Well, the Summer is officially over and its almost time to prepare for the Fall and Winter. Before we prepare for those seasons, let’s try to hold on to some of the fruits of our labor, literally! As I was scanning through the health and science world this week I came upon a very interesting study. As a general consensus, there is a great understanding that most of the fruit we eat is healthy.

Most of them have great nutritional benefits that we seek to consume, or at least I hope. Yet there are very few benefits of consuming fruit before or after exercise. Until now! According to a study published in the national institute of health, watermelon was shown to reduce muscle soreness in active test subjects. The test required subjects to use a cycloergometer to fatigue.

After the test, they guzzled down natural watermelon juice, enriched watermelon juice, and a placebo juice. At the end of the 24 hours the test subjects noticed decreased muscle soreness when they consumed the natural and enriched watermelon juice.

But really….Watermelon? Of all fruits, who would have thought watermelon? Well, according to the scientists watermelon is one of the only fruits that have l-citrulline, which is an amino acid. L-citrulline is one of the key nutrients that the scientists believe is decreasing muscle soreness at the end of the 24 hours.

The study seems absolutely awesome and a potential option for those that cannot stand muscle soreness. Yet, there are many holes in this research. Only seven test subjects? That is not even enough to field a baseball team let alone a scientific research study! More subjects should have been used to eliminate any potential fitness bias.

Athletes? I did not find any research that gave any indication on how often these athletes exercised, if they were young, old etc… Any description of this data would definitely change the results (i.e the data would probably show untrained athletes feeling more of a difference after drinking the watermelon juice).

Lastly, I did not see a scale that was used to measure muscle soreness. The ability to rely on the test subjects on saying “I feel a difference” is not very scientific! At the end of the day this is one study that would not put you in harm’s way if you were thinking about giving it a try.

Remember, muscle soreness usually peaks 24-72 hours after performance, and some of the best ways to decrease that muscle soreness is to do the exact exercises that caused it at lower intensity.

-Phil