When Is The Best Time To Take Tart Cherry Supplements?

Tart cherries pack all your essential amino acids, vitamin A, and potassium in a small package, but their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant polyphenols give them their powerful health benefits. Tart cherry juice and extracts can boost immunity, protect your cognitive function, and moderate your blood pressure, according to Healthline.

Tart cherry juice is also used to help athletes recover faster. A 2019 study in the European Journal of Sport Science had active females taking 30 milliliters of tart cherry juice (or a placebo) twice a day for eight days. Four days after taking the supplement, the athletes did repeated sprints. Those who took the tart cherry supplements saw improvements in their pain pressure threshold, flexibility, and muscle function more quickly after the sprints. According to a 2020 review in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, tart cherry supplements reduce muscle soreness, restore muscle strength, and recover jump height after strenuous exercise.

To help improve recovery from exercise, different supplements work best when taken at the right time. Some are taken in the morning, others are taken before your workout, and still others are saved for after a workout. What about tart cherry juice?

First of all, tart cherry supplements aren't best if you're in the building stage of your training, such as everyday workouts. Instead, use tart cherry supplements if you know you're going to have a single day of intense exercise or multi-day tournaments without adequate recovery, according to a 2017 review in Current Sports Medicine Reports. This might be a week of hard skiing or an endurance race like a marathon. In this case, drink 8 to 12 ounces of tart cherry juice (or a 1-ounce concentrate) twice a day for four to five days before the event then two to three days after to help with recovery.

Although tart cherry juice is used for recovery, a 2022 review in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports calls the supplement "precovery" because it works best when taken for several days before a major exercise event. The review also said starting to drink tart cherry juice on the day of strenuous exercise or after the event seems to have no effect.