If you’re an athlete, you deal with muscle soreness. From ice packs to rub-on gels to over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications, drugstores offer a variety of options. Now there’s a new way to relieve activity-related inflammation that comes from a surprising source: a New Zealand shellfish. As studies on the oil of the New Zealand green-lipped mussel continue to show positive results, researchers suggest that it could change the way people train.

The pain, weakness, and stiffness that can follow exercise during which we push the boundaries of our fitness are experienced by everyone who is serious about sport or their general fitness. Run that little bit further or faster, hit the ball a bit harder, and the following day we wake with stiff, sore, and sometimes weakened muscles. Most people accept this as an unavoidable part of our physiology, and seek relief from over-the-counter pain medications or something stronger from a doctor.

For serious athletes, though, the time it takes their muscles to recover limits the amount of training that they can do and, consequently, their final overall fitness. Prevailing medical opinion is that it takes the body several days to recover from what is called delayed onset muscle soreness. Sometimes it can take longer. Delayed onset muscle soreness is thought to result from microscopic tearing of fibers throughout the muscle, and usually sets in about twelve hours after the end of the activity. The amount of tearing depends upon how far the person has pushed him- or herself.

If athletes can heal faster, it means that they can train more often and thereby improve their performance. For generations, athletes have sought ways to hasten the healing process through massage, gentle exercise to stimulate blood flow, and sometimes even steroids. 

Part of the processes involved in delayed onset muscle soreness is the body’s normal inflammation response. This is where the New Zealand green-lipped mussel (Perna canaliculus) can play a part. For more than two decades, powdered extracts of the New Zealand green-lipped mussel have been used as an anti-inflammatory. The problem with the mussel powder was that it was extremely fragile. If exposed to air or heat, it oxidized quickly and lost its therapeutic properties.

A company called Pharmalink International, via a patented process, has had the only success to date in creating a mussel oil that has retained its therapeutic properties. This is formulated in a product called Lyprinol.

In his book, The Inflammation Revolution (Square One Publishers), Professor Georges M. Halpern, MD, PhD, wrote that the mussel oil contained a unique combination of omega 3 and omega 6 marine lipids, as well as some unique compounds, which made the mussel oil 350 times more effective as an anti-inflammatory than the best of the fish oils (such as salmon oil).

At the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, Dr. Michael Whitehouse, PhD, compared stabilized mussel oil with other anti-inflammatory agents, which included several prescription medications. At a dose of 5mg per kilogram of body weight, the stabilized mussel oil was found to be 97 percent effective in reducing inflammation. Dr. Whitehouse concluded that the mussel oil was clearly a superior medicinal compound, because it achieved the desired result without the side effects that accompanied synthetic anti-inflammatories.

In an article for The Physician and Sports Medicine (Vol. 27, No. 1, January 1999), Captain Michael Ross, a physical therapist and instructor in the department of biology at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, wrote that swelling and inflammation were part of the delayed onset muscle soreness process. “In addition to microscopic tearing, swelling may take place in and around a muscle, which can also contribute to delayed soreness,” he wrote. “Such swelling increases pressure on the neighboring structures, resulting in greater muscle pain and stiffness.” By controlling the inflammation process, the condition could be reduced in severity.

Captain Ross wrote that the condition would resolve itself within three to seven days, but there were things that could be done to reduce inflammation and thereby speed recovery. These included the application of ice, gentle stretching, and massage. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as aspirin and ibuprofen may provide some relief from the pain, but would not remove the source of the problem.

Here, the oil of the New Zealand green-lipped mussel can play a role. The work done by Dr Whitehouse showed that the mussel oil reduced the inflammation by as much as 97 percent, which allowed the surrounding tissue to return to normal and heal at a much faster rate. This process is what has made New Zealand green-lipped mussel oil of such great interest to athletes and coaches. 

New Zealand ultra-marathon runner Dan Greig credits Lyprinol® with helping him to maintain his grueling training schedule and perform in long-distance events around the world. In 2007, Greig competed in the 100 Mile Western States Endurance Run in the United States. Not only did the race cover a 160k course, it also took the runners up and over the 9,000-feet-high Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Four hundred and fifty runners began the race, about half of whom finished. Greig covered the course in 26 hours and 40 minutes and finished in 87th place. The feat of even finishing the race becomes even more impressive when one learns that Greig is 48 years old. 

At a time of life when many distance runners have had to retire due to the deterioration of their bodies, Greig continues to train at least nine hours per week with the help of the oil of the New Zealand green-lipped mussel.

When he is preparing for an event, the weekly training expands to include 12-hour runs. One of his competitive secrets is that during a race, about every four hours Greig takes mussel oil capsules. These are in addition to his usual daily dose of mussel oil. “The result,” he said, “is that when other ultra-marathoners wake up sore and crippled the next morning, I actually wake up in comparatively good condition.”

Last year he ran east to west across New Zealand and covered the 75k course in 11 hours and 20 minutes. Greig described his type of running as an “extreme sport, one that takes an inevitable toll on the body.” He said that a daily dose of the mussel oil has kept his joints in good order and has helped to deal with muscle soreness.

Muscle soreness is an unavoidable part of being an ultra-marathon runner, but since Greig began using the mussel oil, his muscle soreness has been reduced considerably, and his performance levels have increased.

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