Honey and Salt Pre-Workout: The Perfect Natural Supplement?

In keeping with many social media well being and health “gurus,” honey and salt pre-workout is a boon for athletic efficiency. 

They declare that the salt and honey pre-workout combine gives an on the spot and sustained vitality increase, enhances hydration, and improves electrolyte stability, which helps stop mind fog, fatigue, and muscle cramps.

Not everyone seems to be bought on the advantages, although. Skeptics say taking honey and salt as pre-workout delivers on none of its guarantees and is barely standard due to its “pure” attraction.

Who’s proper?

The place did the honey and salt pre-workout development start?

What are the purported advantages of taking this combo?

And does science agree?

Get evidence-based solutions to those questions and extra on this article.

The Origin of Honey and Salt Pre-Exercise

Like most up-to-date well being and health fads, the honey and salt pre-workout development began on social media. 

A TikTok person shared a video of herself licking honey and salt off the again of her hand, claiming it was her new pure pre-workout routine.

The video caught the eye of different health fans, who started making and sharing their very own movies of the honey and salt pre-workout combine.

Whereas there isn’t a normal recipe that everybody follows, some recommend probably the most potent mixture is honey and Himalayan salt for pre-workout. They consider the pink salt incorporates extra minerals than common salt, maximizing the pre-workout’s advantages. 

The Purported Advantages of Honey and Salt Pre-Exercise

The purported advantages of the honey and salt pre-workout complement embody:

Fast Vitality: Honey is an easy carbohydrate that your physique shortly breaks down into glucose (blood sugar), providing you with a direct vitality increase.
Electrolyte Replenishment: Honey and salt comprise electrolytes. These taking honey and salt pre-workout declare it optimizes electrolyte stability and replenishes electrolytes misplaced by way of sweat throughout lengthy weightlifting exercises and endurance train.
Hydration: Followers of honey and salt pre-workout say the mixture boosts hydration in two methods. First, the honey incorporates a small quantity of water, which contributes to hydration earlier than a exercise. And second, salt performs a vital position in your physique’s fluid stability, serving to you to retain the correct quantity of water in your physique.  

Antioxidant Enhance: Honey is a pure supply of antioxidants, providing safety in opposition to exercise-induced oxidative injury that results in irritation and muscle soreness.

Is Honey and Salt a Good Pre-Exercise?

It’s arduous to disregard the enthusiastic claims of honey pre-workout customers.

However is honey and salt pre-workout complement? 

Right here’s what science says. 

Is Honey a Good Pre-Exercise?

Honey is a pure supply of carbs, so it gives your physique with fast vitality and, in doing so, helps protect glycogen (saved carbs), permitting you to coach for longer. 

These advantages aren’t distinctive to honey, although. All carbs do that, which might be why the few research investigating honey as a pre-workout present honey isn’t higher at offering vitality than different carb sources.

That mentioned, many honey pre-workout tubthumpers would say that is lacking the true benefit. For them, honey’s edge is that it solely incorporates pure sugars, which hold your blood sugar ranges extra steady than processed sugars.

Sustaining blood glucose ranges prevents vitality crashes and lack of focus, which can enhance athletic efficiency when doing duties requiring plenty of ability (like squatting heavy weights, for instance).   

Nonetheless, the restricted analysis obtainable suggests honey isn’t any higher than different carbs at protecting blood sugar steady.

One other perk of consuming carbs earlier than you prepare is that it tends to make you really feel like you’ll be able to push more durable in your exercise. Once more, few research have checked out honey’s impact on this regard, however people who have instructed honey has an identical impact to different carbs on “perceived exertion.”

As for antioxidant safety, a single dose of honey for pre-workout has little impact on irritation, so it gained’t ease post-workout muscle soreness. Common use may assist, however since some irritation is crucial for muscle progress, lowering it an excessive amount of may gradual your progress.

Lastly, honey doesn’t comprise a lot water, so claims it has a marked affect on hydration are foolish. In the event you’re dehydrated earlier than a coaching session, your finest guess is to drink water.

Is Salt a Good Pre-Exercise?

Salt is made up of sodium and chloride, important electrolytes the physique makes use of to take care of fluid stability, transmit nerve indicators, and transfer muscle groups. 

Some say salt is a good pre-workout as a result of:

Throughout train (particularly endurance train), you lose electrolytes like sodium by way of sweat, resulting in lowered efficiency, mind fog, fatigue, and muscle cramps.
Sodium is concerned in muscle contractions. Thus, shedding salt by way of sweat throughout weightlifting exercises could make you weaker.

There are causes to doubt the veracity of this recommendation, although.

As an illustration, there’s little proof consuming salt earlier than train advantages efficiency. That is possible as a result of even the “saltiest” sweaters solely lose a small quantity of electrolytes after they perspire. Research additionally present that consuming sodium earlier than you prepare gained’t stop cramping.

There’s little analysis inspecting whether or not shedding salt by way of sweat makes you weaker, however what exists suggests it’s not trigger for concern. For instance, a examine of older adults discovered that those that ate probably the most salt had a weaker grip than those that ate much less. 

Consuming an excessive amount of salt may negatively affect efficiency as a result of it causes your physique to attract water into your intestines, leading to bloating, sloshing, and abdomen cramps whereas figuring out.

The one potential advantage of taking a small quantity of salt earlier than a exercise is that it makes you thirsty, so that you drink extra water, enhancing pre-workout hydration. It’s not the salt that advantages your exercise however the further water you drink due to it.

Ought to You Take Salt and Honey as a Pre-Exercise?

You in all probability shouldn’t take salt and honey as a pre-workout as a result of it doesn’t enhance your exercise efficiency—which is the rationale individuals take pre-workout within the first place.

Honey isn’t any simpler than different carbs as a supply of gas and doesn’t hold vitality ranges regular, make coaching really feel simpler, reduce muscle soreness, or hydrate you.

Equally, salt doesn’t improve your efficiency, stop cramps, and doubtless doesn’t enhance your power. It might even upset your abdomen.

Luckily, there are pure pre-workout alternate options that may enable you to carry out at your finest, probably the most well-known of which is caffeine.

Or, in the event you’d choose a pure pre-workout complement containing components confirmed to spice up vitality, focus, and power with out the jitters, upset abdomen, or post-workout crash, attempt Pulse with or with out caffeine. 

Salt and Honey Pre-Exercise FAQs

FAQ #1: What’s the honey and salt pre-workout development?

The honey and salt pre-workout development is a wellness fad made standard on social media. The development encourages consuming honey and salt earlier than a exercise to spice up vitality and enhance train efficiency. 

Customers declare the salt and honey pre-workout different provides a fast vitality increase, enhances electrolyte stability, heightens hydration, and improves post-workout restoration. 

Although you could get a slight vitality increase from the honey, the honey and salt pre-workout development is extra hype than reality. There’s little proof to assist the claims that honey and salt for pre-workout improves coaching efficiency, electrolyte stability, hydration, or restoration.

FAQ #2: Is salt and honey pre-workout?

Salt and honey don’t enhance your athletic efficiency, so that they’re a poor pre-workout complement. 

Honey isn’t any simpler than different carbs as a supply of gas and doesn’t hold vitality ranges regular, make coaching really feel simpler, reduce muscle soreness, or hydrate you.

Equally, salt doesn’t improve your efficiency, stop cramps, and doubtless doesn’t enhance your power. It might even upset your abdomen.

FAQ #3: Is salt as pre-workout secure?

Salt as pre-workout is secure for many, however that’s no motive to take it. Salt confers few efficiency advantages and will trigger bloating and abdomen cramps. Excessive salt consumption can be a danger issue for long-term well being issues like hypertension.