You can find what you need in the kitchen cupboard as well as the medicine cabinet if you’re looking for relief when your workout takes you to the hurt locker
Get ninja with ginger
The base for much of Eastern cooking is locked into this beautiful tasting spice, but its benefits go far beyond the tastebuds. A paper in the Journal of Pain discovered ginger ices the pain caused by heavy lifting. That doesn’t mean you can grate or sprinkle a little onto your stir fry and reap the rewards because the study’s subjects needed roughly 2g of raw or heated ginger to see the benefit. Grate a heaped portion of the fresh stuff on to a spoon, gulp it and wash down with a water chaser to reap the pain-killing benefits. Treat like medicine and it’ll work accordingly.
Carnitine’s prowess
This amino acid has become a bodybuilder’s staple because of its ability to transport stored fat so it can be burnt as fuel, especially during intense exercise. Taking just 1-2g per day can also reduce muscle damage from tough training sessions and reduces muscle soreness, found papers in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. This means it’s a very powerful double-action supplement that’ll get you lean without all the nasty pain that you’d normally expect to accompany that pursuit.
Fix your grandpa joints with turmeric
The root is a beast when it comes to rebelling against inflammation. A paper in the Journal of Medicinal Food reviewed 29 articles on it and found using 1000mg per day of it is so incredibly powerful that it can even ease arthritis symptoms. Treat it as a you would the ginger, grate it on to a spoon and swallow it whole to get some serious relief from that bum knee.
The cherry on top of workout pains
Cherry juice may not be super refreshing, but if you’re planning a big exercise session, such as running marathon, then this drink should factor into your nutrition prep. A paper at the University of Vermont found drinking a 12oz bottle of cherry juice daily for four days before and after training helped post-workout pains. This is thanks to its anti-inflammatory agents that’ll help heal your hurts.
Recover stronger with combinations
Supplements have a knack for being better than nature especially if you try those that offer more than just one active ingredient, such as ProMera’s Alpha Recovery Plus. Its got Glutamine HCI that promotes the reduction of oxidative stress and build-up of lactic acid during intense exercise. This is teamed up with branch chain amino acids that support muscle protein synthesis and a heavy dose of electrolytes that optimize cell hydration. What’s more, it’s Alpha-GEE® ingredient is also just as good as ibuprofen at stopping inflammation. Consider it the perfect supplement to take if you’ve had a break from exercise or are punching out high-intensity workouts.
Caffeine’s power knows no bounds
Every week there’s a new study saying coffee will either kill you or make you live to a ripe old age, but there are some certainties when it comes to its pain-killing prowess. A paper at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that while caffeine gives you an energy boost, it also helps numb you to the pain your body feels while flexing it out during a gruelling training session. The participants were given five milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of bodyweight, which worked out at roughly 2-3 cups of coffee, prior to exercise to gain these benefits. The good news is that the pain-killing benefits were also experienced by regular coffee drinkers. Other research has also shown that when caffeine was taken after workouts it also stopped the post-workout pains, so it’s a good excuse to keep yourself constantly fuelled up if you want pain and your competition in the rearview mirror.
