icon-account icon-glass

Popular Products

The Lean Protein
Whey protein powder for weight-loss.

How Super Supplement ZMA Can Improve Your Health And Wellbeing

8th August 2022

8th August 2022

By Beth Shelper

If you’re looking for an article that breaks down the science surrounding the popular ZMA supplement – hello there. We’re glad you could make it.

Zinc Magnesium Aspartate, which is more commonly referred to as ZMA (as it’s a bit less of a mouthful), is a hugely popular supplement that combines the benefits of minerals Zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin B6. ZMA supplements are widely used as a result of this killer combination, as the benefits of these supplements alone (let alone with each other) are beneficial to your overall health in a heap of really great ways.

You may be thinking - why are these vitamins and minerals combined, and is that advised?  Well, here at Innermost we are huge advocates for the benefits of ZMA. Any supplements that pack the benefits of all three of these vital supplements into one easy source is a no brainer to us. In fact, we love the benefits so much, that we’ve included ZMA into The Recover Capsules to help improve your performance and enhance your recovery.

Before you start implementing ZMA into your routine, it’s good to read into some research and facts surrounding the supplement. That’s where we come in! So let’s dive into some of that all-important information and get you on board and clued up with all things ZMA supplements, shall we?

What is ZMA?

As above, ZMA is made up of three core components: Zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin B6. There’s been a lot of research into the effectiveness of ZMA supplements, with many of these studies concluding that athletes that implemented the supplement into their routine saw significant increases in performance and strength.

Let’s break down these nutrients and find out some more about their feel-good effects on our health, wellness and performance levels.

Zinc

Zinc is a great boost to your immune system due to the nutrient's essential role in immune cell functioning. Zinc is naturally occurring, with many people choosing to take ZMA supplements to enhance their zinc levels, as zinc has been linked to an in increase their metabolism.

Magnesium

The benefits of magnesium are huge. We won’t go into too much detail here, as we’ve written an overview surrounding the benefits of magnesium supplementation here. But simply put, adding Magnesium into your diet is beneficial in reducing anxiety levels, helping with migraines and boosting exercise performance – to name but a few benefits.

Vitamin B6 

Vitamin B6 is found naturally in many foods that you most likely already incorporate into your diet, including:

  • Beef
  • Vegetables
  • Non-citrus fruits
  • Tuna
  • Chickpeas 

This vitamin is often taken as a supplementation due to it's important role in regulating your memory and maintaining your mood. Vitamin B6 is also a key player in the creation of red blood cells, so it's important that you maintain healthy levels of this vitamin in your diet.

Who takes ZMA?

Generally speaking, ZMA is a pretty popular supplement amongst groups such as bodybuilders, high-intensity athletes and those that train regularly. This is because of the range of benefits that supplementation presents, which helps in areas ranging from sleep quality to muscle growth.

Many athletes also opt to take ZMA supplements as a healthy, natural replacement for anabolic steroids, due to the risks that taking these carry.

The health benefits of ZMA

Strap in, because this list is pretty long.

  • Improves physical endurance levels
  • Enhances recovery processes
  • Boosts muscle growth
  • Aids in sleep quality
  • Improved immunity
  • Ups your mood
  • Helps control blood sugar levels
  • Reduces inflammation
  • Aids weight-loss
  • Reduces your appetite

So, should I be taking ZMA supplements?

The answer to this can come from asking yourself a couple of pretty simple questions:

  • Are you feeling tired at the end of everyday?
  • Are you struggling to incorporate Zinc, Magnesium or B6 into your diet?
  • Could you do with that extra boost?

If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then we would wholeheartedly recommend you give ZMA supplements a try.

Are there any health risks?

As with everything we put into our body, it’s important to know if there are any risks. With ZMA, there are no known side effects, but as with all supplementations, ensure you are taking the correct, recommended daily dose.

The Recover Capsules

When starting to incorporate a new supplement into your routine, you might be feeling a little bit overwhelmed with who to trust and where to start. Formulated by leading nutritionists, The Recover Capsules include ZMA as well as other active ingredients such as Selenium and Vitamin D.

Summary

Basically, ZMA supplements improve your health and wellbeing in a wealth of areas, so you can see why it’s pretty popular with fitness enthusiasts.

If you’re looking to improve your performance, ZMA supplementation will assist in any deficiencies as a result of your diet plan. For example, body builders commonly focus on a protein-rich diet, leaving room for zinc deficiency. If you’re looking to improve your sleep, the included zinc and magnesium will help you on you out with that.

It’s all about the balance.

References

  • Moëzzi, N., Peeri, M., & Matin, H. (2013). Effects of zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6 supplementation on hormones and performance in weightlifters. Ann. Biol. Res, 4, 163-168. Click here.
  • Khorsandi, H., Nikpayam, O., Yousefi, R. et al. (2019). Zinc supplementation improves body weight management, inflammatory biomarkers and insulin resistance in individuals with obesity: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial. Diabetol Metab Syndr 11, 101.Click here.
  • Sheykh, A. V. D. & Bordbar, S. (2012). Effect of ZMA supplement alone and in combination with carbohydrates, with six weeks of resistance training on anabolic hormone levels and cellular damage indexes in untrained males. Click here.

Product Spotlight

Need Expert Advice?

Other Insights

Your Summer Survival Kit (From Someone Who Travels A Lot)
I'm putting the finishing touches to this post from an airport, which feels appropriate. By my count, I'll be going through three countries in the next six weeks. Meetings, a trip to see family including my niece and nephew, a supplier visit in Italy that I've been putting off for a year. And every summer the same thing happens. The carefully built routine, the one that took months to lock in, gets thrown into a suitcase and I hope for the best. Most people react to this by either giving up on the routine entirely ("I'll sort it out when I'm back") or overpacking so aggressively that half of it never leaves the bag. I've done both. Neither works. What actually works is deciding, in advance, which two or three things earn a place in my bag and which ones can wait until September. So here's mine. Not a wellness influencer's "what's in my bag" video. An honest list, built over about a decade of getting this wrong first. Why travel breaks routines specifically It's worth being precise about what actually changes when you travel, because it isn't just "less discipline." Three things shift at once. You sweat more and drink less water than usual, because you're distracted or the flight dried you out or the hotel room is warmer than home. You're outdoors more, often somewhere sunnier than wherever you live. And your meals stop being yours. You eat what's available, when it's available, and protein is usually the first thing to slip, because sugar, carbs and fat are what's on offer at 6am airport cafes. None of this is a discipline problem. It's an environment problem. The fix is making sure two or three specific things are in my bag before I leave home, so I’m not relying on willpower to begin with. 1. Electrolytes, non-negotiable Most people remember to pack sunscreen. Almost nobody packs electrolytes, and it's the one that actually catches up with you. Water replaces volume, not what you lose through sweat, which is mostly sodium and potassium and magnesium doing the quiet work of keeping muscles firing and fluid balanced properly. Miss that balance for a few days in the heat and you get the symptoms everyone blames on jet lag: the headache, the flat energy, the slight fog by 4pm that a coffee doesn't fix. It's usually not jet lag. It's electrolytes. I take The Hydrate Blend  for exactly this reason. Six electrolytes, no sugar, no synthetic flavouring, dissolves in a bottle of water in about ten seconds. One sachet on a travel day, first thing in the morning, does more for how I feel by evening than anything else in the bag. 2. Something for the sun you're actually going to get Here's the part most people don't think about until it's too late. UV exposure accelerates collagen breakdown, which is a slightly clinical way of saying that a week of proper sun does more to skin structure than most of the year combined. This isn't about vanity. It's a straightforward mechanism: UV generates free radicals that degrade existing collagen faster than your body can replace it. Sunscreen protects against the burn. It doesn't do anything for the collagen you're losing underneath. I've been taking The Glow Blend through summer for this reason specifically. Hydrolysed collagen peptides paired with vitamin C, which matters because vitamin C is a required co-factor for collagen synthesis and most collagen products leave it out entirely, then wonder why customers don't notice anything. It won't undo a week in the sun. It gives your skin something to rebuild with while it's under more pressure than usual. 3. Protein, especially when the meals aren't yours This is the one I've learned the hard way. When your diet goes inconsistent, protein is usually the first macronutrient to drop, simply because it's the hardest to find on the move. Airport food, hotel breakfasts, whatever's left at a conference buffet by 1pm, none of it is built around protein. And the honest science here is less dramatic than people expect: you don't need to train harder to maintain muscle through a disrupted period, you need to keep protein intake somewhere close to normal. That's the whole trick. I'll say this honestly because I'd rather be straight with you than pretend otherwise: my go-to for this is still The Strong Protein (whey based) and The Health Protein (vegan). They earn their place in my bag because they travel well, mix with nothing but water, and does the one job that actually matters on the road, which is making sure protein doesn't disappear from your day just because your routine has. The actual point None of this is about maintaining perfect discipline on holiday. Nobody does that, and if a brand tells you they do, they're not being honest with you. It's about deciding in advance which three or four things matter enough to bring, so the choice isn't being made for you by whatever's in the hotel minibar. If you've got a system that works for you when you travel, reply and tell me. I read every one of these, and I'm always looking to steal a better idea for my next trip. If this is useful, forward it to whoever in your life is about to live out of a suitcase for the next few weeks. It's the email I wish someone had sent me a decade ago. Read more
Why Natural Protein Supplementation Matters
Walk into any health shop, or scroll any supplement site, and you often find that protein powders start to blur into one. Almost all of them make the same promises on the front: ‘high in protein’, ‘no added sugar’, ‘no additional additives’. The wording is so similar that telling a genuinely good product from a synthetically produced product is harder than it should be. Read past the figure on the front however and you'll usually find a protein that contains artificial sweeteners, synthetic flavourings and colours, and even fillers or bulking agents just to name a few. The reason they tend to do this is that costs of production are much cheaper as a result of the lower quality ingredients. A naturally formulated protein supplement works the other way around. The protein comes from a quality source, the flavour and sweetness come from ingredients you'd recognise rather than ones built in a lab, and anything that doesn't need to be there is left out. This piece is about that difference: what natural really means for a protein supplement, why it matters, and how to spot it for yourself. What "natural" actually means in protein supplements "Natural" is one of the most used and least understood words in wellness, printed on plenty of labels with very little behind it. There's no strict, regulated definition for it, so a brand can reach for the word fairly freely. This is why it pays to know what you're actually looking for. Used honestly, natural points to ingredients that come from recognisable sources and are processed as lightly as the format allows. For protein, that usually means a base derived from food such as: Whey Pea Hemp Brown rice Other plant-based proteins Just as telling is what gets left out, and how openly the packaging accounts for what stays in. A natural protein supplement has little to hide, so the label tends to be short and the reasoning easy to follow. The real test is whether the formula makes sense as a whole. Can you understand what's in it? Does each ingredient have a clear purpose? And does the brand explain the benefit plainly, rather than hiding behind vague wellness language? Why ingredient quality matters in protein supplements When people compare protein powders, the first thing they often look at is the amount of protein per serving. It matters, but this number doesn’t tell you everything about a supplement’s quality. A synthetically formulated powder may contain just as much protein per serving as a natural alternative, but it may also include more artificial additives that are bad for your health.  This is especially important as supplementation is usually taken regularly as part of a daily routine. If something becomes part of your breakfast, post-workout routine or afternoon shake, the quality of the overall formula may influence how well it fits into your daily routine. Natural protein powders are often separated by a few key criteria: Ingredient sourcing: Whey is highly bioavailable and naturally rich in essential amino acids that support muscle repair. A good plant-based blend can also be effective when it is built to provide a strong amino acid profile. What surrounds the protein: Sweeteners, thickeners and flavourings affect taste, texture and how a shake feels once you have taken it. Some formulas rely heavily on artificial sweeteners, gums or thickeners, which may contribute to bloating or digestive discomfort. Digestibility: A protein you absorb and tolerate comfortably is more useful than a bigger number on the label that does not sit well with your body. Purpose: A formula built around a specific goal, such as strength, performance, energy or satiety, is more useful than a generic powder with no clear reason behind the ingredients. The benefits of natural protein supplementation The real value of natural supplementation becomes clearer when you look beyond protein content alone. Below are some of the key benefits of choosing natural protein supplements over more artificial or heavily processed alternatives. Supporting strength and lean muscle Building strength and lean muscle is one of the main reasons people turn to natural protein supplements.  A good one supports muscle repair after training and helps maintain muscle over the longer term. That's especially useful if you train regularly and eat well but can't always put together a high-protein meal straight after a session. Helping with recovery after exercise After a workout, your body needs nutrients to repair and adapt, and protein is central to that process, particularly if you train several times a week. A natural protein supplement offers a convenient way to support recovery without making nutrition feel complicated, whether mixed into a shake, smoothie or simple post-workout snack. Supporting satiety and body composition goals Protein keeps you feeling fuller for longer, which makes balanced eating easier to stick to.  For anyone working towards fat loss, lean muscle or general body composition, natural protein supplementation helps steady your daily nutrition alongside whole foods, movement and rest, without relying on the added sugar that some cheaper formulas contain. Making daily nutrition easier Even with good intentions, it is not always easy to get enough protein through meals alone. Busy days, training schedules and travel can all make consistency harder.  A natural protein gives you a simple, repeatable way to keep your intake up on the days that get away from you, using ingredients you can actually recognise. Natural supplementation doesn't have to taste bland There's a common assumption that natural supplements have to taste bland, chalky or unpleasant. Plenty of people have met exactly that: a protein that sounds healthy on paper but turns out too earthy, too sweet or too gritty to enjoy. It gets used for a few days, then pushed to the back of the cupboard. The problem there is usually the formulation, not the missing additives. Chalky, overly sweet shakes come from corners being cut. Getting flavour and texture right without falling back on heavy sweeteners is genuinely hard, which is a good sign a brand has done the work. Taste matters for a practical reason as much as an enjoyable one. A protein you look forward to is one you'll keep using, and consistency is what actually delivers results. The best-formulated supplement on the shelf does nothing while it sits unopened. The innermost approach to natural protein Everything above is the standard we at Innermost hold ourselves to. Our proteins are built on clean and naturally-derived ingredients, formulated with the backing of nutritional science rather than guesswork. We leave out the fillers, bulking agents and needless extras that have no business being in a quality protein, and we're open about what goes in and why. We also happen to think clean and natural should taste good, because a protein you enjoy is a protein you'll actually use.  Explore our protein powders to find the formula that best fits your goals, routine and lifestyle. References Morton, W., Murphy, T., et al (2018). A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults. Br J Sports Med. 52(6). Click here. Jäger, R., Kerksick, C., et al (2017). International Society of Sports Nutrition Position Stand: protein and exercise. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. Click here. Seijo, M., Naclerio, F. (2019). Whey Protein Supplementation and Muscle Mass: Current Perspectives. Click here. Read more