You should avoid taking vitamins or anti-inflammatory supplements around your workouts.
Why? Dare you ask?
Now, we aren’t saying you should avoid vitamins — far from it — but nutrition timing should be high on your list of priorities if you wish to get the very most out of your training.
Avoid Taking Vitamins Around Workouts
Because some vitamins (C & E) can reduce acute inflammation — good inflammation — post workout and partially delay recovery.
Peri-workout nutrition is key to optimizing your recovery, growth, and performance in the gym.
We often advise to time carbohydrate intake around 1.5 hours before AND after training to allow the body to 1) fuel workouts and 2) release insulin to begin repairing cells damaged by training stimulus.
Acute inflammation occurs in the damaged muscle tissue which is necessary for recovery.
Some vitamins can reduce acute inflammation in these damaged cells, thus delaying or hindering recovery.
Vitamins C and E can blunt post-workout increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) thus decreasing insulin sensitivity.
According to T Nation: “In one study, a group of exercise physiologists set out to examine how supplementing with vitamin C (1000mg) and vitamin E (400 IU) affected the post-workout boost in insulin sensitivity. Forty young men exercised five days a week (50 minute sessions including cycling and circuit training) for four weeks. The addition of vitamin C and E supplementation in that group completely eliminated the beneficial insulin-sensitizing effects of exercise.”
Anti-inflammatory foods such as curcumin and ginger may also reduce inflammation in those areas — but the long-term health benefits of these foods in reducing chronic inflammation — bad — outweigh any marginal setbacks which may occur.
Be sure to consume your vitamins and anti-inflammatory foods several hours before/after training to get the most out of your recovery.
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