Amino acid found in watermelon juice can reduce an athlete's recovery time

Aug 17, 2013 01:16 GMT  ·  By

A team of scientists led by Encarna Aguayo at the Technical University of Cartagena, Spain claims that people who drink watermelon juice shortly after a high-intensity workout need less time to recover.

More precisely, the researchers say that, according to their investigations, watermelon juice significantly reduces the muscle soreness most people experience after spending a tad too much time at the gym or playing sports.

By the looks of it, watermelon juice owes its ability to relieve muscle soreness to the fact that it contains an amino acid known to the scientific community as L-citrulline, Daily Mail reports.

To prove that L-citrulline is indeed the chemical compound that helps athletes recover faster after intense workouts, the researchers carried out a series of experiments with the help of several volunteers.

The latter were split into three different groups, the same source informs us.

People in the first group were asked to drink natural watermelon juice and the ones in the second group were given watermelon juice enriched in L-citrulline.

The volunteers in the third group were offered a control drink that contained absolutely no L-citrulline.

About an hour after they had enjoyed their beverages, the volunteers were made to exercise.

Later on, the researchers evaluated how much muscle soreness each of them was experiencing.

It was discovered that the people belonging to the first two groups all felt less discomfort than the volunteers who had consumed the control drink.

The watermelon juice enriched with L-citrulline reportedly proved more effective than the natural one in terms of relieving muscle soreness.

However, the volunteers' bodies responded better to the natural juice, meaning that they processed it significantly easier.

The researchers theorize that L-citrulline helps cut an athlete's recovery time by speeding up the process of lactic acid removal.

A detailed account of this investigation and its findings has recently been published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.