was dying much faster than planned. This effect ceased when i included some vitamin E in my pre-run meal.} Never take the synthetic form of vitamin E .

Not evidence, but personal annecdote: I read rave reviews about using tart cherry juice after workouts to prevent muscle soreness. Usually I don't put much stock in such things, but so many people were saying it I thought I'd give it a try. I had not exercised in a very long time. I did a long, hard workout (always overdo it, which is why it never becomes a habit). The sort of workout that normally would have me struggling to walk the next couple of days. I drank the juice after my workout and the next day I felt totally normal! Very strange, but after my personal experience I'm a believer. Don't know what else could account for it!

A friend told me recently, "I ate a whole raw egg today, including the shell." I ignored him, I really don't care what he eats per se. Happening to speak with him the next day he said, "No problem since yesterday ...." "Huh?" I replied. "I ate a whole raw egg yesterday, including the shell and no problems!" I noted, "Yeah you mentioned that you did, I'd expect not." The idea that some food "does something" to you in some precise way in a short term is a psychological hangup, not nutritional science. You are not going to live longer for having eaten this or that, nor are you going to progress in fitness development if you eat "Muscle Mass!" rather than some cottage cheese and sufficient common variety of protein. Claims about foods are driven mostly by the motivations of capitalism.Food claims are scams, food claims are scams, food claims are scams. Get it? "Organic" is very much a scam. The high cost per lb food in a health food store is a scam. Eating fresh whole food moderately, but in sufficient quantity to keep you from losing weight, is what you do to correctly feed an exercising body. Not wasting money, if money matters to you, is more important than buying organic food for some supposed health benefit. If you like the cultural idea of organic food and don't mind the cost, buy it and enjoy that facet of life. Claims about frivolous things like "antioxidants" have so little merit they don't deserve mention in a health column.

The very notion that bits of supplemental food have any effect on any bodily function is foolish. You can eat blueberries until you turn blue, it is not going to change your health picture because of their so called anti-oxidant value. This column constantly presents small bits of research data as though it mattered, then goes on to play ping pong with that data promoting and dismissing it. Just stop presenting this junk information as though it mattered! The job of researchers is foolish study, enough already. There does exist a huge and overwhelmingly useful body of evidence on these things: the people who actually live lives that include exercise. When I am sore from exercise, which is every other day every week, I take a couple ... hold on to your hat for this surprise: generic ibuprofen! Imagine that! I take a well understood pain medication for pain! Why I don't put on a copper bracelet or eat a clove of garlic or stare at a mandala is beyond me, I must just be lucky.

really! Have you even tried it on yourself ?

I eat powdered ginger root and it has virtually eliminated my after exercise muscle soreness, but it doesn't seem to dampen the pain of a true injury, which to me is a good thing. Having been a runner for years I am well acquainted with morning soreness and stiffness.

However, I am a vegan and since I’ve eliminated oil from my diet, I’ve had significant reduction in AM soreness. Used to dread waking up after a rigorous workout and dream of a massage chair. Now, just a mild reminder of what I used to have. Has anyone else had this experience?

I have avoided icing down my knees for the ages -- finally succumbed to the ice pack -- I put one on my knee, hold it in place for 15 minutes with an ace bandage; bingo, it works, the soreness goes away.

Antioxidants don't work, but magnesium supplements do. I suspect our factory farms grow pretty fruits and vegetables on soil that has lost any/all nutritional value so nothing in what we eat provides us with what we need....

It is very difficult to do what Serena and Venus do, but the task is easy to identify: change your parents. It's all in the genes and, try as you might, there's little you can do about most of the problems in life.

Kudos to Nicholas Bakalar for yet again shooting down another health superstition. This time for "antioxidants" -- a rather ubiquitous type of bio-chemical found in so many foods. Antioxidant supplements have been found not to have any effects on anything, so far. The money quote: "Authors' Conclusions: The authors found no evidence to support antioxidant supplements for primary or secondary prevention. Vitamins A and E, and beta-carotene may increase mortality. " https://www.aafp.org/afp/2008/1101/p1079.html No evidence of benefit -- some evidence of harm.

I was somewhat impressed by studies of tart cherry in reducing muscle soreness . . . took it for a couple of months, which included my regular running (25 miles a week), gym work, and one marathon . . . did not notice the slightest bit of difference to performance or recovery in any way, so I stopped it a few weeks ago. Just an n-of-1 anecdotal report which goes along with the finding of this study

This is when I ask, what do Serena and Venus do... they both have been playing tennis and for many years. Is the answer just spend tons of money on professional services... or is there something that the everyday person can do... Gatorade? Coffee? People with Chronic Illnesses have muscle soreness, so I suspect the answer would lean more toward a prescribed medication (hopefully not an illegal drug from Russia).