Vitamin E protects muscles (Article)
Vitamin E may be a key in helping individuals protect muscles during weight training, according to a Ball State University study.
Results of the study found Vitamin E protects muscle membranes during resistance training, said Bruce Craig, a physical education professor and a researcher in the Human Performance Laboratory.
Vitamin E acts as an antioxidant and reduces free radical formation. Since free radicals can damage the muscle membrane, a reduction in their formation is a major part of the protective effects of vitamin E.
“From a weight trainer’s point of view, if you don’t have as much muscle damage and soreness, you can recover faster,” he said. “Vitamin E may reduce the oxidative and mechanical damage induced by resistance training.”
Craig points out the effectiveness of vitamin E supplementation during aerobic exercise has been well established but has not been thoroughly studied in anaerobic activities like weight training.
In his study, 11 untrained men with an average age of 25 years participated in a three-week program of weight training. Six of the men took a daily capsule of vitamin E and the remaining five took a placebo.
Each participant weight trained in a circuit format, going from machine to machine without resting for about 50 minutes each session.
An analysis of the participant’s blood found the levels of creatine kinase, an enzyme that serves as an indicator of muscle damage, was different for each group.
For men taking vitamin E, the level of kinase did not increase until 48 hours after training, indicating less damage than their placebo-taking counterparts.
“These were young and relatively untrained young men,” Craig said. “The circuit training was hard and extremely tiring. They didn’t get sick but were very worn out by the end of the training.
“We knew that vitamin E protects muscles during aerobic exercises, but always wondered about resistence training,” he said. “Taking it didn’t improve power or strength, just recovery time and limited damage to the muscle.”
The next step is to test vitamin E on older adults and people who have been weight training for several years, Craig said.
“There is a great deal of interest in older adults because society is aging,” he said. “We know that weight training helps people retain strength and muscle as we age, and if we find that supplementing vitamin E helps, then it is a major step to potentially assisting older adults live healthier and longer lives.”
http://www.bsu.edu/news/article/0,13...9-1271,00.html
