Loving the BITE: Ginger, Joint Remedy and Muscle Soother

There’s nothing like a good ride to push your muscles, free your mind, and put a smile on your face.  As you push your muscles, you’ll also likely deal with soreness and fatigue.  While it’s not the end of the world, and all a part of training, the more you can do to reduce it and help your muscles heal, the better you’ll be able to continue to train and continue to reach new goals on your rides.

This week, we’ll take a look at the current research on ginger and muscle soreness, how we can get more of it, and just how much we need each day to soothe our muscles.

Recipes of the Week: 3 Ginger Muscle Soothers

1. Ginger Garlic Chicken:

This recipe is as easy as it is good, and you can add in a healthy dose of ginger while keeping your dinner light at night.  Pair Ginger Garlic Chicken with a colorful fresh salad and you’ll have loads of antioxidants and muscle soreness relief each night.  Click here for the full recipe.

2. Anti-Nausea Honey-Candied Ginger Training Fuel:

This whole-food, real-food training fuel can be eaten before, during and after your ride.  It provides all the benefits of ginger along with raw honey for an enduring energy source.  Eaten as part of your recovery, it can get to work on your muscles and joints when you need it most.  This simple recipe is a training fuel go-to.

3. Anti-inflammatory Healing Tea, Super Tonic, and Green Berry Ginger Tea:

This anti-inflammatory tea is easy to brew and full of antioxidants from ginger, cloves, turmeric, beets, lemon, and tea.  If you’ve been injured, or if you’d like to proactively reduce inflammation and muscle pain, brew a ginger healing tea and unwind.

Or, for a daily hydrator and perfect fluid recovery after a hard ride, choose Ginger Berry Green Tea. The benefits of green tea are vast.  They include super cell-protecting antioxidants,  antibacterial properties, cholesterol plague reducers, nutrients that promote eye health, and even daily dose of  the Super Health Tonic with the ginger add-in will keep you healthy and hydrated.   It can also deliver less colds, less sinus problems, potential fat loss and all the plentiful benefits of raw apple cider vinegar.

You can also go hard-core and choose the Super Health Tonic.  Start the day with a mix of 16 oz. water, 1 Tbsp. raw apple cider vinegar, 1 Tbsp. fresh grated ginger (1/4 tsp ground), 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon, and 1 pinch cayenne pepper.  It’s loaded with anti-inflammatories, antioxidants, ginger for muscle-soothing, and the magic of ACV – not convinced? Read all about it here.

Comments:

I’ve long been a fan of ginger for overall health.  It’s loaded with anti-inflammatories, antioxidants, and phytochemicals (trust me, all good things!), and specifically it has benefits for joint pain and joint health.  Additionally, studies in the last few years show that it’s effective in reducing muscle soreness in athletes.  In fact, in one study, participants took either 2 grams ginger or placebo each day for several days before strenuous exercise, and the ginger participants had a 25% reduction in soreness indicators vs. those on placebo.

To use ginger to reduce soreness (along with rest days, l-glutamine, recovery snacks, hydration, and activities like foam rolling), aim to get 2 grams per day.  You can choose 4 ginger pill supplements per day (check out the label, but most are 500 mg each), 2 teaspoons of fresh ginger each day, or 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger.

Reduced muscle soreness is great, but what else do you get from ginger? You’ll get strong anti-inflammatory nutrients with (anti) inflammation score of +129, slightly better than garlic.  Since inflammation plays a role with almost every chronic disease, oxidative stress, obesity, and fatigue, it is very beneficial to include as many anti-inflammatory foods in our diets as possible. Ginger also promotes gut health, may be anti-cancerous, is immune boosting, and anti-inflammatory. 

Feeling relaxed and recovered already?  Good.  It doesn’t always take medications to make your muscles feel better.  Sometimes, you can look to a simple, yet powerful, whole-food root likely setting in your fridge or spice rack right now.

Fuel Your Ride. Nourish Your Body.