Nowadays, everyone is looking to improve their performance in the gym. Whether it be with creatine or BCAA supplements, there are a lot of performance-enhancers that people go to to get the most out of their time in the gym.
In today’s article, however, we’re not going to discuss BCAA or creatine; instead, we’ll be discussing nitric oxide supplements, what they are, and the benefits they can give you to improve your performance.
Table of Contents
What is Nitric Oxide?
Nitric oxide is a gas that is naturally produced by our bodies. It’s a very important part of our blood vessel health because it’s a vasodilator that helps the blood vessels in your muscles relax, resulting in better blood flow and lowering blood pressure. However, sometimes, it can be quite hard to do that on our own and at will, so people buy nitric oxide supplements to have better blood, especially gym goers.
Gym goers need good blood flow while in the gym because it can cause them to do more reps, endure an intense workout, etc. However, those are not the only things that nitric oxide supplements can do to our bodies. Here are some benefits that you might want to look into.
Improved Blood Pressure
Since we’re on the topic of blood and to delve in further, nitric oxide supplements could help you lower your blood pressure if you take them for a prolonged period. High blood pressure happens when the force of your blood that pushes against your blood vessel walls is too high. Of course, this can cause several consequences like heart attacks, stroke, etc. It’s believed that this happens when a person doesn’t have enough nitric oxide.
Lowers Risk of Heart Disease
Along with improved blood pressure, nitric oxide is also known to significantly lower your risk of heart disease, especially for people who don’t exercise that much. For these individuals, an increase in L-arginine may promote the vasodilation of the blood vessels, giving the whole body enough oxygen to function properly.
Not only that, if a person, for some reason, isn’t taking L-arginine from their diet, a nitric oxide supplement is a good alternative. This is also known to be good for people who are suffering from type-2 diabetes. This condition hinders the body’s nitric oxide production, so taking supplements will be good for them.
Enhanced Performance
As mentioned earlier, nitric oxide is a vasodilator, which allows more blood flow to our muscles, which is important if you want to do better at the gym. That said, if you want to have a more intense workout routine in the future, nitric oxide can help you adjust better to that routine. It also allows people who don’t exercise or who do exercise at a moderate pace to be more effective in getting longer and harder exercise.
Reducing Erectile Dysfunction
For men, erectile dysfunction is probably the scariest combination of words the doctor can give you. A penis is often used as a symbol of manhood, and if a man has a dysfunctional penis, it can be devastating. And no, if you think only senior men can get erectile dysfunction, you’re wrong.
Men who have erectile dysfunction over the years are getting younger and younger, not to mention that the cause of this illness is plenty as well, but that’s another article for another day. If you have erectile dysfunction, then nitric oxide supplements may be able to help you with that. Since nitric oxide supplements cause an increase in blood flow, it might make your body more efficient in pumping blood flow into your penis, giving you a harder erection. However, it seems it cannot help those men with severe erectile dysfunction.
Reducing High Blood Pressure in Pregnant Women
But enough about men; let’s go to the women. Preeclampsia is a form of high blood pressure that can occur during pregnancy. Of course, having high blood pressure can be dangerous to both the mother and the baby.
Luckily, a study made in 2005 found that pregnant women who took L-arginine for a prolonged period were found to have a lower blood pressure than those who didn’t take it. Note that nitric oxide supplements have L-arginine as one of their main ingredients. It can still be risky, so you might want to talk to your doctor before taking any supplements.
Final Words
Although there is still a lot of research to do regarding the benefits of nitric oxide supplements, their reputation in the community, especially in the gym community, is quite good because it improves their overall performance in the gym. And not only that, even for people who are not gym goers, nitric oxide supplements can also do a lot of good to their overall health. So whether you’re a gym goer or a health enthusiast who does their exercise at home, you should consider trying out nitric oxide supplements
