Athletes, fitness enthusiasts and weekend warriors are constantly on the lookout for ways to improve their performance and their body’s ability to handle the arduous workouts. The strenuous physical routine often leads to exhaustion, muscle damage and fatigue.
It doesn’t matter how hard you work out, if you don’t recover properly!
Recovery is a critical phase of the exercise – adaptation cycle. It is a process that includes rest, rehydration, rejuvenation, and repair that ultimately helps the body return to homeostasis. In other words, recovery is the period in between workouts and training, when your body adapts to make you stronger and faster. Rigorous workouts such as resistance training frequently damages the skeletal muscle tissue and triggers an increase in the level of creatine kinase, a protein specific to muscles that can be a biomarker for muscle damage. During this period certain botanical supplements may aid in the mitigation of training-related damage, allowing you to heal faster and return to training sooner.
Ashwagandha, an Adaptogenic herb, is also considered as a Rasayana – that promotes physical and mental health, slows down aging process, defends against diseases and adverse environmental factors and also accelerates the process of cell repair in the body. As a sports performance supplement, the benefits of Ashwagandha aren’t limited to just increasing performance.
An 8- week, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled study published in the Journalof International Society of Sports Nutrition, investigated the effect of KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract as an ergogenic supplement and recovery aid in 57 male athletes. At the end of the study, not only did KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract supplementation significantly increase muscle strength, muscle size and testosterone levels, but also had significantly decreased amount of serum muscle creatine kinase levels, a marker for exercise induced muscle damage.
In another study published in F1000, researches evaluated the ergogenic effect of KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract in both male and female participants for 8 weeks. This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involved 80 participants of both gender. At the end of the study, it was found that KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract supplementation not only demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in muscle strength, muscle size, immunity and overall quality of life, but also demonstrated a statistically significant decline in exercise induced muscle damage.
A study published recently in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology found that supplementation with KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract may aid in recovery, along with enhancing cardiorespiratory endurance. In this placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized clinical trial, 50 athletic individuals received either KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract or placebo for 8 weeks. Cardiorespiratory fitness, endurance and recovery were measured in this study. Researchers found that, after 8 weeks, KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract supplementation showed a significant improvement in recovery assessed through the RESTQ (Recovery-Stress Questionnaire) scores.
The exquisiteness of Ashwagandha is that it offers more than just athlete specific benefits, that enhances both psychological and physiological functioning. It is a natural fit in the sports nutrition industry. There are many products with KSM-66 Ashwagandha root extract that aid in muscle recovery on the market.
Here are a few such examples:
Earthnutri Post-Workout Swift Recovery
MPL Nutrition Electro-FX
Ten Performance Recover Pro
Black Market Labs Guerrilla Prime Recovery Nine
Aperegina Recovery Extreme
MDrive Start
Daily Nutra Peak Workout Formula
FitN40+Sport