Are you aware of the importance of magnesium? Do you know how magnesium affects your body? You probably feel sore after hard workouts; wouldn’t you like to change that? Have you been sleeping well lately? Sleep deprivation can have detrimental effects on your mood. A bit of magnesium can change all that. Magnesium is a huge factor when it comes to energy production, but it also plays an important role both in muscle performance and muscle recovery. Let’s take a look at why you need to know how important magnesium is to your body.
Strength
Not having enough magnesium in your body will hurt your progress at the gym. A lack of magnesium impairs your performance and you’ll probably see that your muscles aren’t getting as tight or as big as they should be. You won’t get stronger. If you don’t have enough magnesium in your body, the production of enzymes that enable muscle protein synthesis will be impaired. That can do a lot of damage to your gym progress and muscle recovery.
Cramps
Nobody likes cramps. That is a fact. And do you know why people experience cramps and spasms from time to time? Well, because of a lack of magnesium. When you exercise, magnesium levels drop drastically. You get rid of it through sweat and urine which are both produced in greater amounts under physical duress. The harder the exercise, the more magnesium you’ll lose. And when you lose too much of it, you experience cramps. It is proven that 500mg of magnesium gluconate relaxes and reduces muscle spasms.
Explosiveness
When you play certain sports, you have to be quick to react. Basketball players need to jump in order to get the rebound, footballers also have to react quickly, especially defenders, and in order to do that, the body needs magnesium. Explosive movements are a must if you really want to be good at certain sports. Therefore, many athletes who aim to improve their athletic performance add quality magnesium supplements to their diet. That is probably the best way to give your body what it needs in terms of magnesium.
Recovery
We’ve mentioned how we all get sore muscle after working out. It can be one hell of a pain in the neck. Getting out of bed becomes a difficult task, especially if the day before was leg day at the gym. The pain can be excruciating and you simply cannot function properly. However, if you take in enough magnesium, you can significantly improve the muscle recovery progress. You’ll metabolize carbs and due to that, you’ll create a metabolic environment that will even help you gain muscles, but also recover faster.
Balancing hormones
Hormones, the vital part of every athlete’s career. Badly balanced testosterone and cortisol levels proved fatal to various athletes’ career prospects. But have no fear, magnesium will help your body maintain the perfect balance of testosterone and it will also balance cortisol levels. Freeing up testosterone and balancing cortisol levels is what your body needs in order for you to become stronger. So if you haven’t thought about it so far, consider adding magnesium supplements to your diet.
Insulin and being lean
Magnesium is the mineral of insulin sensitivity. As we’ve said, it helps your body metabolize carbs, but it also affects hormones that are in charge of blood glucose levels. Taking in enough magnesium will indeed aid your muscle building progress, but it will also make you lean. Due to robust levels of magnesium, you’ll have the metabolic environment that you need in order to develop a leaner body composition in a short period of time. What good does a strong body do if it’s covered by a layer of unhealthy fat? Yes, there are people who think that bigger is better, but that isn’t always the case.
Magnesium is often overlooked when people talk about diet and working out. You can find magnesium in some common foods such as almonds, sesame seeds, walnuts or rice, but you can also shop for good magnesium supplements. Many gym goers aren’t aware of this and unfortunately, many never find out what the problem is when it comes to their progress. We want to make sure that you understand just how important magnesium is to you. Eat a banana, add broccoli and potatoes to your diet or simply buy supplements and you should be okay.
