Utilizing Garlic For Reduced Soreness

Posted February 26, 2016 by Ben Jordan in Diet & Nutrition, Supplements 1 0

Utilizing Garlic For Reduced Soreness And Strengthening Muscles

Whether your warding off all kinds of ailments or repelling vampires, garlic has been used for its healing and protective properties for thousands of years. Now research has shown that garlic supplementation can help reduce post exercise muscle soreness. Excessive soreness and muscle damage can delay recovery time and may hinder gains. Garlic is believed to give these properties because of its anti-inflammatory effect. Several lab studies have shown using isolated cells have found that natural compounds in garlic are effective for reducing inflammation. One in particular allicin has shown really strong anti-inflammatory benefits.

Based on previous findings that allicin may be the most potent anti-inflammatory compound within garlic, scientists from china designed a study to measure its benefits in trained. Each study subject was given capsules that contained either 80 milligrams of allicin or a placebo every day for two weeks. At the end of that period, each athlete performed a downhill treadmill run until exhaustion in order to cause high levels of muscle damage. The downhill treadmill run is seen as one of the gold standards for inducing muscle damage and soreness as it requires strong eccentric contraction, similar to performing negatives. Subjects receiving the allicin supplements were found to have significantly lower levels of muscle damage compared to the placebo group, as measured through bold markers such as creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase.

Markers of inflammation and muscle damage translated into the athletes reporting less soreness immediately after exercise as well as one or two days later. Antioxidant levels were much higher in the athletes receiving the garlic extract which the researchers believe to be the key to all the benefits. Supplementing with 200-600mg of garlic that is standardized for allicin by taking it with meals once or twice daily. Enteric Coated products may increase the absorption of allicin and the other natural compounds by reducing their breakdown in the stomach.