Drained after completing a long workout? Feeling those aches and pains from a pulled muscle, a sprained ligament, or a strained tendon? Injuries are fairly common with sports and exercise, especially once you start to tire. But what if there was a way to replenish your energy while speeding up your body’s natural repair process at the same time?

Enter Glutamine: The Supplement For Weekend Warriors

Glutamine is among the most common of the amino acids found in your muscles. More than 61% of the skeletal muscles in your body are composed of glutamine. It is a nitrogen-rich amino acid, meaning that it helps to infuse your muscle cells with nitrogen, an extremely important building block of strength. What’s interesting is that the glutamine in your muscles gets depleted when you lift weights, run, or do any sort of physical activity. The more intense the training, the more glutamine is worn away. It can take nearly a week for the levels of glutamine in your muscles to restore themselves, so your muscles are lacking a lot of this important amino acid during this six-day period. Unless, of course, you take a glutamine supplement.

The Benefits of Glutamine Supplement

Trainers on sites like Men’s Fitness recommend taking a supplement containing this amino acid, as it can do a lot of things for your body:

1. Promote Protein Synthesis — This is important because your body needs to be able to synthesize protein for the sake of your muscles. The more protein your body can use, the less muscle breakdown there is. Your body needs glutamine, so if it can’t get it anywhere else, it turns to muscle tissue.
2. Speeds Up Healing — Studies have shown that glutamine can help to speed up the repair of cells in the body, increasing the healing process significantly. The amino acid helps to keep the cells hydrated, and can even reduce infections, prevent pathogens, reduce mortality rates among the severely injured, and decrease the length of the hospital stay of those suffering from serious burns.
3. Increase Muscle Mass –– If you take a glutamine supplement, you will be giving your muscles the amino acids they need prior to exercise. When you do the workout, the amino acids will be available and thus easily accessible to your muscles. Your body can use the glutamine that is stored in the muscles, enabling it to build new muscle fibers, which produces the muscle mass you’re looking for.
4. Relieve Side Effects of Cancer Treatments — Doctors have recommended supplements of glutamine as a means of dealing with the side effects of cancer. The amino acid has helped to reduce diarrhea, sore throats, swelling in the lining of the mouth, and the tingling sensation in your toes and fingers that accompanies radiation treatment. It has proven to be effective in a number of cases!

Pretty amazing stuff, this glutamine. It’s an amino acid that your body can use in many ways—and it’s sure to make you feel a whole lot healthier.

How to Get Enough Glutamine

Glutamine can usually be obtained through the food that you eat, particularly in the plant and animal proteins. You can find it in:

• Beef
• Cottage cheese
• Tofu
• Beans
• Eggs
• Poultry
• Milk

…and many more! However, if your goal is to build muscle mass, you may want to add a bit more to your diet—but you should try not to exceed 40 grams. More than this can be unhealthy, so it’s best to stick with a smaller dosage. How can you get it? There are many glutamine powders you can take, such as the ones found here: https://www.wellwisdom.com/glutimmune-the-finest-glutamine-available/. Glutamine powders are usually recommended by bodybuilders and athletes, as they can be mixed into any number of drinks. They make it that much easier to get all of the amino acids your body needs! So, the benefits of glutamine are both for the athlete or muscle builder to allow your body to repair muscle tissue quicker, but also to reduce many illness symptoms.