Taking shots to the gym, and how to keep them cold on the way

If training is the one fixed point in your day, it's a natural place to hang a daily shot, as long as the bottle gets there cold.

Taking shots to the gym works as long as the bottle stays cold. Take a 60ml shot straight from the fridge, carry it in an insulated bag with an ice pack, and drink it as soon as you open it. A review of curcumin trials in active people covered doses before and after exercise, so choose whichever side suits you.

Key takeaways

• Keep the bottle cold: fridge, insulated bag, ice pack, and never a warm car or a sunny locker.
• An opened shot should be drunk within 24 hours, and at the gym the easy answer is to open it when you're ready to finish it.
• Curcumin has been studied before and after exercise, so the better slot is the one you'll keep.
• Drink it from the bottle rather than a shaker. Turmeric stains, and we couldn't find a study of the mix.
• A shot sits alongside your post-training food and fluid, and it won't stand in for either.

What's the best way of taking shots to the gym?

Straight from the fridge, in an insulated bag with an ice pack, and drunk during the same trip.

A turmeric shot is defined as a small, single-serve drink, 60ml in our case, made to be swallowed in one go rather than sipped through a session. Ours are high-pressure processed rather than heat-treated, with no added preservatives, so they're chilled products from the day they arrive and belong in the fridge until you leave the house.

We haven't got a tested figure for how long a shot holds up in a gym bag, and we won't make one up. The Food Standards Agency's guidance on chilling food says to keep chilled food out of the fridge for the shortest time possible, with a four-hour maximum during preparation. That line was written for kitchens, so treat it as an outer limit and aim well inside it. If a bottle has spent the afternoon in a hot car, leave it undrunk.

Where does a shot fit around your training?

Wherever it needs the least carrying, which often means it never goes in the bag at all.

Should you drink it before or after training?

Either, as long as it's the slot you'll stick with.

The review above covered 11 randomised trials and found curcumin taken before and during exercise, and for up to 72 hours afterwards, reduced muscle pain and markers of muscle damage at 150 to 1,500mg a day. A small Japanese trial looked at timing more directly. Ten healthy men took 180mg of curcumin a day for the week before hard arm exercise, and ten others for the week after, each compared with a placebo. The week-before group differed only on one inflammation marker, which was lower at 12 hours. The week-after group had less soreness and got their strength back sooner. One author worked for Theravalues Corporation.

Both are supplements taken at set doses over several days. Neither tells you whether a shot does more 30 minutes before a session than 30 minutes after, and we couldn't find a trial that asks. So choose for practical reasons. Plenty of people prefer afterwards, and if a shot on an empty stomach doesn't sit well, that's a good reason to join them. Our guide to wellness shots and a sensitive stomach has more on that, and how to take a turmeric shot covers the rest of the ritual.

Can you mix a shot into a protein shake?

You can, but we'd drink it on its own.

We couldn't find a study of a turmeric shot mixed with protein powder, so there's nothing to say it helps or hurts. The practical case is simpler. Turmeric stains, and a shaker sipped over an hour leaves an open shot warming up in your hand. Drink the shot, then use the shaker for whatever normally goes in it.

Your recovery still depends on the food and fluid around the session, which a 60ml drink was never going to replace. Our guide to post-workout nutrition covers protein, carbohydrate, and hydration.

Is there a better time for a beetroot shot?

The research points to two or three hours before exercise, but at much larger doses.

A dose-response study at the University of Exeter gave 10 healthy men 70ml, 140ml, or 280ml of concentrated beetroot juice. Blood nitrite peaked two to three hours later, and the 140ml and 280ml doses extended the time they could keep going by 14% and 12%. The 70ml dose changed nothing, and going above 140ml added nothing.

That's concentrated juice at study volumes. Raw Turmeric & Beetroot is a 60ml blend with beetroot at 19%, so we wouldn't plan a session around the clock for it. Have it at your usual time. Our article on beetroot for endurance explains the protocols for anyone preparing for an event.

How do you keep the habit going on rest days?

Give the shot a home outside your gym bag.

The Japanese trial above gave curcumin every day for a week, either before or after a single hard session, and a habit that only exists on gym days has gaps in it. Keep your box in the fridge from the moment it's delivered, and have the shot at breakfast when you're not training. Each bottle has a use by date, with a shelf life of at least 42 days from production, and spares can be frozen.

Which shot belongs in your bag?

Raw Turmeric Original, if you want the most turmeric we make.

It has raw turmeric root at 30%, the highest in our range, in a cold-crushed, whole watermelon-based blend with pineapple, lemon, magnesium, and vitamin C, plus our trade-secret BioMax Uptake Blend®, which includes black pepper, at a 0.1% inclusion.

It's also the shot behind the first clinical trial of our blends. Independent researchers at Nottingham Trent University gave two a day to 16 of 24 elite male footballers, with the other 8 as controls. C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, was lower 64 hours after a match, and soreness was lower too. There was no difference in creatine kinase, and the trial had no placebo or blinding. We're clearly not a neutral party, and for most people the habit we'd suggest is one a day.

The takeaway

Taking shots to the gym comes down to keeping the bottle cold and opening it only when you're ready to drink it. Before or after training is your call, since the research doesn't separate them for a drink like this. Keep it out of the shaker, and leave your usual food and fluid as they are.

For an easy daily habit that survives both gym days and rest days, a single Raw Turmeric Original is the one to keep in the fridge.

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