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Could Magnesium reduce my muscle pain?
If you enjoy exercising, you are probably familiar with the muscle soreness that can sometimes follow a particularly vigorous gym session.
This can often happen if you’re engaging in an exercise that you’re not used to or if the last time you stepped in a gym was before lockdown.
You know what I'm talking about, that soreness that can have you groaning in pain while just…
Oh, I don’t know...
getting out of bed or taking the bins out?
Yep, that's the one.
If you want to avoid that 2-3 days of feeling like you’ve suddenly aged 40 years, perhaps Magnesium can help.
The soreness after a workout is typically the result of microscopic tears in your muscle lining and the surrounding connective tissue.
This in itself is nothing to be concerned about but it can be quite painful.
If you want to bypass, or at least speed-up, this annoying process, additional Magnesium intake can enhance muscle flexibility, which in-turn can reduce post-work out muscle damage and the soreness that typically follows.
“No pain, no gain”, says who?
The other primary reason for muscle soreness after exercising is a buildup of lactic acid. This build up can occur when your muscles are lacking the oxygen they need to function at an optimal level. The use of additional Magnesium can optimize your body's energy production, ensuring that more oxygen travels to your muscles during exercise.
A mineral that can alleviate the two primary causes of post-work out muscle pain?
Oh Magnesium, you never fail to impress.
A problem that can arise in your muscles is Myasthenia.
Myasthenia is a kind of muscle fatigue that can be the result of numerous different health issues. Strong evidence suggests that this fatigue is directly related to the loss of potassium in your muscle cells which is a problem that is heavily associated with Magnesium deficiency.
For those of you who don’t know, Spinach is full of Magnesium, which is
Probably why Pop-Eye uses cans of it to get his muscles going. For those of you who are too young to remember Pop-Eye the sailor man, go ahead and google him.
In your muscles, Magnesium and Calcium compete with each other to fill binding spots on other macromolecules, such as troponin C and myosin. Calcium is responsible for stimulating your muscles while Magnesium is responsible for relaxing them. Healthy levels of both these minerals are important for making sure your muscles relax and contract at the appropriate times.
Calcium is a useful nutrient for getting your muscles active and ready to go.
However, if your muscles are poorly regulated, which is often the result of a Magnesium/calcium imbalance, you may experience restlessness and painful cramps during relaxation. Magnesium is often described as “a natural calcium blocker” that can counteract the stimulating effects of calcium, allowing your muscles to naturally wind down after a hard day.
I hope you learned a thing or two, that you may not have known about the importance of Magnesium. There are actually over 300 separate functions for this mineral in the human body. I’m quite a slow typer, so if I was to explain every single one, I would probably have to spend the next 5 years sitting in a dark room, hunched over my laptop, guzzling down gallon after gallon of strong, black coffee.
Unfortunately, the excessive use of caffeine can deplete your body’s Magnesium levels. The irony would just be too painful, so I’ll think I’ll end it here.
Thank you for reading.