MUSCLE BREAKDOWN

 For the first time in a long time, you’ve done some hardcore lower-body exercises, consisting of lunges, squats and assorted others to firm up those gravitationally challenged glutes. A day or two later, you’re experiencing a sensation in your glutes and thigh muscles that makes it excruciatingly painful just to sit on the weight bench! This pain is referred to as delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and it peaks approximately one to two days after an intense or unaccustomed bout of exercise, especially eccentric or negative exercise. Believe it or not, some folks like that feeling of pain-it makes them feel like they had a great work-out. Others find it a nuisance. Either way, in addition to a nice whole-body massage and appropriate stretching, there are a few supplements that may aid in muscle recovery. You should keep in mind, however, that some of them seem to improve muscle recovery, but don’t necessarily affect the perception of muscle pain itself.

 CREATINE: The department of Biochemistry at the University of Padua, Italy looked at the effects of oral creatine supplementation on pain and creatine kinase (CK) release induced by 20 minutes of eccentric knee-extension exercise. CK is a protein in muscle contraction. Increased levels of CK serve as an indicator of muscle damage. When you exercise, it seems that the mechanical stress of muscle contraction itself results in microtears in muscle fibers, kind of like small holes punched in the cell. CK "leaks" out of the muscle fiber or cell and ends up in your blood. So does creatine have an effect on muscle soreness or damage? For the first three weeks, the scientists gave each subject 3 gm daily of creatine, followed by no supplement for one week, and then 3 gm daily of a placebo for three weeks. Using a measure of pain called the classic visual analogue scale (VAS), they found that the creatine supplemented group perceived less muscle pain one, two, three and four days after exercise. They also found that the blood CK levels were much lower in the supplemented group one day after the exercise bout. So in this case, relatively low does of creatine (3 gm daily) seemed to alleviate both the soreness and the muscle damage caused by exercise.

GLUTAMINE: An amino acid. Glutamine had its "start," so to speak, in agricultural science. Glutamine apparently helped pigs, chicken and other farm animals gain muscle and lose fat. Now, lean muscular chickens are a sight to behold, I’m sure, but how does Glutamine affects us two-legged folk? Scientists at Iowa State University decided to find out what effect Glutamine would have in humans undergoing resistance training. They found that Glutamine supplementation decreased muscle proteolysis (breakdown) in men who trained with weights. They also found that the levels of CK were lower in the Glutamine group (which received 3 gm daily). This suggests that less muscle damage occurred in the individuals taking this supplement. Thus, a possible end result would be less DOMS to deal with! The effect of Glutamine on CK levels is similar to that reported for creatine. However, it isn’t known if Glutamine could decrease your perception of DOMS.

VITAMIN E: Vitamin E not only improves cardiovascular health, but its potent antioxidant properties should make it a regular part of every active person’s supplementation scheme. Many studies have looked at vitamin E’s effect on exercise-induced free-radical formation. Although the results are not conclusive, there is a preponderance of evidence that strongly suggests that in vitamin E, the "E" stands for excellent! In fact, rats that are exercised to the point of inducing muscle damage do not experience an increase in CK levels (remember, this is a marker for muscle damage) at three hours and three days after exercise if they have received vitamin E. Of course, if they don’t get the vitamin, they end up with severe muscle damage. Scientists at Penn State University decided to examine vitamin E’s effects in humans. They had subjects lift weights and gave them either a placebo or 1,200 IU of vitamin E once a day for two weeks. They found that those subjects who supplemented with vitamin E had less muscle membrane disruption than the placebo. Again, CK values were much lower in the vitamin E group. In a similar study presented at the 1997 AmericanCollege of Sports Medicine’s annual conference, investigators at the University of North Carolina found that 800 IU of vitamin E decreased the perception of pain after a strenuous bout of bench-stepping exercise. Oddly enough, however, there was no difference in various biochemical markers of injury between the vitamin E and placebo group. Nonetheless, vitamin E has so many beneficial effects (including preservation of muscle fiber integrity and diminishing muscle damage) that it behooves weekend warriors and serious athletes alike to take 400 to 1,200 IU daily.

BROMELAIN: Bromelain is an enzyme derived from the stem of the pineapple plant. It was the stem of the pineapple plant. It was first introduced in 1957 and has a multitude of purported therapeutic benefits related to heart disease, arthritis, inflammatory conditions and soft-tissue injury. The hypothesis that bromelain alleviates muscle injury after intense muscle contractions has been previously tested in lab rats. Animals were assigned either to a group that received bromelain (at a dose equal to 350 mg for a 150-pound person) or a group that received a placebo. Three days after exercise, the amount of force that the bromelain-treated muscles could generate was higher than the placebo-treated muscles. Also, the number of intact, normal muscle fibers was higher in the bromelain-treated group. This, bromelain-treated muscles suffered less overall damage and were stronger than the untreated muscle.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE: Keep in mind that these supplements may expedite the recovery process, but may not necessarily act on pain itself. But for optimal adaptation to exercise, a quicker recovery allows you to progress more rapidly in your quest for ultimate fitness and muscle growth. Some exercise scientists suggest that you perform light exercise to decrease DOMS. For example, if you get sore from running, do a light jog to help alleviate the soreness. While there may be no cure-all for DOMS, remember that the healthy diet you maintain, the supplements you choose to take to limit muscle damage and boost your nutrient intake, and even the workouts that have temporarily stiffened up your strut all put you in the category of the survivors among the finest.