Did you know your body has more than 650 muscles? Muscles are abundant in your body, including your legs, arms, heart, brain, and even your ear (where the smallest are).
The point is your body needs muscles to control certain movements and help you perform specific behaviours.
Without your muscles, you wouldn’t be able to breathe, digest food, talk and even walk. They’re parts of your body that share equal importance as your bones and organs.
Jump in with us today, as we uncover their importance, role and tips on how to have good muscle health.
Overview of muscle function
It’s likely you know what muscles are. But how well do you know about this body part?
Well, for a quick recap, muscles are soft tissue you find throughout your body which moves to support your organs. Muscles have two types of movements:
Voluntary
These are actions that your muscles can control. When you decide to undergo an action, your nervous system engages your muscles to move your body so that it can happen and control movements.
Involuntary
These movements happen automatically without you needing to think about them. Typically they move around your organs to help keep your body functioning and working. For example your heart beating is an involuntary muscle movement and also when you breathe the muscles in your check and back move involuntary.
Together, both voluntary and involuntary muscle groups help all the systems and functions of your body. In particular, they can help with:
- Metabolism
- Digestive system
- Respiratory system
- Hearing
- Vision
- Moving
- Getting rid of waste
- Pumping blood in vessels and the heart
- Giving birth
How muscle recovery helps growth
Whether you’ve hit the gym or damaged a muscle, sometimes you need to let your muscles rest to recover. If you’ve intensively loaded your muscles, small micro hairline cracks can appear, making them feel more fatigued and sore. When you’re undergoing recovery, your body repairs the fibres, increasing the strength and size of your muscles.
The time it takes for your muscles to recover following a workout depends on a range of factors. These could be:
- Type of exercise
- Intensity of exercise
- The post-treatment following muscle usage
5 factors that help muscle recovery
If you’ve found you’ve been using your muscles intensively, then you’ll want to do everything you can to optimise their recovery. To help with this, here are some factors that might help:
Protein following workout
Ideally within 90 minutes post exercise consume more protein to help speed up the recovery process, it gives your muscles additional raw material to help repair them. On average try to have 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight to help maximise your muscle growth. Whenever possible try to eat foods high in protein like chicken breast, nuts, legumes, eggs and more. If you can’t eat food, have a protein shake.
Stay hydrated
To aid muscle repair you must stay hydrated and drink water. If you’re dehydrated it can severely impair the repair process. To prevent dehydration try to drink 1.5 litres of water for every kg you loose during exercise, in other words 3 cups for every lb lost.
Sleep
Arguably, this is one of the most important factors out there when it comes to muscle recovery! Having a good 7-9 hours of sleep every night can help your body undergo key physiological processes such as reducing inflammation, hormone regulation and energy regulation speeding up the process and reducing fatigue.
Have a healthy diet
Sticking to a healthy diet can support the recovery process and also reduces the risk of experiencing nutrient deficiencies. Try reducing your consumption of ultra processed foods, eat more fruits and vegetables, have high protein foods and healthy fats.
Undergo a cool down post exercise
Another factor that can help your muscle recovery is cooling down after an intense workout. A cool down is equally as important as warming up. When you cool down blood and oxygen is circulated to your muscle groups. Moreover, waste product are removed quickly and muscle recovery becomes quicker, there’s also less likelihood of muscle cramps and dizziness.
Tips to prevent muscle injuries
Injuries to your muscles can greatly impact their growth and development. However, they can be avoided and kept to a minimum. To do this, here are some tips to try to reduce your injuries:
- Stay hydrated
- Stretch before and after your workout
- Progress with exercise intensity with 5% over time
- Don’t overtrain
- Use proper techniques when exercising
- Add strength training into your exercises to help build muscles and resistance
Supplements that might help muscle recovery
In addition to the above, you can also take supplements to help support the recovery process; they won’t make your muscles recover as a standalone, but can help with a range of other lifestyle factors. In particular, you might want to try:
Magnesium Glycinate
Magnesium is a crucial mineral that supports muscle recovery and essential functions that helps your muscles repair and relax. It helps reduce muscle cramps, promotes relaxation, helps with energy production reducing post workout fatigue and has anti inflammatory properties that allow inflammation in your muscles to decrease post exercise.
While present in foods, our Magnesium Glycinate supplement can help you absorb this mineral quickly helping with sleep, muscle-related conditions, and spasms and promoting relaxation. This supplement is suitable for vegetarians and vegans, being easily added to your day-to-day routine.
Boswellia Serrata 5:1 Extract
Another supplement that might be worth considering is Boswellia Serrata. Also known as frankincense this supplement has a profound effect on your muscles, bones and joints. Particularly because it has strong anti inflammatory properties which help reduce inflammation in joints and muscles after exercise. Boswellia Serrata also aids blood circulation and acts as a form of natural pain relief.
Folic Acid
Folic Acid can help encourage blood flow to your skeletal muscles during exercise helping oxygen and nutrients be supplied quickly to them. This helps your muscle perform at their best and recovery quickly. It also encourages the production of myoblasts (cells) which help support muscle fiber growth and development.
While there’s a range of food sources that contain Folic Acid, it’s not always possible to obtain it from your diet. Our Folic Acid vegan friendly tablet can be highly beneficial to take for muscle recovery as it can help with cell production.
Final thoughts
Overall, whether you exercise or not muscle recovery is important. Having healthy muscles can allow your body to perform a range of functions such as breathing, eating, sleeping, exercising, talking and more.
To look after your muscles effectively, always have sufficient sleep, stay hydrated, eat a protein rich diet and stretch properly! Note that having a healthy lifestyle can certainly ease up the recovery process allowing you to feel less stiff and sore.
To help with your recovery you might want to try supplements like Magnesium, Boswellia Serrata and Folic Acid– but do know that they can only help your recovery alongside a rane of other healthy lifestyle factors.
Interested to know more about your muscle health? Check out our post on supplements that support joint health.
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