What is Menthol?
Menthol is a natural compound found in plants of the mint variety. For the vast majority of people, menthol may merely be seen as the ingredient that provides the minty sensation in the toothpaste, mouthwash, gum and body wash that we use on a day-to-day basis. However, recent studies into the properties of menthol have found that it may potentially provide performance enhancing benefits in physical activity.
Can Menthol have an Impact on Athletic Performance –The Research:
Research into the effect that menthol can have on athletic performance has only really begun to pick up in recent years so there isn’t an abundance of studies that we can draw from. The studies that we do currently have however, show real signs of promise and will certainly provide a great basis for the study of menthol in the future.
There are two key properties of Menthol that contribute to its potential performance enhancing benefits, its cooling effect and its analgesic (pain relieving) properties.
In order to highlight the potential benefits of menthol use, I have chosen two studies that I think can help to provide you with some clarity about the effectiveness of this substance and explain why it has become a key ingredient in an array of products.
The first is a physiology and behaviour study that explored the benefits of external menthol application. The study found that applying an 8% menthol gel to the face increased total work completed during a cycling time trial by 21%. The participants in this study reported they were more comfortable and felt cooler from the menthol. A 21% increase in total work completed is an incredible improvement and, whilst there are likely to have been other factors that contributed to this, it is also safe to say that the utilisation of the menthol gel was a key contributing factor to this success.
Another study, conducted by Jeffries and Waldron (2019), explored the effects that menthol has on exercise performance and thermal sensation when it is applied both internally and externally on test subjects. The study found that the application of menthol improved overall exercise performance as well as finding that it reduces perceptual measures of thermal sensation – which essentially means that people weren’t feeling as hot when they exercise as they typically would.
Conclusion:
These studies help explain why menthol based products are increasingly finding their way into an athlete’s kit bag and people’s health and wellbeing routines in general.
Menthol crystals, available from pharmacies, are widely used in aromatherapy applications. Menthol based gums and sweets are extremely popular for their cooling effect and mouth feel. Body care products using menthol’s functional benefits are very popular with sportsmen and women. Bullet & Bone’s Cooling Relief Freeze Gel is a menthol based gel which can be used after exercise to rapidly cool muscles to aid recovery and to relieve minor muscle and joint pain.
Lots of Body Washes and Shower Gels use Menthol as an ingredient because of its fresh, invigorating fragrance and its powerful cooling effect, Bullet & Bone’s Cooling Recovery Body Wash is a premium formula that cleanses and conditions the skin and uses Magnesium alongside Menthol so it designed specifically for muscle recovery.
I can’t promise you that the use of a menthol-based product will transform you into an Olympic level athlete but the research we currently have suggests that menthol can positively impact your athletic performance.
After a long day at work, a late night out, or a tiring workout, I always find my muscles are sore and stiff. This should not be happening when I’m only 20! Usually, I head straight for the Volterol. Recently though, I discovered a natural muscle rub that is better for your skin and does wonders to your general performance! Here are some of the natural advantages of using a muscle rub:
BENEFITS ON THE SKIN
When you use a natural product, the benefits of muscle rub can be quite surprising. New muscle rubs contain amazing ingredients like willow bark and clary extract that act to naturally reduce pain, inflammation and stiffness. Similarly, ginger and black pepper offer a natural warming effect on muscles, tendons and joints. This means that the benefits of muscle rub include stopping your muscles and joints from locking up!
High-quality products do not use harsh chemicals, such as diclofenac, which is found in more mainstream brands. This is good for your skin because it means that you can avoid irritation. Red itchy skin is never a good look!
BENEFITS ON YOUR MIND
Many of the benefits may rely on the placebo effect. However, when you use natural ingredients, you can also find that it has great effects on your mentality! For example, some products use jasmine, which has an uplifting impact. This is because jasmine stimulates the release of serotonin, which improves both focus and concentration.
BENEFITS ON YOUR PERFORMANCE
In order to reap the benefits of muscle rub, it is best to choose one of high quality. This is because these products are designed to accelerate warm-ups, kick start performance and also reduce the chance of injury.
Maca root and magnesium are also key ingredients to boost performance. These are to be found in some of the best muscle rubs! The benefits of muscle rub are that it increases endurance and aids muscle recovery meaning that you can keep training at your best for longer!
So, as you can see, there are some amazing ingredients that contribute to the benefits of muscle rub! It may seem hard to believe, but Bullet and Bone products contain all of these ingredients, meaning that you can reap all the benefits!
The health revolution is upon us! In recent years veganism and vegetarianism have risen by 600% https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetforgrieve/2018/11/02/picturing-a-kindler-gentler-world-vegan-month/ and it turns out that the lifestyle is actually pretty good for you! This rise in healthy eating has been met by a fitness frenzy in exercise. More and more people are combining healthy eating with keeping fit. So why don’t we see how natural ingredients can help you exercise to the best of your ability?
Natural ingredients that help you exercise and get the most out of your workout
HOW NATURE CAN HELP YOU TRAIN: magnesium.
Now if you’re like me, magnesium may take you back to science classes at secondary school. It wasn’t until recently that I found out that this natural ingredient can really help you train!
Magnesium is good for bone structure and plays a role in over 300 enzymatic reactions. That means it is an important natural ingredient that really helps you exercise.
More than this, magnesium helps you exercise by accelerating recovery by fighting inflammation and replenishing energy stores. It is commonly used in muscle rubs to help muscles recovery, https://www.bulletandbone.com/muscle-activating-rub/ allowing you to have the best work out possible!
HOW NATURE CAN HELP YOU TRAIN: maca root extract.
When I first heard of maca root extract, I was a bit confused as to what it was. It turns out that it is an amazing natural ingredient that helps you train! Maca root contains vital vitamins and minerals which essentially enhances energy and stamina. It also helps you to gain muscle and strength.
Maca root extract is used in products designed to help recovery, https://www.bulletandbone.com/cooling-recovery-body-wash/ showing how nature can help you train on and off the field!
HOW NATURE CAN HELP YOU TRAIN: jasmine
Jasmine is not just a pretty flower. Let me introduce you to the whole new world that it has to offer in helping you exercise! This natural ingredient can help you train by managing arthritis. It also helps with concentration and mental alertness. Because of these properties, jasmine can be used in vapour rub.
Now, I can hear you saying ‘well, how can vapour rub involve natural ingredients that help you train?’ Well, studies have shown that rubbing vapour rub on to your wrists and temples can help with the accuracy of throws and hits. So this can be really helpful in-group sports!
USING NATURAL INGREDIENTS TO IMPROVE SPORTS PERFORMANCE
So it doesn’t matter whether you knew natural ingredients that help you train before, or whether you are still very much a beginner. I hope that you have been inspired to try products that incorporate natural ingredients that help you train so that you get the very best out of every workout! https://www.bulletandbone.com/
The list of the benefits of mint is almost as long as the ways you can get mint into your body! Mint is not just the flavouring of your favourite chewing gum. Nor just the special ingredient of that new salad you’ve been waiting to try. Mint has been used for centuries to create interesting flavours and help cure ailments. It is widely recognised that mint can improve your body’s general well being. Here are some of my favourite benefits of mint.
THE BENEFITS OF MINT: THE NUTRIENTS
In the words of teenagers today, mint- in itself- is ‘mint’! The leaves contain so many different nutrients, e.g. fibre, vitamin A, Iron and Manganese. This makes the plant brilliant for your immune system. It gives your bodies substances that are usually hard to find anywhere else! The main benefits of mint nutrients is all these antioxidants. They reduce stress and protect damage to cells caused by free radicals meaning this plant is really healthy for your body!
THE BENEFITS OF MINT: ON BRAIN FUNCTION
As I said earlier, the antioxidants in mint leaves can help with stress. Another of the many benefits of mint is that it can improve brain function.
A study containing 144 young adults found that smelling mint 5 minutes before a test significantly improved results. Now, we’re not saying that if you want to pass exams you should pop to the supermarket and smell a packet of Polo mints. Instead, we are suggesting that the smell of products that naturally include mint is likely to improve your brain function.
What’s more, other studies have shown that the smell of mint has led to people feeling less tired and more invigorated. So these benefits of mint makes the ingredient a great addition to your daily routine!
THE BENEFITS OF MINT: HELP SYMPTOMS OF ILLNESS
Did you know that mint can be used to help cold and flu symptoms? The strength of wild mint makes the plant a useful and effective nasal decongestant. This means mint can be used in more than just your candy canes this winter!
So the benefits of mint are plentiful, and these are just a few!
To maximise on all of the benefits, I recommend using products that use mint in order to achieve marginal gains both physically and mentally. For example, the Bullet and Bone product range use mint in all of their products to help amateur athletes reach their full potential through marginal gains.
4 WAYS MACA EXTRACT CAN HELP YOU
The benefits of maca root extract have been recognised for years. Particularly, by tribes in Peru, who have been cultivating it for nearly 3000 years. Luckily, these tribes have not kept the plant’s benefits a secret, so let’s Peru-se (sorry, the joke was there!) the benefits of this wonderful butterscotch smelling wonder!
BENEFITS OF MACA ROOT EXTRACT… ON THE BODY
We’ll admit that Maca Root is the not the best known plant in the world. However, given the benefits of maca root on the body, it’s hard to understand why it isn’t more popular! If you struggle with fatigue, you don’t need to be branded as ‘lazy’ anymore! Maca Root is commonly taken orally to fight the symptoms of tiredness and anaemia. Trust me, I’d much rather take this than dose up on caffeine pills. It is SO much better for your heart.
If you’re that person in the workplace that seems to constantly have a cold, certain products that contain maca root extract will help you. You can now bid the nickname of ‘Sicky Steve’ good-bye. A key benefit of maca extract is that it helps boost the immune system given that it contains vital vitamins and minerals.
Lastly, studies have shown that doses of maca root extract can help you in the bedroom. Regular doses of the plant increase libido and fertility, which some may say is a pretty helpful benefit of maca root extract.
BENEFITS OF MACA ROOT EXTRACT… ON THE SKIN
The benefits of maca root extend to the outside of the body, as well as the inside. Some studies have shown that maca root extract could help protect against UV rays from the sun. However, even if this is the case, we are by no means implying that you should replace your SPF 50 with this useful little plant!
BENEFITS OF MACA ROOT EXTRACT… ON YOUR MOOD
One of my favourite benefits of maca root extract is that it can help reduce anxiety due to the compound flavonoid found within the plant. As someone who suffers from anxiety, I prefer to use natural products to help calm me down, instead of drugs that I don’t know the content of.
BENEFITS OF MACA ROOT EXTRACT… ON PERFORMANCE
Yes, we have mentioned the benefits of maca root extract on one type of performance, but the useful applications extend beyond the bedroom! If you have a big test you need to revise for and nothing seems to be going in, try using maca root extract. The plant is said to improve brain performance and enhance your memory. It might not get you full marks but every little helps!
Benefits of maca root extract can also be seen through exercise! Studies have shown that the plant can help enhance energy and stamina. This is can be useful when trying to gain muscle and strength – be the Hercules you were destined to be!
As it can be seen, the benefits of maca root extract appear to be never ending. ‘But where can I get this handy little plant from?’ I hear you ask. Maca Root extract is included as part of Bullet and Bone’s signature blend in all their products. Designed to with athletes in mind, Bullet and Bone’s products help sportsmen both mentally and physically.
There is a deep link between scents we smell and our mood. The olfactory receptors in our nose are directly connected to the limbic system, the most ancient and primitive part of the brain, which is associated with emotion.
Elite sportsmen are well aware of the importance of smell on their performance. Skeleton bobsleigh riders become hyper-aware on their runs and report getting distracted by spectators wearing strong perfumes along the track. Anyone doing outdoor sports knows the feeling of wearing beach suncream which triggers a mood memory unhelpful for success in the game.
Is it possible that certainly scents actually enhance sporting performance? Dr Alan Hirsch from the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago researched the impact of smells on the performance of batters from the White Sox baseball team. He found that when the players smelled jasmine, it improved their performance by a statistically significant degree. See this link for more information. Improvement was seen in their swing speed, connection with the ball, follow through and the distance the ball travelled.
In a separate study, Dr Hirsch measured the impact of various scents on reaction time.You can see their paper here. The results showed that reaction time was faster when exposed to jasmine. The exact causal link between jasmine and performance is not clear. Dr Hirsch notes that other pleasant scents like lavender did not have the same impact on reaction time.
All Bullet & Bone products contain jasmine as well as other scents designed to improve your focus and alertness. As Dr Hirsch says of the White Sox batters: “Even when you’re at the top of your game, you can be that much better,” he said.
All Bullet & Bone products contain high quality Maca Root Extract, but what is Maca and why can it help deliver better results for sportsmen?
Maca root grows in the mountains of Peru at high altitudes of 7,000 to 11,000 feet, making it the highest altitude growing plant in the world. Maca is a radish-like root vegetable that is related to the potato family, and is tuberous and spherical in form. The root itself is about three to six centimeters across and 4.7 centimeters in length. There are four recognized types of Maca Root based on the color of the root. Root color varies from creamy yellow or light pink to dark purple or black.
Chemically Maca root contains significant amounts of amino acids, carbohydrates, and minerals including calcium, phosphorous, zinc, magnesium, iron, as well as vitamins B1, B2, B12, C and E. Peruvian Maca also includes a number of glycosides.
Traditionally, Maca has been used for a variety purposes, which can differ for men and women. Men have used it to enhance fertility and sexual function finding that it significantly boosts libido and sex drive, but (possibly?) more importantly for sportsmen, it has been found to increase energy, stamina and the feeling of general well-being. In fact, recently Maca has been used as an excellent alternative to anabolic steroids among athletes seeking muscle hypertrophy. Unlike many other energy – and muscle – boosting substances, such as anabolic steroids, Maca contains no chemicals that interfere with or over-activate normal endocrine function.