Antioxidants are good for you. Right? Well yes, however there are a lot of “buts” when it comes to taking antioxidants with exercise.
You heard that free radicals (molecules that are missing an electron) go “out” in the body to find their missing electron. And in the process, they damage cells. The analogy has been made that free radicals are “rusting” your body.
So you go out, and buy a bunch of antioxidants – vitamin C, vitamin E, turmeric/curcumin, maybe glutathione, and some kind of exotic berry extract. After all, you don’t want to “rust.”
And you also heard that exercise produces free radicals (which, Harvard confirmed that it does). So you start taking your antioxidants after workouts (like immediately after a workout).
Original source: here.
Too bad that you can actually be doing more damage than good.
Antioxidants with Exercise
What’s the short-term (in a sense of 1-2 hours) goal of exercise? To damage muscles. When you’re strength training, you’re creating tiny little tears in the muscles. Along with it, you produce free radicals, which cause muscle cells to “burst open”, and the inner contents of the cell to “ooze out.”
But wait – antioxidants can prevent or at least minimize the contents of the cell from “oozing out.” Seems like a good, sensible thing to do.
Too bad it isn’t.
The goal of exercise is to create a stimulus sufficiently strong enough that next time you exercise, it won’t be as hard. And what is that stimulus? Muscle damage, and the contents of the cell “oozing out.”
When that happens, your body’s own naturally produced antioxidants (like glutathione, superoxide dismutase, catalase, and others) come to the rescue, repair the damage over the next few hours and days, and you’re stronger!
But if you take external antioxidants, the repair process happens too fast, and doesn’t give the body’s own antioxidants a chance to do the job.
So you actually decrease the progress you make from strength training.
In fact, in one study, researchers divided participants into 2 groups:
- Group 1 went downhill running and received a placebo (they were told they’re getting vitamin C, but in reality, that pill just had an inert powder)
- Group 2 went downhill running and received 1 gram of vitamin C 2 hours beforehand
The researchers measured a chemical marker of muscle damage, and after 2 weeks of this, they concluded that “ascorbic acid supplementation may inhibit the recovery of muscle function.”
But keep in mind – these conclusions are only valid for supplemental antioxidants. Antioxidants from food don’t seem to have this progress-inhibiting effect (for more information, check out my article on what is good nutrition). So by all means, eat your blueberries after your workouts, but don’t take antioxidant supplements.
How Long After a Workout Should You Use Antioxidants?
First of all, you have to evaluate why you’re using supplemental antioxidants in the first place. When I see clients using them, 80% of the time or more, I believe that they aren’t justified. But let’s say that you really have a good reason for taking antioxidants, how long after your workout should you wait before you use them, so that they don’t interfere with your progress?
It appears that you should wait about 4-6 hours afterwards. It’s that amount of time after a workout when the body does the majority of its “repair” work, so you shouldn’t interfere for this period of time.
Antioxidants and Hypertrophy
Do antioxidants help with hypertrophy (muscle growth), or hurt it? It appears that the answer is that they hurt it.
In one study, researchers divided participants into 3 groups:
Group 1: received antioxidants (vitamin C: 1 g/day, and vitamin E: 400 IU/day)
Group 2: received placebo (they were told they’re getting vitamins, but there was nothing in their pills)
Group 3: control. They didn’t get any pills.
At the end of 10 weeks of strength training, groups 1 and 3 did not have any muscle hypertrophy. Group 2 did.
Antioxidants and Muscle Soreness
So we know that antioxidants taken post-workout actually decrease the improvements in both strength and hypertrophy. But do they decrease muscle soreness?
I hate to answer a question with a question (ah, who am I kidding, no I don’t. I love it), but a further question that needs to be asked about is “which antioxidants are we talking about?” Antioxidants is actually a group of compounds, and not a single one. Vitamin C is an antioxidant. So is glutathione, so is green tea extract, and others. Although in a global sense, they may behave similarly, when it comes to individual goals (like reducing delayed onset muscle soreness), it varies.
One review that looked at a bunch of studies found that antioxidants are not effective in reducing muscle soreness.
However, another review that just looked at polyphenols (a specific type of antioxidant) did find that they were effective in reducing soreness. But nothing was mentioned as to whether they reduce the effectiveness of exercise.
And one study found that green tea extract reduced muscle damage, but didn’t reduce muscle soreness. So that’s the worst of both worlds – you’re not making as much progress, and you’re just as sore as you were before. This seems to contradict what the previous review showed us, because green tea extract is rich in polyphenols.
When different studies have contradicting results, it’s usually due to population studied (young vs. old, men vs. women, trained vs. untrained, etc.), dosage used, proximity to the workout, and other factors.
When there are conflicting results, researchers basically (and correctly) conclude “more research is necessary.”
