Often, a product like “cherry juice” can be significantly higher in sugar as well. Tart cherries can have up to 5x higher levels of antioxidants than sweet cherries. Typically, they are mixed with sweet cherries or other ingredients. In regular grocery stores, it is actually pretty hard to find tart cherry juice. But if you are competing regularly and the recovery benefits outweigh the minor potential to impact adaptation, then it certainly makes sense to use it during those phases. If you ARE concerned, I would not use it during lower importance competition phases e.g.I would consider tart cherry juice in the food category, not a supplement, for the sake of this discussion.Only supplements under some circumstance. Consuming food that is high in antioxidants has never been found to cause this issue.

There is a great article by Stronger by Science that discusses this topic in detail if you are interested. While this is an interesting thought process that is worth being aware of, it is hard to say whether it really matters. The logic is that some of the positive adaptations due to training actually occur partly BECAUSE of the oxidative damage and inflammation that occurs. There is some debate around whether high amounts of antioxidants around the time of training could potentially be detrimental. There also can be inhibition of inflammatory pathways due to the phytochemical content as well. This antioxidant response reduces oxidative damage. This provides protection against some of the oxidative stress that occurs during hard exercise. Some of the mechanisms have been mentioned so far, but a lot of the other mechanisms simply come down to the high antioxidant content of tart cherries. But it is one of the options to consider if trying to improve sleep duration and quality. If you do not have insomnia, the effects will likely be far less significant. That is way better than most of the other options people look at when trying to improve their sleep.

To add weight to that argument, there is research directly showing that tart cherry juice increases levels of melatonin and help improve sleep quality and duration.Įven more excitingly, a study on insomnia found that participants who drank 480ml of tart cherry juice daily for two weeks increased average sleep time by 85 minutes!Īn increase of 85 minutes is insane. Both tryptophan and anthocyanins help the body to create melatonin. This is likely due to a combination of the melatonin content of tart cherries, as well as their tryptophan and anthocyanins content. And obviously improved sleep will help improve training outcomes and performance.

The other promising aspect of tart cherry juice that should have athletes interested is that it could improve sleep. Other studies have had similar findings while using similar amounts of tart cherry powder as well. Similarly, they had less muscle damage, soreness and their markers of inflammation were lower as well. These participants reported 3x less soreness than those in the placebo group.Īnother study utilised 480ml for a few days leading up to and immediately post a marathon. One example of this involved runners drinking 710ml of tart cherry juice for seven days leading up to a race. There are clear reductions in CRP, IL-6 and uric acid. The mechanism for this appears to be mostly based on inflammatory markers. If you train/compete hard, this improved recovery can be pretty appealing. The most clear-cut benefit of tart cherry juice is that it seems to reduce muscle soreness after exercise. But it can actually provide meaningful benefits that could be relevant and worth considering. At a minimum, it is a nutrient-rich option, which is always a good thing. Tart cherry juice is not exactly a front-line option athletes think of when it comes to improving their recovery and performance, but it does have some potential benefits that should not be overlooked.

Tart cherry juice benefits