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If You Workout, then THIS is Your Best Pre- and Post-Workout Supplement

If you’re experiencing symptoms like loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue, vomiting, strange heart patterns, seizures, or spasms, tightness and tension in your muscles and joints, you might have a magnesium deficiency. If, straight after exercise, you experience muscle cramps, this is also likely the case.

Over 48 per cent of Americans have a low magnesium intake and while there are magnesium-rich foods, such as pumpkin seeds, spinach, almonds, cashews and peanuts, our diets don’t often include these types of foods. What’s worse is that it seems like the magnesium content in many farm soils is declining, meaning our foods aren’t getting the full amount of magnesium they would normally receive.

That's where magnesium glycinate comes into the picture.

Magnesium glycinate is a type of magnesium supplement that combines magnesium with glycine, an amino acid. This unique combination allows for better absorption and bioavailability of magnesium in the body. Compared to other forms of magnesium, such as magnesium oxide, magnesium glycinate is less likely to cause digestive discomfort or diarrhea.

Further Reading: FAQs about Magnesium Glycinate

How Does Magnesium Help Our Muscles?

Helps Relax our Muscles

You might be asking, ‘Is magnesium good for relaxing muscles?’

Yes, magnesium can relax your muscles and control their contractions when you exercise or do any kind of physical activity, no matter how strenuous it may be. It helps prevent lactic acid from building up in our bodies, which can cause muscle tension, therefore allowing our muscles to get the oxygen they need.

Magnesium glycinate is a great magnesium muscle relaxant, as our bodies need the mineral to relieve tight, sore and cramped muscles. If, during or after your workout you’re experiencing back pain and cramps, taking a magnesium glycinate supplement may help relax your back muscles, kidney stress and muscular tension. It can even help in the treatment of leg and foot cramps common at night while in bed.

Helps us Recover from Exercise

Can magnesium cause muscle pain? On the contrary, it’s most likely due to a lack of magnesium that you’re in pain.

When we exercise, we get little tears in our muscles. In order to heal these, our bodies need proteins, carbohydrates and other nutrients, including magnesium. Due to magnesium glycinate’s bioavailability, it’s a great form of magnesium for pain and inflammation, allowing you to go about your everyday routine smoother after exercise, without immense pain.

It does this by helping with protein synthesis, making sure that damaged muscle fibres are repaired and replaced effectively. Along with using magnesium glycinate for muscle recovery, stretching and getting quality sleep also help.

A study found that those who took magnesium supplements showed significantly reduced muscle soreness, exertion and perceived recovery after gym sessions. As magnesium glycinate is gentle on the stomach and well-tolerated by the body, it’s a good supplement for people recovering from exercise-induced muscle soreness.

Helps with Energy Production

Another link between magnesium and muscle recovery is due to magnesium’s role in our body’s natural energy production.

Magnesium is needed to form adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule that converts energy from food into fuel, which is where we get most of our energy.This is then used for muscle function and other processes in our body, which means that without magnesium, your muscles will be less efficient and more prone to fatigue and injury. In this way, it supports energy production within muscle cells, enabling them to recover and rebuild.

Do magnesium supplements help runners?For endurance athletes, like marathon runners or cyclists, magnesium can help their energy metabolism, so during sports, an energy bar containing magnesium is best to help convert the bar into energy faster. See more on when to take magnesium below.

Helps Support Muscle Growth

Our bodies need magnesium for muscle growth, as magnesium helps our body produce growth factors, which also help with muscle spasms. These proteins help our muscles strengthen and grow over time.

A way that magnesium indirectly affects our muscles is that it activates vitamin D. When we have low vitamin D levels, this can cause muscle weakness and pain, and muscle mass can even decline if these levels stay low, including our athletic performance.

Helps with Exercise Performance

Having adequate magnesium levels can improve exercise performance, such as increased strength and power, as well as improved extension, flexion, rotation and jumping, areas required by athletes and fitness enthusiasts alike.

In older women, taking magnesium supplements can also improve gait speed and chair stand time, meaning it's needed for our everyday function.

Definition: Gait speed is the time it takes to walk a specified distance on a level surface and over a short distance.

Helps Prevent Cramps

Did you know, that when exercising, magnesium can support healthy muscle function? It does this, in part, by blocking calcium uptake, which helps our muscles better relax after contracting when we do a tough workout.

In our bodies, calcium and magnesium are both vying to bind with the proteins in our muscles, such as tropin C and myosin. When calcium binds to these proteins, the protein changes shape, causing a contraction. If there’s too much calcium, this can cause our muscles to over-contract, leading to spasms or twitches. Since so many of us are low in magnesium, this makes it even harder to balance out the levels in our muscles.

Essentially, it regulates calcium levels in our body, which is the main culprit of muscle contractions and cramps.

Can you imagine if, after your workout, your muscles stayed contracted? You wouldn’t be able to do normal activities and you’d likely be in some pain, which is why magnesium is so important for exercise.

How Much Magnesium Do I Take to Relax My Muscles?

Magnesium for muscle pain dosage is essentially your recommended daily dosage of magnesium, as a lack of magnesium can cause muscle contractions.

The average male needs between 400 and 420mg per day and women need between 320 and 360, more if pregnant. Taking too much magnesium can increase the likelihood of side effects, and some forms of magnesium can have a laxative effect.

One study found that those who took 300mg of magnesium per day for 6 weeks showed fewer muscle cramps than those who didn’t. Another study with the same dosage found similar results in patients who were pregnant.

It’s recommended to start with a lower dosage, and then gradually increase this until you reach your desired amount. Be sure to speak with your doctor before you take any new dietary supplement.

How Long Does It Take for Magnesium to Work for Muscles?

You will generally start to notice improvements about a week after taking magnesium supplements daily. This also depends on the form you’re taking, with magnesium glycinate being highly absorbable, so you will begin to feel its effects faster than others.

When Should I Take Magnesium for Muscle Recovery?

When to take magnesium supplements depends on what your main priority is. If you want better sleep, you can take it in the evening, but if you’re looking to take magnesium for muscle soreness, then while you can take it before, it’s best to take it post-workout to help speed up muscle recovery. Even still, many athletes still take magnesium supplements in the evening, shortly before bed.

Whenever you decide to take magnesium, it’s best to take it with a meal, as taking it on an empty stomach can lead to mild side effects, like a sore stomach or loose stools. Magnesium glycinate is great, as it doesn’t have a laxative effect.

Magnesium sulphate and magnesium chloride are two other forms of magnesium for muscle tension.

Read about them here: The Different Forms of Magnesium and their Benefits

Enhance your athletic performance with Xandro Lab’s Magnesium Glycinate 500mg. It helps relieve muscle tiredness, improves recovery after physical exercise and also helps with muscle strength.

Want to experience these magnesium benefits? Grab your bottle today and experience its benefits!