Train Like an Athlete by ATHLEAN-X (Video Podcast)

If you could eat just one additional thing each day for better muscle gains, this would be it. In this video, I’m going to show you how eating just a little bit of ginger every single day can help you to combat delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), speed up your recovery and boost your ability to stay in the gym more consistently. While it may seem a little gross at first, I can assure you that it tastes really good and is diverse enough to be able to be included in many ways into your diet.

The first thing you want to do when adding ginger to your diet is determine the right kind and form to add. You do not want to simply drink ginger ale, like mom always told you when you have an upset stomach. Not only are the levels of ginger too minuscule to assist with muscle recovery but all of the sugar you get with the soda is something that is clearly unwanted.

The same can be said of candied ginger. People will often eat the sugar coated or crystalized form of ginger thinking that they are doing something healthy. Once again, here the benefits of this are minimized and the downsides are amplified. This is another case of good intentions with bad execution.

Instead, you want to either eat the raw ginger root, or the more palatable pickled ginger form that you find commonly when eating at a Japanese restaurant. The picked form is simply sliced ginger root that is soaked in a vinegar brine. It is very low in calories, moderately low in sodium but packed with many benefits that will carry over to your workout. The best part is, it only takes just a little pinch each day to see the improvements.

As for muscle recovery, studies have shown that adding just two grams a day of ginger to your diet can decrease delayed onset muscle soreness. The effects are pronounced the further out from training that you go. In other words, while most DOMS is worst 48 hours after the training session, adding ginger would help to suppress those aches much more significantly. The potential impact of this is huge. Imagine, not having to decrease your training intensity in the name of more volume since DOMS would no longer be impairing your ability to train a muscle again just days later.

Instead, one could train hard and incorporate eccentric lengthening techniques and stresses that are known to be capable of promoting muscle growth and then repeat the sessions just days later without the repercussions of soreness. The alternative is to decrease training intensity or eliminate eccentric training all together so allow you to repeat your training without soreness impairing your performance.

It is so simple to incorporate ginger into your diet every single day. Add just a pinch of pickled ginger to your egg whites in the morning (trust me, it actually tastes good), to a shake or even to your grilled chicken later in the day. Once you see and feel the benefits of including it, you will likely find a way to stomach the taste in order to make sure you’re getting it in.

For a complete day by day meal plan on how to eat to be ripped year round, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Get the exact meal by meal breakdown of my exact meal plan and what I eat to stay lean 365 days a year with no fluctuations or deprivation.

For more videos on what to eat to build muscle and the best foods for gaining muscle and losing fat, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24