Each week in my Research Update, I distill the latest sports science research into practical insights to help you improve your training, performance, and recovery.
In this week's update:
- Tart cherry juice does more than reduce soreness and inflammation
- Why HMB helps older adults maintain muscle in the long run
- Creatine monohydrate’s benefits for postmenopausal women
Tart Cherry May Do More Than Just Reduce Soreness
This study explored what tart cherry might actually be doing inside the muscles following hard exercise. Thirty-four active men completed a muscle-damaging workout after seven days of tart cherry supplementation or a placebo. While tart cherry didn't significantly improve strength recovery in this study, muscle biopsies revealed changes in proteins involved in muscle structure, connective tissue support, and repair. Researchers suggest tart cherry may help prepare muscle tissue to better tolerate training stress and damage, rather than simply reducing inflammation afterward. The study also found changes in proteins involved in rebuilding muscle and a potential link between tart cherry metabolites produced by the gut microbiome and muscle function.
My thoughts: Tart cherry reduces inflammation and soreness—that’s the established story. What's interesting here is the suggestion that it may also influence the structural side of recovery by helping muscles better handle damage in the first place. That's more akin to what HMB does. For athletes tackling hard training blocks, products like Beet It Regen Cherry+ can be a valuable recovery tool, especially when taken alongside HMB.
HMB Helps Older Adults Hold Onto Muscle for Longer
This trial looked at whether adding 3g of HMB to a large 40g serving of whey protein could further improve muscle protein metabolism in 24 older adults. As expected, both protein alone and protein with HMB increased muscle protein synthesis. However, in older women especially, adding HMB increased muscle protein synthesis even further, despite the protein dose already being considered high enough to maximize the muscle-building response. HMB also reduced muscle protein breakdown for longer after eating in both men and women. Notably, participants were not exercising as part of this study, making the anabolic and anti-catabolic effects of HMB relevant to any older adult, not just those training hard into their later years.
My thoughts: Why is this important? HMB is gaining research as a supplement that stabilizes muscle protein as you age. This study adds to the data showing that it improves your body's response to the protein you eat and also helps prevent muscle protein breakdown. Importantly, this happened without exercise, while most supplements need to be taken alongside consistent training to show a meaningful benefit. HMB appears to work on the underlying machinery of muscle maintenance regardless. HMB is the masters athlete's secret weapon, and it's worth considering for anyone over 50 who wants to hold onto muscle. Blonyx HMB Sport is a good place to start with HMB supplementation.
Creatine Still Improves Lean Mass and Strength After Menopause
This review pooled data from seven studies involving more than 600 postmenopausal women, where researchers looked at whether creatine could improve lean mass, strength, and bone density in this group. Women taking 5g of creatine per day, for at least 12 weeks, saw a meaningful increase in lean mass of around 0.37kg as well as a ~7% improvement in lower-body strength compared to placebo, but only when creatine was combined with resistance training. Lower doses and creatine supplementation without exercise produced little benefit, and bone density did not improve significantly regardless of dose.
My thoughts: Creatine works pretty much as expected in postmenopausal women. The research confirms what we see across other populations: dose matters, and pairing it with resistance training is non-negotiable. If you're a woman in your 50s or 60s who's lifting regularly, taking 5g of creatine daily will help maintain muscle and strength. Blonyx HMB+ Creatine offers this dosage and the added benefit of 3g of HMB per day, helping to preserve lean muscle mass and integrity.
— That's all for now, train hard!
If you learned something new and are curious to know more, check out more articles and my growing list of weekly Blonyx Research Updates where I help you further improve your athletic performance by keeping you up to date on the latest findings from the world of sports science.
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