Looking For The Best Supplements For Muscle Recovery? Try Mushrooms!
The dreaded delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) can halt your workouts when training hard. DOMs cause setbacks, and that's the last thing you want when working towards your dream body or weight class!
Don't worry; there are plenty of supplements and tools at your disposal to support muscle recovery - and some come straight from the earth!
Keep reading as we explore why muscle recovery is essential and how you can support your recovery with natural mushroom supplements. At Mushroom Revival, we are heralds of the power of mushrooms for health and wellness - check out our mushroom blends to get started with your wellness journey!
Why Is Muscle Recovery Important?
If you overwork a muscle group, you're not giving it enough time to replenish. Your body needs enough time to repair the muscle tissue you've stressed during your workouts, making it stronger than before so you can see progress.
If you don't support muscle recovery, you'll find your performance decreases, and you might experience chronic muscle soreness and pain.
Delayed onset muscle soreness following your workouts can also inhibit your daily activities, making it difficult to walk around, lift objects, and even sit up (depending on the muscle group you've been working). With a proper recovery routine, you can reduce muscle soreness for a more sustainable workout routine (you'll quickly become tired of DOMs if you're working out 3 or 4 times a week!).
What Is The Role Of Supplement In Muscle Recovery?
During muscle recovery, your muscles undergo a process called protein synthesis. During this process, your muscles heal themselves and become stronger. To perform muscle protein synthesis, your body needs essential amino acids and fuel.
Essential amino acids are the building blocks your body uses to build muscle, and muscle recovery supplements in your diet can provide your body with the support it needs for muscle growth.
17 Best Supplements For Muscle Recovery
Are you ready to use muscle recovery supplements and boost performance for your workouts? Here are some of the best places to start!
Adaptogenic Mushrooms
During your workouts, you place your body under tremendous stress. Adaptogens are a group of natural supplements that help your body's natural ability to 'adapt' to occasional stress. They may also support your sleep health, a necessary component of healthy muscle function and recovery. Here are some of the top adaptogenic mushrooms for your workouts.
Cordyceps
Cordyceps is often called the 'Olympic mushroom' due to the support it provides for the cardiovascular system. By supporting the body's natural oxygen-absorbing processes, cordyceps can support athletic performance. Its adaptogenic properties are like a soothing balm during muscle recovery - making it the perfect mushroom to support muscle recovery!
Reishi
Reishi is heralded for being sleep's best friend. The reishi mushroom is a powerful adaptogen that supports your body's natural stress response. Overall, this mushroom supports homeostasis, which is great for muscle recovery, sleep health, and maintaining an inherent sense of calm (which will help you maintain your focus during training).
Lion’s mane
Lion's mane mushrooms are your brain's coach, helping to keep you in check and focused on the end goal. If you suffer from occasional brain fog, lion's mane provides the cognitive support you need to get rid of the fuzzies and stay focused - which is excellent if you're on a restrictive diet that leaves you struggling to concentrate. And, lion's mane is an adaptogen, so by taking it, you'll be supporting sleep health and muscle recovery.
Shiitake
Shiitake mushrooms are delicious - but they also have adaptogenic properties that will help you support your workouts. The adaptogenic properties of shiitake mushrooms will help you sleep better and maintain balanced bodily functions while fuelling muscle growth with a balanced diet.
Protein Supplements
What do you need for muscle growth? Plenty of protein! Here are some of the best protein supplements to support protein synthesis.
BCAA
BCAAs are popular muscle recovery supplements as they provide branched-chain amino acids your body needs for protein synthesis. They consist of three amino acids: leucine, isoleucine, and valine. BCAA supplements help support the body's signaling, structure, and transport processes during protein synthesis.
Carbohydrates
Most people think of protein first when choosing gym supplements. But carbs are also crucial to your athletic performance. Your body needs energy to perform protein synthesis, rebuild, and recover after workouts. How do you provide this energy? By incorporating plenty of carbohydrates in your supplement regimen.
Fatty Acid Supplements
Fatty acids are popular muscle recovery supplements as they provide the body with support for the structure of cell membranes. Cell membrane structure will support the health of the body overall for peak performance and successful muscle recovery.
Fluids And Electrolytes
When you work out, you lose a lot of essential fluids and electrolytes needed for recovery. By supplementing fluids and electrolytes, you can experience improved energy levels, and the muscles will be more hydrated to lessen fatigue.
Creatine
Creatine monohydrate is included in most protein powder supplements, as it provides the muscles with continuous energy. It's recommended that you incorporate creatine monohydrate in your pre-workout supplement regimen to help support heavy lifting, ensuring you're able to perform your best during your workouts.
For muscle recovery, creatine monohydrate can also help to speed up muscle growth, which will help you to feel stronger and progress more quickly with your workouts.
Beta-Alanine
When you strain and work your muscles during your workouts, they produce a substance called lactic acid. When you have lactic acid buildup in your muscles, this leads to increased muscle soreness. Beta-alanine supplements help to reduce the muscle soreness you experience due to this buildup by encouraging the production of carnosine in the body. Carsonine minimizes the amount of lactic acid surrounding the muscles to speed up recovery.
Magnesium
Magnesium is one of the best supplements to support your body's natural response to inflammation. Once you've completed your workout, your muscles will become inflamed due to the stress placed on them throughout the workout. If you supplement plenty of magnesium in your diet, you can support your body in combating this inflammation to reduce prolonged DOMs that could inhibit your future workout efforts.
L- Glutamine
L-glutamine is a powerful tool at your disposal during workout recovery - it can actually help speed up the protein synthesis process. If you're working out during cutting season, L-glutamine can also help you retain muscle, as it inhibits the muscle mass breakdown process, which could lead to muscle loss during your low-calorie season. You should take L-glutamine after your workouts to support muscle recovery and retention.
Vitamin C
Even if you're not working out and trying to gain muscle mass, you should be supplementing vitamin C into your diet. Vitamin C plays an important role in supporting immune function - so you'll be less prone to the sniffles. Vitamin C doesn't just stop sniffles that could get in the way of your workouts; it also provides antioxidants for muscle recovery. Antioxidants help the body to manage inflammation after workouts for less soreness and improved recovery times.
Tart Cherry Juice
Though it sounds like a sour drink that makes you salivate and suck in your cheeks, tart cherry juice is actually an extremely beneficial antioxidant and provides support for inflammation management in the body. You don't have to drink a sour drink to get your daily dose, either. You can easily purchase tart cherry juice supplement capsules to take with your daily supplement regimen - no muss, no fuss.
Nitrates
Healthy circulation helps your body to provide more nutrients and support to the muscles after your workouts. Nitrates have your back when it comes to circulation. The body converts them into nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide stimulates relaxation in the blood vessels to support healthy blood flow, ensuring your muscles get all the goodness they need from your blood.
How To Choose The Best Supplements?
Now you know the what, let's discuss the how. How can you include post-workout supplements into your routine? Let's discuss.
Consult A Medical Professional
Before taking any supplements for reducing muscle soreness, you should consult a medical professional. They will be able to assess your current weight, your weight goals, and your health status to recommend the best recovery supplements. They will also be able to identify any contraindications for any medications you're taking or any conditions you have.
For instance, magnesium can bind with certain medications, reducing their efficiency. If you’re also under medication, there might be potential allergies, interactions, and contraindications with other medicines.
Reaching out to a medical professional will ensure your use of muscle recovery supplements doesn't come at the expense of your overall health and well-being.
Check Your Gut
If you're suffering from slow recovery after your workouts, this could indicate that your gut health isn't where it should be. Your gut microbiome helps you digest food and plays a vital role in immunity and energy levels.
You can easily check your gut health using a stool sample test. Your doctor will be able to provide you with a full analysis of your gut health and whether you need to pay more attention to your gut flora. Nourishing your gut flora with pro and prebiotics and consuming beverages rich in live cultures, like kombucha, will soon have your gut in tip-top condition.
Check The Calorie Count And Nutritional Info
If your muscle recovery isn't as fast as you'd like, this could be a sign that you're not feeding yourself enough. Be sure to check the calorie count and nutritional info for your eating foods. It can help to keep a food diary using an app like MyFitnessPal, where you can view the macronutrients of the foods you've consumed throughout the day. The same goes for the supplements you're choosing. They should align with your macronutrient goals. Choose supplements that offer the most nutritional value and aid in muscle recovery while preventing muscle fatigue.
Takeaway
Before you start crushing it at the gym, you should prepare all of the post-workout recovery supplements you need, ensuring you have the right tools to improve muscle mass and encourage the fast recovery of muscle tissue. Consider which of the supplements above would provide you with the best benefits for your workouts and overall health.
Mushroom Revival is crazy about the power of mushrooms, and we want to share these natural supplements with our customers.
Check out our Daily 10 blend to get the benefits of 10 different mushrooms in just one supplement!
