The Best Workout Supplement You’re Not Taking: Digestive Enzymes
Depending on how savvy you are in the health and fitness realm, you may have heard of supplementing digestive enzymes for gut health. Many food sensitivities and health problems can be due to a lack of enzymes necessary to properly break down food, and a popular solution is to take extra enzymes in supplement form.
Heck, you may have even used them in the past to address this issue. However, I bet you’ve never found yourself looking at your bottle of enzymes as a workout supplement, instead of searching for the last of the pre-workout.
Anyway, enzymes are used in your body for most chemical reactions, meaning they are part and parcel to your body’s functioning. Their involvement extends far beyond digestion and helps break down large particles into smaller ones throughout the body.
For all the digestive benefits of taking enzymes, which include but are not limited to curing such conditions as lactose intolerance (by taking the enzyme lactase. Those who are lactose intolerant do not produce enough of this enzyme.)
There have also been studies showing that certain digestive enzymes help with muscle recovery and reduce inflammation. Proteolytic enzymes, most well know for helping digest protein, have been linked to quicker recovery by breaking down amino acids, lowering inflammation, and aiding in tissue repair.
They have been used to reduce dental and sinus complaints as well as reduce muscle soreness. There are several experiments involving measuring the benefits of these enzymes on physical performance, but one of the most interesting was done on Karate fighters. The results of this study had impressive results including:
-Hematoma: recovery time decreased from 15.6 days to 6.6 days
-Swelling: recovery time decreased from 10 days to 4 days
-Restriction of movement: recovery time decreased from 12.6 days to 5 days
-Inflammation: recovery time decreased from 10.5 days to 3.8 days
-Unfit for training: recovery time decreased from 10.2 days to 4.2 days
When choosing an enzyme, there is a lot of information and many different helpful types. However, in general, brands used by functional medicine are good places to look.
However, I’ve recently come across a company with one of the best blends and most powerful testimonies out there. I am not affiliated with this company, but they seem to be the best out there as far as I can tell.
If you want to just go for quality, check out the brand: Bioptimizers. In particular, their enzyme blend, called Masszymes, is great, and their probiotic is pretty amazing as well. They’re a little pricey, but at 250 capsules per bottle, they can last quite some time for one person.
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Originally published on keenanerikssonfitness.com
