Among other major health functions, magnesium plays a crucial part in relaxing and helping muscles to function normally. Not having enough can cause spasms, tightness and tension in your muscles and joints, which can cause discomfort and compromise your exercise performance and recovery.
Between supplementing magnesium for muscle pain to boosting your magnesium for muscle recovery, we’ll explain how magnesium is an essential nutrient for healing and soothing muscle tension.
In this guide:
Why Take Magnesium for Muscles?
Magnesium is a powerhouse nutrient which benefits muscle tension, spasms, and healing. It’s vital for proper muscle function, working with other essential types of minerals to keep muscles loose and flexible.
Here are just a few key advantages to having optimum magnesium levels:
- Relaxing your muscles during exercise – When you exercise or do some kind of physical activity, magnesium relaxes your muscles and controls their contractions. It helps lessen the build-up of lactic acid, which can cause muscular tension. This then enables your muscles to get the oxygen they need. Magnesium sport performance supplements can also help by relaxing your muscles.
- Supports exercise recovery – When you exercise, your muscles are often strained and can experience little tears. Your body needs vital proteins, carbs, and other nutrients to heal these. Getting quality sleep, stretching, and supplementing magnesium for muscle recovery can help improve muscle healing after exercise.
- Energy production – Magnesium plays an important role in your body’s natural energy production, so it’s important to get enough. Much of your energy comes from adenosine triphosphate (ATP)—a molecule that converts energy from food sources into fuel. This fuel is then used for other bodily processes including muscle function.
- Helps to support growth – Your body produces growth factors with the help of magnesium. These are proteins that facilitate muscle growth and strength over the long term.
Low levels of magnesium puts you more at risk of suffering muscle:
- Spasms (especially in the legs or feet)
- Tightness
- Aches
- Weakness
- Fatigue
Fastest Absorbing Magnesium for Performance & Recovery
What Causes Muscle Tension?
Muscle tension is extremely common and can occur almost anywhere due to how much muscle tissue we have throughout the body. It mostly occurs as a result of straining the muscle during physical activity, or injury in strenuous work or exercise.
Inside the body, calcium and magnesium are in competition, binding with the same proteins within your muscles. A build-up of calcium could cause muscles to over-contract, which can lead to spasms or twitches.
- Neck tension – Usually the result of a strain through exercise, heavy lifting, or sitting, standing or sleeping in an awkward position.
- Back tension – Tension in the back is very common, and can occur in joints and bones as well as the muscles and soft tissue. It might feel like a mild but constant ache or a sudden, sharp soreness.
If your muscles spasm or twitch after you’ve been exercising or standing for a long period of time, this might be a sign that you have a vitamin or mineral deficiency, especially in magnesium.
However, there are also certain conditions and medical reasons that may cause muscle tension, including:
- Fibromyalgia
- Flu, or other similar infections
- Thyroid problems
- Being potassium-deficient
You may also consider joint health supplements or bone supplements to help support these areas of your body.
How Does Magnesium Help Muscle Tension?
Magnesium is a muscle relaxer, meaning it can help support muscle tension and discomfort. This is why it’s often recommended to take magnesium for menopause relief, as it can help to soothe the aches and muscle tension which accompany menopause.
Here’s how magnesium can help different forms of muscle tension:
Muscle Spasms
Spasms are painful muscle contractions, and one of magnesium’s key functions within the body is to help prevent them.
If you’re suffering from muscle spasms, boosting your magnesium for muscle pain can help by encouraging the body to absorb calcium. Calcium is another abundant mineral which is essential for optimum health. It also prevents muscles and soft tissues from calcifying (hardening due to excess calcium).
Muscle spasms are often considered symptoms of magnesium deficiency. As magnesium is a muscle relaxer, low levels of magnesium can lead to muscle cramps, spasms and contractions. Muscle spasms may also be a side effect of certain medications, or linked to health conditions, so it’s a good idea to visit your doctor if you’re concerned.
Lots of people suffer with nocturnal leg twitching or muscle spasms when sleeping. Supplementing magnesium for muscle spasms has had positive results. It has worked particularly well in treating pregnant women and the elderly.
Does Magnesium Help Muscle Stiffness?
Yes, supplementing magnesium for muscle stiffness can help your muscles to relax, which is why some health professionals advise increasing your intake to alleviate and avoid painful muscle spasms and soreness.
Muscle Strains
A muscle strain occurs when your muscles over-stretch or tear. This kind of injury is quite common, and most frequently happens to:
- Neck muscles
- Back muscles
- The hamstring
Straining a muscle can cause it to tighten and/or spasm, which feels very sore. Supplementing transdermal magnesium for muscle recovery can help limit any tension by helping the muscle to contract and relax.
Magnesium for Muscle Recovery
Muscle soreness is often associated with beginning a new exercise routine, and can be a common injury after working out. Performance nutritionist Emily Whitehead explains:
“Muscle soreness, commonly known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), can be caused by microscopic damage to your muscle fibres and is usually associated with an unusual or increased load to the muscle. This triggers soreness and stiffness in our muscles from 24 to 48 hours after we’ve exercised”
- Emily Whitehead, MBANT Registered Nutritionist & Personal Trainer.
DOMS is not always avoidable, especially for those of us who may not exercise very regularly. However, thoroughly warming up and cooling down as well as gradually increasing the amount of exercise we do can help to prevent such uncomfortable consequences. In other words, don’t do too much too soon.
When training for an hour or more, Emily also recommends that you should eat a snack that includes carbohydrates and protein after exercise. This will help to replenish lost glycogen stores, while the protein helps to repair your damaged muscle fibres.
Although nutrition helps to fuel exercise and optimise our recovery, it isn’t always enough to meet the high demands of training. For this reason, Emily recommends supplementation, such as taking magnesium for muscles:
“One of the supplements I recommend is magnesium, applied through the skin. This mineral is lost when we sweat and it plays a vital role in our body’s ability to produce Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) which we need for energy. An insufficient amount of cellular magnesium may result in a build-up of lactic acid. Ultimately leaving our bodies susceptible to muscle tiredness and soreness.”
Studies have shown that supplementing magnesium for muscle recovery, through the skin, is an effective way to absorb this mineral.
How Much Magnesium for Muscle Relief?
According to the NHS, the recommended daily requirement of magnesium is:
- 300mg per day for men (aged 19–64 years)
- 270mg per day for women (aged 19–64 years)
Taking large amounts orally can have a laxative effect. However, BetterYou’s transdermal magnesium products don’t have the same effect because they’re applied directly to the skin instead of passing through the digestive system.
Magnesium dosages vary depending on health and lifestyle, so you should always check the supplement instructions and packaging first. Make sure you take the correct dosage to ensure your magnesium supplement is effective, increasing your magnesium levels to the optimum amount.
Learn more about magnesium dosages with our complete guide to magnesium supplements
Which Type of Magnesium is Best for Muscles?
Your magnesium intake for muscle tension depends on two things:
- Your diet (dietary magnesium)
- Any supplements you take
With pill-free supplements, it’s important to understand that there are several different forms of magnesium for muscles. Each one has a different purpose or effect on your body. Some forms, such as body sprays, are easier for your body to absorb than others, a characteristic known as “bioavailability”.
Shop our magnesium body sprays
Magnesium Chloride
One of the most common types of magnesium for muscles, magnesium chloride is extracted from natural sources in rock or saltwater. All of our magnesium products at BetterYou use a highly pure form of magnesium chloride taken from the Earth’s crust.
It’s used in both:
- Oral magnesium supplements – Including those you take by mouth, such as pills and tablets.
- Transdermal magnesium supplements – Such as those you absorb through the skin, including magnesium bath flakes, oils, lotions and creams (also known as topical magnesium).
How Magnesium Chloride Helps Muscle Tension
Magnesium chloride is known to be effective at treating muscle spasms by:
- Relieving muscle tension, tightness and stiffness
- Supporting working muscle tissue, allowing for quicker muscle recovery after strenuous exercise
- Improving calcium absorption in bones
Other benefits of magnesium chloride include:
- Magnesium chloride is one of the most bioavailable forms of magnesium—so it’s easily absorbed and used by the body.
- Magnesium helps to improve sleep quality
- Aiding digestion
- Repairing and replenishing skin
Magnesium Sulphate
Better known as Epsom salts, magnesium sulphate contains magnesium, sulphur and oxygen. Like magnesium chloride, you can reap the benefits via transdermal application (through the skin) or through oral supplements. Most people take Epsom salts by dissolving them in a hot bath or foot soak.
As they have a lower concentration of magnesium than magnesium chloride, they have a lower bioavailability too, which is important to consider. This can affect how effectively the mineral is absorbed by your body.
Magnesium sulphate contains analgesic properties that help to soothe sore muscles such as muscle spasms. It also draws toxins out of the pores. It can have a laxative effect when taken in tablet-form, which could relieve constipation.
Learn more about the difference between Epsom salts and magnesium flakes
Magnesium Malate
Magnesium malate is made by combining magnesium with malic acid. This acid is found in fruits such as oranges. Together they make a magnesium salt that has a higher level of bioavailability than other forms such as magnesium oxide and magnesium sulphate.
Magnesium malate relieves muscle tension by relaxing tense areas. It’s for this reason that it’s so effective at easing muscle spasms. It also supports hundreds of enzyme processes inside the body, and helps the cells in your body produce and use energy.
Can Magnesium Relieve Menstrual Spasms?
Being deficient in magnesium can have a major effect on how your body feels during the menstrual cycle. A lack of magnesium in your body can make your muscles more prone to contractions and inflammation. As a result, this can intensify the severe muscle cramps and spasms you might feel as part of your PMS symptoms.
Magnesium is one of many essential nutrients to support a healthy period. As magnesium is a muscle relaxer, it also helps to relieve the headaches and mood symptoms that can accompany monthly menstruation.
A Better Way to a BetterYou
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We focus on essential nutrients that help support your health and wellbeing, so you can feel your best. Combining the most bioavailable forms of ingredients with innovative delivery methods like oral sprays and transdermal oils, our products deliver quick and efficient nutrition where you need it most.
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