Magnesium: A Friend of Performance & Recovery

Exercise harder, sleep better and recover faster. Is magnesium is an athlete's best friend?

Magnesium is one of the most popular supplements for a good reason. It boasts a large variety of benefits quite literally in every part of the body, all while being safe to consume and widely available. As a supplement, it comes in many forms. The most popular ones are magnesium oxide, magnesium citrate, magnesium glycinate and magnesium chloride.

I understand that you might not be a big fan of supplement, and would rather consume it in “normal” food. Lucky for you, you have plenty of options. Here are the foods richest in magnesium(1):

• Pumpkin seeds
• Chia seeds
• Dry roasted almonds & cashews
• Spinach
• Oil roasted peanuts

Magnesium’s role in exercise:

When we exercise, our bodies turn glucose (simple sugars) into energy that we use. There are two ways our bodies can go about doing this, depending on the availability of oxygen: aerobically or anaerobically. When performing an exercise, you will eventually start to feel a burn. This happens when your body is low on oxygen, and takes the anaerobic route. It produces lactate which accumulates in the muscle, and triggers the burning sensation until you can’t keep going.

Magnesium could be involved in many ways. It could possibly increase the availability of glucose in the blood during exercise, and/or reduce the accumulation of lactate in the muscle. Magnesium may possibly even optimize the consumption of oxygen, yielding better physical performance.

The results:

I have to be careful with my wording here, because this topic remains to be controversial. A paper titled “Can Magnesium Enhance Exercise Performance? - PubMed”(2) was published in 2017, summarizing different studies on the effects of magnesium supplementation.

Studies performed on animals have been overwhelmingly positive. They suggest that magnesium can increase the availability of glucose during exercise, and the reduction of lactate accumulation in the muscle.

What about humans?

Here are the positive main findings of the different studies, according to the paper:

1. Positive association between Mg intake and strength performance.
2. Mg supplementation can attenuate the strength reduction due to decreased intercellular water.
3. Serum Mg level is positively associated with muscle performance in elderly.
4. Short-term supplementation was associated with better exercise performance.
5. Daily magnesium oxide supplementation improves physical performance in healthy elderly women.
6. Supplementation led to greater quadriceps torque.

And the negative main findings of the different studies:

1. Supplementation has no significant impact on muscle strength gain.
2. Supplementation did not improve exercise performance. It also did not improve muscle recovery.

It’s important to note that I am in no position to judge the methods or results of any of these studies. I highly encourage you to go read the paper for yourself and draw your own conclusions (magnesium is great).

Magnesium’s involvement in sleep & recovery:

Sleep is possibly the single most important way of recovering after intense exercise. So how does magnesium impact sleep?

Another paper I would like to highlight is “Association of magnesium intake with sleep duration and sleep quality: findings from the CARDIA study”(3) from the year 2021.

The study was conducted on just under 4000 participants to assess the effects of magnesium supplementation on sleep duration and quality.

The results:

Mg intake was borderline associated with better sleep quality. Participants in Q4 (higher magnesium dose) were also less likely to have short sleep (<7 hours) compared to those in Q1 (lower magnesium dose). The observed association with short sleep persisted among participants without depressive disorders but not among individuals with depressive disorder.

Should you supplement?

It is much important to make sure you are not deficient, than to supplement more than what your body requires. Check with your doctor, and take their advice. Personally, I supplement magnesium during my work-outs (magnesium chloride dissolved in water).

Note: This article is NOT medical advice!

So what do YOU think? Let me know!

See you soon.

Check out my other blogs: The Natural Sciences | Substack

Sources:

1. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019

2. Zhang Y, Xun P, Wang R, Mao L, He K. Can Magnesium Enhance Exercise Performance? Nutrients. 2017 Aug 28;9(9):946. doi: 10.3390/nu9090946. PMID: 28846654; PMCID: PMC5622706.

3. Zhang Y, Chen C, Lu L, Knutson KL, Carnethon MR, Fly AD, Luo J, Haas DM, Shikany JM, Kahe K. Association of magnesium intake with sleep duration and sleep quality: findings from the CARDIA study. Sleep. 2021 Nov 20:zsab276. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsab276. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34883514.