This might come as a surprise, but using an antioxidant supplement before or during a workout is a bad idea. By doing so, you shortchange the results of your training session.

I'm not saying antioxidants are harmful, or that you should toss your supplements or stop eating vegetables and fruit altogether. They're just not a good idea around your exercise session.

To understand why, we need a brief background on free radicals, reactive oxygen species, and antioxidants.

Don't worry, though. I'm not going to get too technical – just technical enough to use some critical thinking. I want you to understand why combining exercise and antioxidants could curtail the benefits of exercise.

What Are Free Radicals And Reactive Oxygen Species?

Free radicals are highly reactive atoms which are short one electron. They cause an old pickup truck to rust, and they cause your body to age and break down.

The only mission of a free radical is to find another electron, even if it means stealing it from another atom in a cell membrane or your DNA. By stealing the electron, the free radical becomes whole but makes the atom it took the electron from a new free radical.

This initiates a chain of events where one atom becomes a free radical, steals an electron from another atom, makes that other atom a free radical, which steals an electron from still another atom, and on and on it goes.

As the chain of events carries on, it destroys cell membranes and can alter your DNA, contributing to diseases like diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, arthritis, cataracts, heart disease, cancer, and accelerated aging.

Chemicals and environmental toxins can increase your exposure to free radicals, which is why it's so important to reduce your exposure to those toxins whenever possible.

Side note: This is what first got my wife Vanessa interested in essential oils. Her mom passed away quite young, after dealing with Lewy Body dementia for several years. The doctors at the Mayo Clinic could not specifically pinpoint a cause but felt strongly that exposure to environmental toxins contributed to the disease.

Though you get exposed to free radicals from the environment, you also produce them yourself.

Your mitochondria use oxygen to produce energy, and a byproduct of that energy production is a specific category of free radicals called Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). The more energy you produce, the more ROS you create. So, higher-intensity or longer-duration exercise does generate more free radicals.

However, that doesn't make exercise a bad thing. I'll come back to this shortly.

How Do Antioxidants Work?

Antioxidants enter the picture to stop the free radical chain of events. They freely donate electrons to the free radicals they come in contact with.

This is why antioxidants are believed to play such an essential role in long-term health and longevity. You get antioxidants through food, supplements, and herbs. Your body also produces its own antioxidants.

Some of the most common dietary antioxidants include tocopherols (vitamin E), L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C), carotenoids (vitamin A), alpha-lipoic acid, lycopene, and lutein.

Others found in the diet and supplements include Coenzyme Q10, resveratrol, pterostilbene, and curcumin. And then there are thousands of other compounds in plants that act as antioxidants.