Magnesium: More Energy and Muscle Synergy

Do you take a multimineral supplement? Maybe you should, at least every few days, considering how important minerals are to your health and muscle-building workouts. Hard-training bodybuilders sap their bodies of minerals at every training session, and one of the major ones lost is magnesium.

In the May/June ’10 Well-Being Journal author James South, M.A., says, “Magnesium is essential to the glycolytic cycle that converts sugar to ATP bioenergy. It also stabilizes ATP; indeed, 80 percent of the magnesium inside the cell is complexed with ATP…. It plays key roles in secondary messenger systems that mediate hormonal effects on cells.”

Let’s see: ATP and anabolic hormones have a direct effect on muscle size and strength. Are you beginning to see a connection to bodybuilding here? There’s more: It also directly affects nerve function and the contraction and relaxation of muscles. Well, don’t we get enough from our food? Good question. Back to South:

“As one study noted, ‘The dietary intake of magnesium declined in the United States from [about] 500 milligrams per day in 1900 to 215 [to] 283 milligrams per day in 1990…. It [is] difficult to reach the recommended daily allowance of 400 milligrams through diet alone.’”

If you’re training hard, you’re depleting more than the average person, so supplementing is critical. You may be suffering from magnesium deficiency and not realize it. Here are some of the symptoms South lists in his article:

• Chronic fatigue, weakness and exhaustion

• Headaches

• Irritability, nervousness, anxiety

• Depression, apathy

• Muscle spasms and tremors of the hands and feet

• Difficulty with memory and concentration

• Insomnia

• Chronic constipation

• Poor appetite

• Emotional instability/overreaction

You may be thinking that’s pretty much a list of symptoms typical of a bodybuilding-contest-prep diet, but if you have some or all of them, you may want to try a magnesium supplement or at least a multimineral capsule every few days. Remember, the RDA is 400 milligrams per day. If you’re taking a meal replacement, like Muscle-Link’s Muscle Meals, you’re getting 278 milligrams per packet—a pretty good haul if you’re using one per day. IM