For anyone embarking on a new year new me sports and exercise regime it can be an extremely overwhelming time, hearing about all these sports nutrition supplements and wondering what’s really necessary and how they can help you with your goals as well as to maximise performance, results and recovery. Magnesium is a mineral required by the body for over 300 functions such as energy, relaxation of muscles, bone health but to name a few. Here I will discuss how it can help from a sports nutrition perspective and why it can be a very useful supplement to take to help with your exercise regime, performance and recovery. Studies have also shown that as physical activity goes up so too does a need for magnesium as it is lost in urine and sweat.
Magnesium as a part of sports nutrition can help with performance in that it helps the body to uptake glucose helping to increase energy in sports. Studies have shown increased performance and a delay in exercise induced fatigue when taken an hour before exercise.
Magnesium is involved in over 300 functions in the body and has a very important role in sports nutrition, in that it helps with energy metabolism and normal muscle function. Magnesium helps the body uptake glucose helping to increase energy through sports. It also helps with protein synthesis. Studies have also shown that as physical activity goes up so does a need for magnesium.
Magnesium also helps the body recover from exercise by preventing and helping to clear the build up of lactic acid therefore making it an important addition to someone’s sports nutrition regime. A study was carried out on rats administered pre-exercise magnesium and forced them to swim for fifteen minutes. They wanted to observe the effect of said magnesium on lactate levels in the supplemented rats compared to the control group. Following the forced swimming they found lactate rose to 130% in the magnesium rats in comparison to the control group. Prior to exercise, the blood levels of lactate, glucose and pyruvate were no different in magnesium-supplemented rats when compared with rats given no magnesium (control group). However, following the forced swimming, the lactate levels in the magnesium-supplemented rats rose to only 130% above pre-exercise levels compared with a 160% rise in the control group. Moreover, swimming caused brain glucose and pyruvate levels in the control group to decrease to 50-60% in the level pre-exercise while in the magnesium-supplemented rats, brain glucose levels increased to 140% of pre-exercise levels. This concluded that supplemental magnesium as a part of a sports nutrition programme helps suppress lactic acid production but also increased glucose availability in the brain during exercise. This in turn made scientists come up with the theory that increased glucose availability in the brain could translate into lower levels of perceived fatigue.
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