Using essential oils in the gym can help support better performance and results, so let’s discuss some of your options.
Pre Workout Motivation:
Find an essential oil that gives you energy and put it on 30 minutes before your workout. Ones I love are Black Pepper (a hot oil – so be careful to dilute this one and build up slowly), Juniper, Cypress, Eucalyptus, and Peppermint. Try different oils and see which ones motivate you the most.
Using Oils Pre-Workout for Hydration:
There are so many great oils you can add to your water to help support your workouts and wellness!
In the gym, we carry doTERRA therapeutic-grade essential oils as a convenience for our clients, but any good quality essential oil should work for you.
Peppermint:
We know that Peppermint essential oil helps with digestion, improving concentration and relieve head tension, but peppermint oil can also have some amazing positive effects on your exercise routine.
In a 2012 study in the Journal of International Society of Sports Nutrition Twelve healthy male students, every day consumed one 500 ml bottle of mineral water (which is roughly 16 oz) with 1 drop of peppermint essential oil for ten days. Scientists measured things like blood pressure, heart rate, and lung strength before and after the supplementation with peppermint oil infused water period. These athletes underwent a treadmill test where they worked to complete exhaustion as the treadmill speed and incline is increased every three minutes.
So what happened? The results of the experiment showed that peppermint essential oil had a positive effect on exercise performance, blood pressure, and respiratory rate in these young male students. We don’t have solid conclusions why, but the authors of this study think this may be due to relaxation of your airway muscles, an increase in brain oxygen concentration, and a decrease in lactic acid levels in the blood, which I think is really cool. So anyone who works out can benefit from a little peppermint in their water.
Other oils great for your water: Grapefruit, Lemon, Orange, Lemongrass. When we drink high-quality citrus oils, we get natural chemical properties like citral, which may have a small effect on diet-induced obesity and improved insulin sensitivity.
Pre-workout mobility and stretching:
The goal is to prepare your muscles and joints to move well, and typically this is done by heating them up with movement – things like stretching, static holds, distraction exercises. Oils that help warm up your muscles are Black Pepper, Lemongrass, Clove, or Cinnamon. Put 5-10 drops of oil in a roller bottle with carrier oil and roll onto any muscles or joints that are stiff or inflexible before your routine. You can easily mix any of these up in a roller bottle and swipe that on before your workout.
Post Workout Recovery
A blend of Helichrysum, Peppermint oil, Lemon oil, Balsam oil, Clove oil, Wintergreen, Vetiver and Dorado Azul oil in a roll-on. This blend also contains Clove oil, and clove has the highest density of antioxidants of any oil, and your body and immune system could use some fighting power after a workout because of all those little micro-tears in your muscle that need repairing and the stress you’ve put on your body. Then you have Copaiba, which has high amounts of beta-caryophyllene. The short version is that beta-caryophyllene gives amazing relief. Then on top of all that, you get the cooling and soothing from the Wintergreen and the Dorado Azul oils.
In any gym setting, you have to be polite about it and not go overboard, because you want to be respectful about smelling too strong when other people are around. But if you can do it, it’s a great way to end a workout.
