The sweet secret to muscle recovery: Yes, it’s honey water!

You know that feeling the day after a hard workout -or in my case, the day after thinking that I’m still in my 20s when running up and down a soccer field on Fridays and Sundays. The soreness that creeps in slowly, then hits like a freight train when you try to sit down? Yeah, that’s DOMS—Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. And recently, I stumbled on a scientific (and surprisingly tasty) trick to beat it: honey water.

Honey, I shrunk the soreness

I was digging through research on muscle recovery (because that’s what Academic Dads do between matches and bedtime stories) when I found a gem:“Effect of a honey-sweetened beverage on muscle soreness and recovery of performance after exercise-induced muscle damage in strength-trained females.”

In the study, scientists gave strength-trained women a honey-sweetened drink 90 minutes before eccentric leg workouts designed to induce muscle damage (aka a one-way ticket to DOMSville). They found that those who drank the honey beverage reported less muscle soreness and better performance recovery at 12, 24 and 48 hours post-exercise compared to a control group. That’s right—two full days of feeling better just from sweetening your water with a bit of nature’s nectar.

So naturally… I tried it!

Now, I’m no strength-trained female (although I do lift an adorable toddler), but I decided to test this on myself in my weekly Sunday soccer game. I mixed warm water with a tablespoon of raw honey and drank it 90 minutes before the match.

And you know what? It seemed to work!. My legs didn’t scream at me the next day, and I didn’t walk like a cowboy recovering from a rodeo. Of course, as any good scientist will tell you, n=1 doesn’t make a conclusion. More biological replicates are needed, so if you feel like this may benefit you, go for it and give it a try.

The basics still matter

Before you rush off to buy a gallon of honey, remember:

• Warm up properly: Think light jogs, high knees, arm circles—get your blood moving.

• Stretch afterward: Static stretches for quads, hamstrings, calves, etc. Hold them 30 seconds each.

• Hydrate like it’s your job: Muscles recover faster when well-hydrated. Add a pinch of salt to your honey water for bonus electrolyte points.

• Rest and sleep: No shortcut here. Your body needs downtime to rebuild.

My science-supported honey water recipe

• 250 mL warm water

• 1 tablespoon raw honey

• Optional: pinch of sea salt

Final whistle

Is honey water the ultimate muscle recovery elixir? Time (and more data points) will tell. But for now, it’s working for this soccer-playing, science-loving dad, and it sure beats limping through Monday meetings.

Give it a try and let me know in the comments if it worked for you, because the world needs more sweet, sore-free athletes (and many more replicates for the data set).

If you want us to write about a specific topic in the future, let us know in the comments section.

Stay strong, stay sweet,

Academic Dad

References

Hemmati, H., Alkasasbeh, W. J., Hemmatinafar, M., Salesi, M., Pirmohammadi, S., Imanian, B., & Rezaei, R. (2024). Effect of a honey-sweetened beverage on muscle soreness and recovery of performance after exercise-induced muscle damage in strength-trained females. Frontiers in Physiology, 15, 1426872. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2024.1426872