Does Quercetin and Bromelain Help With Athletic Performance?

Experiencing sore muscles after a workout can leave you feeling tired and impact your body’s stress levels. Allowing your body to heal naturally can take several days, depending on the intensity of your workout, causing discomfort.

With the right supplement, you can minimize recovery time and return to your normal routine faster. Quercetin and bromelain are two natural ingredients that promote rapid post-workout recovery by aiding muscle growth, improving joint function, and supporting your immune system.

Learn more about how bromelain and quercetin help with athletic performance and where to find high-quality natural gummies to include as part of your daily wellness regimen.

What is Quercetin?

Quercetin is a flavonoid, an antioxidant phytochemical that gives plants their natural color. Flavonoids are polyphenol compounds, micronutrients with highly beneficial properties for the human body.

Quercetin is the most abundant flavonoid in the human diet. The average American consumes between 14.90 – 16.39 mg of quercetin daily through various dietary sources, including grape skins, green tea, berries, onions, apples, and raw honey. Unfortunately, daily consumption of these antioxidant-rich foods does not typically provide enough quercetin to reach therapeutic levels.

How Does Quercetin Work?

Quercetin is a powerful antioxidant that scavenges free radicals and neutralizes reactive nitrogen molecules that can cause DNA and tissue damage. Free radicals are unstable molecules that result from gaining or losing an electron, making them highly reactive—these molecules with unpaired electrons bond with other atoms and molecules, causing oxidative distress.

Chronic oxidative stress can deteriorate cells, muscles, and organs, leading to slower metabolism, degenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s and osteoporosis, and speeding up the aging process. The body has a natural mechanism for producing antioxidants to eliminate free radicals; however, prolonged exposure to inflammatory substances and environmental factors can deplete the body’s resources requiring supplementation.

Quercetin works by regulating the body’s inflammatory pathways. When the body sustains an injury or endures stress, such as when working out, the body produces cytokines and histamines to trigger an inflammatory immune response. While this response can promote healing, long-term or overactive inflammation can lead to muscle deterioration and slower post-workout recovery.

What is Bromelain?

Bromelain is a plant-based enzyme group that helps break down and digest protein. Known as a proteolytic enzyme, bromelain is naturally found in pineapple and helps the body access and absorb the amino acids that make up proteins. The enzyme has anti-inflammatory properties, which can help athletes repair connective tissue and relieve joint pain. It also reduces inflammatory C-reactive proteins (CRPs) and helps regulate immune system functioning.

Most athletes can take between 3,000 Milk Clotting Units (MCUs) or 2,000 Gel Dissolving Units (GDUs) of bromelain per day.

How Does Bromelain Work?

Due to its absorption-enhancing properties, bromelain helps your body get quercetin from the digestive system into the bloodstream. This mechanism boosts the efficacy of quercetin, helping regulate inflammation and reduce free radicals that can cause oxidative stress in the body.

Bromelain supports athletic performance by helping the body assimilate beneficial proteins. It breaks down proteins into amino acid components, allowing the body to use them more easily and quicker. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and help the body regrow and repair tissue. Because Bromelain helps free amino acids for better absorption, athletes who take the supplement see faster muscle repair and better overall performance.

Bromelain can also help the body break down stored fat. This stored fat is a steady energy source, unlike carbohydrates which burn quickly, assisting athletes in lasting longer while active.

Research Supporting Quercetin and Bromelain for Athletic Performance

Quercetin and bromelain individually aid in athletic performance. However, when taken together as a pre-measured supplement, research shows they provide multiple benefits for athletes. These benefits include faster post-workout recovery, improved endurance, increased muscle strength, and enhanced immunity.

Post-Workout Recovery

During strenuous exercise, there is a significant increase in oxygen intake in the body’s organs, especially muscle tissue. The body also produces catecholamines and xanthine oxidase and undergoes prostanoid metabolism. These conditions can lead to increased levels of inflammation and reactive oxygen species (ROS), also called free radicals.

Although the body has mechanisms to produce antioxidants, intense exercise can create an imbalance between the body’s natural antioxidants and ROS, leading to oxidative stress.

Bromelain and quercetin may be able to reduce oxidative stress and microscopic muscle damage for a faster post-workout recovery. A 2019 randomized controlled trial found that quercetin reduced exercise-induced muscle damage, allowing for a faster post-workout recovery.

A 2016 study demonstrated that participants taking bromelain supplements during competitive cycling events experienced less fatigue during and after the race.

Increased Muscle Strength

Building muscle requires increased protein deposits and minimal protein breakdown. In other words, your body must take in more protein than it uses daily to build muscle mass and increase muscle strength. Hormones and the availability of amino acids affect an athlete’s ability to put on muscle and strength training.

Amino acids help with protein synthesis, allowing for muscle growth and strength building. Taking a bromelain and quercetin supplement helps the body access essential amino acids, like alanine, arginine, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, and proline, to grow and strengthen muscles. They also help the body repair damaged muscle tissue, which creates stronger, more resilient tissue.

Enhanced Immunity

Quercetin and bromelain offer anti-inflammatory properties that can help balance the immune system and reduce stress on the body. Inflammation is the immune system’s response to stress. For athletes, acute muscle inflammation often occurs after strenuous activity, but consistent or repeated injuries can also cause chronic inflammation.

Inflammation can weaken the immune system over time, causing increased stress, poor athletic performance, and decreased well-being. Quercetin and bromelain together help reduce inflammation by repairing muscles quickly and minimizing the oxidative stress athletes experience when they work out.

Get Quercetin and Bromelain Gummies From Ingredient for Health

Ingredient For Health carries a variety of natural gummy supplements to boost your overall health and well-being. Our Quercetin + Bromelain Gummies are preformulated with the ideal dosage of each ingredient for optimal results. When taken daily, this supplement can help you bounce back more quickly after exercise and support immune health for better athletic performance.

Browse our gummy selection, including sleep support and Black Seed Plus gummies, for well-rounded wellness support.