Can Essential Oils Improve Your Workout?

We all know that moving your body regularly is vital for overall mental and physical health. Unfortunately, lack of motivation and focus, low energy, tension, and slow recovery time are all stumbling blocks when it comes to exercising. The good news is, many athletes use essential oils to enhance their training!

Here are 4 ways essential oils can be used to help you perform better.

1. Promote Energy and Focus

The hardest part of a workout often feels like getting up the motivation to do it!

Relying on tons of coffee or a pre-workout to get you going is not a good sign. Instead, using all-natural essential oils before your exercise session may shift your mindset and give you a quick burst of mental and physical energy.

These are some of our favorite energizing and stimulating essential oils:

• Peppermint oil
• Lemon oil
• Sweet orange oil
• Grapefruit oil
• Tea tree oil
• Bergamot oil
• Lemongrass oil

We also love starting the morning by diffusing a few drops of Woolzies Rejuvenate Blend – it's super citrusy!

2. Boost Performance

There is some interesting research to suggest essential oils may promote exercise performance. Animal studies have found that essential oils of peppermint, sweet orange, peppermint, clove, and rosemary reduce exercise-induced fatigue (1). Plus, in 2016, male athletes who inhaled sweet orange oil and spearmint oil prior to a running test had improved lung function and significantly reduced running time (2).

Based on this, we suggest making a workout blend of 3 drops of Woolzies peppermint oil and 3 drops of Woolzies sweet orange oil. Add this along with 100ml of water to your ultrasonic diffuser 30 minutes before a workout. You'll be firing on all cylinders!

3. Support Easy Breathing

There are few things worse than exercising with a tight chest or stuffy nose! It impedes the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide needed to support your aerobic capacity and produce energy efficiently.

At Woolzies, we've designed an oil blend called Breathe. It's a combination of congestion-busting peppermint, eucalyptus, frankincense, tea tree, lemon, laurel leaf, thyme, cardamom, cypress, and myrtle essential oils. We suggest blending 6 drops of Woolzies Breathe Blend with 1 teaspoon of carrier oil; massage this onto your chest and back before bed as well as before a workout. It'll clear your sinuses, so you can take deep breaths and feel good during a workout!

4. Encourage Muscle Recovery

We've all felt muscle aches, heaviness, or joint pain after a workout. Unfortunately, these symptoms slow your recovery time and may raise your risk of injury.

Proper hydration, sleep, stretching, and a nutrient-dense diet all help your body to recover. But you may need a little extra help in the form of essential oils! They have potent anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, analgesic, and calming properties to move you into a healing state.

Our favorite essential oils to reduce inflammation and speed up recovery include:

Woolzies Muscle Relief Blend

Our Muscle Relief Blend is made with anti-inflammatory and soothing oils like peppermint, eucalyptus, frankincense, tea tree, lemon, laurel leaf, thyme, cardamom, cypress, and myrtle. It has a powerful camphorous and earthy scent and, when applied topically, may reduce pain and promote circulation.

Muscle Relief comes in dropper, spray, and roll-on form; we love massaging it into joints and muscles before and after exercise. Additionally, adding 5-10 drops of this blend along with 1 cup of Epsom salts to a warm bath helps muscles to relax and heal!

Woolzies Lavender Essential Oil

Lavender oil is a fantastic calming essential oil with mild sedative properties and a delightful aroma. A few drops on your pillow in the evening after a big workout supports restorative sleep, relieves stress, and speeds up muscle recovery. Research has also found massaging lavender oil topically may ease joint pain (3). Just dilute 5 drops in 1 teaspoon of carrier oil before applying it to aching muscles and joints for greater mobility.

Tell us: do essential oils enhance your workout? What is your favorite essential oil to use before or after exercise?

Resources

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29234408/
2. https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-016-0146-7
3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27863613/