Can The Sun Reduce Muscular Fatigue?

Exercise is necessary if you’re going to lose weight, build lean muscle mass, or the combination of the two.

But, sometimes, you just don’t have what it takes!

You may feel tired…

Unmotivated…

WEAK…

Or just drained from a long day at work, school, or taking care of your family!

Although these are very good reasons for not going, when it comes to muscular fatigue, this could be an alarm, altering you to something serious that may be going on inside your body.

And that something is…

Low Vitamin D levels!

Now, you know vitamin D is good for your bones, weight, and other things, but muscular fatigue?

Vitamin D and Muscular Fatigue

As you know, vitamin D is a necessary nutrient to ensure the health and strength in your bones and your entire skeletal system.

And, you may know, that low Vitamin D levels are also associated with weight gain and Diabetes.

But what you probably did not know – and is a common symptom in Vitamin D deficient people – is that low Vitamin D levels may lead to muscular fatigue.

But, lets back up for a moment…

What, and more importantly, where do you get vitamin D?

Vitamin D is produced by your body as a response to exposure to sunlight.   It’s been shown, that just 10 minutes per day in the sun, may significantly increase your vitamin D status.

But you can also get vitamin D from some of the foods you eat, including egg yolks (see, they’re not bad at all!), fish, fish liver oils, and fortified cereals.

For most, they may choose the path of supplementing with Vitamin D to increase their status – especially those people who live in areas where the weather is dark and dreary for a good portion of the year.

Now, back to muscle fatigue…

A new study shows that low vitamin D may reduce the function of a powerful – yet tiny – power station located deep inside your cells.

The system: your mitochondria.

Now, your mitochondria’s main job is to take glucose, fatty acids, and oxygen and convert them into something your cells – and body – can use more efficiently – ATP.

And, if your mitochondria’s are not functioning correctly, then you could have less ATP for your body and cells to use.

And this, in turn, may lead to poor performance – or muscular fatigue!

Now, besides this complicated process – and due to the fact that you move – your supplies of ATP may decrease rapidly!

But luckily for you, your body has something called phosphocreatine, which allows for a quick energy source to make and replenish your ATP supply.

However, when your levels of phosphocreatine decrease, they need to be replenished – and that is one of the other jobs that your mitochondria does for you!

And the time it takes to replenish your ATP – is what scientist and researchers use to gauge how efficient your mitochondria are.

Here’s what the study found:

First, they took 12 people who were severely deficient in Vitamin D and subjected them to 12 weeks of supplementation.

They found that the recovery time for phosphocreatine was significantly reduced following Vitamin D supplementation.

And this indicated improvements in maximal oxygen phosphorylation – or how fast your mitochondria are able to produce ATP.

They also noted improvements in serum Vitamin D status.

And, this one is important, all patients reported LESS FATIGUE following the therapy!

They concluded:

“Vitamin D supplementation changes muscle mitochondrial maximal oxidative phosphorylation following exercise in symptomatic, vitamin D deficient individuals. This finding suggests that changes in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in skeletal muscle could at least be partly responsible for the fatigue experienced by these patients. For the first time, we demonstrate a link between vitamin D and the mitochondria in human skeletal muscle.”

More Vitamin D

As a weight loss seeker, or strength seeker, or just plain health seeker, you know that getting the right nutrition are keys to a healthy lifestyle.

However, there could be one vitamin that you – and a lot of others – are lacking, depending on diet and your ability to get out in the sun.

Low vitamin D levels have been linked to a number of health ailments including weight gain, diabetes, and poor bone health.

Now, you can add muscular fatigue to the mix.

According to the results of this study, low Vitamin D levels have been shown to reduce the function of the mitochondria, therefore leading to muscular fatigue.

So in order to improve your health – both skeletal and muscular – look for foods that are fortified with vitamin D, egg yolks, fish, fish liver oil, or exposure to the sunlight, or through supplementation to increase your vitamin D status.



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