Why NAD+ Matters for Bodybuilding and Muscle Growth
NAD+ has become a hot topic in health science research. This important molecule exists in every cell of your body and helps with energy production, cellular repair, and the aging process.
If you want to maintain muscle strength, whether you’re an athlete, bodybuilder or simply worry about mobility as you age, understanding NAD+ could make a big difference.
Recent studies show that NAD+ plays key roles in muscle development, performance, and recovery. This knowledge helps explain why muscles get weaker as we age and offers clues about how to prevent this decline.
Let’s explore how NAD+ affects muscle growth and what you can do to maintain your strength throughout life.
Key Takeaways
- NAD+ carries electrons for cellular energy production and serves as fuel for enzymes that regulate muscle health
- Satellite cells, which are stem cells that repair muscles, need enough NAD+ to work properly during the healing process
- NAD+ levels drop as we age, contributing to muscle loss (sarcopenia) and decreased physical abilities
- Regular exercise, especially combining cardio and strength training, naturally increases NAD+ by boosting NAMPT production
- NAD+ precursors like NMN and NR have shown promising results in clinical studies for improving muscle insulin sensitivity, mitochondrial function, and overall muscle performance
Why NAD+ Is Important for Muscle Function
NAD+ (short for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) serves as your cells’ energy transport system.
Found in almost every cell in your body, this vital molecule is particularly important for healthy muscle function. NAD+ works behind the scenes to convert the nutrients you consume into energy your body can readily use for all its activities.
How NAD+ Works in Muscles
During exercise, your muscles need quick energy. NAD+ is key in this process, helping convert nutrients into ATP—the energy currency that powers muscle contractions, helps muscles recover, and supports growth.
NAD+ also serves as fuel for key enzymes1:
- Sirtuins: These proteins regulate cell health and help muscles adapt to exercise
- PARPs: These enzymes fix DNA damage when muscles experience stress
Your muscles maintain NAD+ levels through two main pathways: building it from scratch using tryptophan (an amino acid), or recycling existing materials through the salvage pathway2. An enzyme called NAMPT is key in this recycling process, converting nicotinamide into NMN, which your body then turns into NAD+.
When NAD+ levels drop, your mitochondria (the powerhouses of your cells) can’t function well3. This results in decreased energy production, weaker muscle performance, and limited recovery ability.
Maintaining healthy NAD+ levels isn’t just for improving athletic performance, it’s necessary for basic muscle function as you age.
NAD+ Decline and Muscle Aging
One of the most reliable changes in aging bodies is the gradual decrease in NAD+ levels, with skeletal muscles showing particularly dramatic effects. This NAD+ reduction sets off a chain reaction that leads to sarcopenia—the progressive loss of muscle mass and function that typically starts after age 30.
Researchers have found that NAD+ in muscles can fall by approximately 50% between young adulthood and old age4. This decline isn’t just a side effect of aging but appears to directly cause several muscle aging markers:
- Fewer and less efficient mitochondria
- Weaker muscle fibers with reduced strength
- Impaired ability to rebuild muscle after injury or workouts
- Decreased exercise capacity and longer recovery periods
The drop in NAD+ happens for several reasons: the NAMPT enzyme (which recycles NAD+) becomes less effective, while NAD+-consuming enzymes like CD38 become more active5. These changes impact many cellular functions, from energy production to the signaling networks essential for maintaining healthy muscle tissue.
NAD+ in Muscle Repair and Recovery
Muscle growth in bodybuilding relies heavily on the ability to repair and regenerate muscle fibers post-exercise.
NAD+ is a key player in these processes, helping muscles repair and rebuild after exercise or injury. This repair process relies on satellite cells, which are like stem cells specifically for skeletal muscles.
When muscles get damaged from intense workouts or injuries, satellite cells need to activate, multiply, and transform to fix the damaged tissue. NAD+ affects this process in important ways:
Starting the Repair Process
NAD+ works as a metabolic signal that helps satellite cells switch from resting to active. An enzyme called SIRT1 uses NAD+ to make changes to genes, essentially turning energy information into instructions for cell development6.
Providing Energy for Muscle Regeneration
Rebuilding muscle requires lots of energy. NAD+ ensures satellite cells have enough fuel to go through all the complex changes needed for effective repair.
Research has shown that:
- When NAD+ levels drop, muscles can’t repair themselves well7
- Restoring NAD+ levels helps protect muscles from damage8
- Increasing NAD+ production leads to better recovery after injury9
The pathways that create NAD+, especially those involving nicotinamide riboside kinases (NRK1 and NRK2), are particularly important for determining what kind of muscle fibers develop during repair10. These pathways support both immediate recovery and long-term improvements in muscle strength.
Interestingly, NAD+ levels affect not just whether muscles can repair themselves, but also what type of muscle fibers form during recovery—influencing both strength and endurance of the rebuilt muscle.
Practical Ways to Boost NAD+
As scientists learn more about NAD+ and muscle health, they’ve discovered several effective strategies to maintain or increase NAD+ levels, especially as we age.
These approaches target different parts of NAD+ metabolism, offering multiple ways to improve muscle function and recovery.
NAD+ Precursor Supplements
The most direct approach is taking supplements that your body uses to build NAD+:
Nicotinamide Mononucleotide (NMN):
This direct NAD+ precursor shows promising results in studies.
- NMN supplements have been found to improve muscle insulin sensitivity, helping with insulin signaling and healthy muscle remodeling. In older mice,
- NMN improves blood flow to muscles by enhancing blood vessel function and reducing arterial stiffness, which helps with exercise performance.
- Human studies show improvements in walking speed and overall muscle function in older adults taking NMN.
Nicotinamide Riboside (NR):
- Research shows NR effectively increases NAD+ levels in skeletal muscle, improving mitochondrial function and energy metabolism.
- Clinical trials have shown that NR supplements can boost NAD+ levels in the muscle tissue of elderly people, potentially benefiting metabolic health and muscle function.
Lifestyle Changes
Supplements work best when combined with lifestyle strategies that naturally support NAD+ production:
Exercise: Both weight training and cardio increase NAMPT expression and NAD+ production genes. Regular physical activity creates a positive cycle—improved NAD+ levels enhance exercise capacity, which further supports NAD+ production.
Strategic Nutrition: Some foods contain NAD+ precursors or support NAD+ metabolism, including milk, fish, mushrooms, green vegetables, and whole grains. Eating these foods alongside supplements may create enhanced benefits.
Caloric Restriction and Intermittent Fasting: These eating patterns have been shown to increase NAD+ levels by activating NAMPT and supporting cellular stress resistance mechanisms that preserve muscle health.
For people facing specific muscle issues—like age-related muscle loss or recovery from intense training—combining precursor supplements with lifestyle improvements offers the most complete strategy for maintaining optimal NAD+ levels and supporting long-term muscle health.
NAD+: Your Muscles’ Best Friend for Life
The NAD+ and muscle health connection represents one of the most promising areas in longevity science today. This essential molecule influences everything about how your muscles function—energy production, performance, repair processes, and maintaining strength with age.
Research clearly shows that keeping healthy NAD+ levels is essential for maintaining mobility, strength, and independence throughout your life.
The great news about NAD+ is that you can improve your levels through specific supplements. But before starting, it’s smart to know where you stand.
The Intracellular NAD® Test from Jinfiniti gives you this important information—letting you establish your starting point and track improvements.
For those looking to optimize their NAD+ levels, Vitality ↑® NAD+ Booster offers a scientifically formulated solution. that combines NMN with creatine monohydrate for complete muscle support. NMN helps your body produce more NAD+, while creatine directly boosts muscle energy storage (ATP), helps build muscle, and enhances physical performance. Together, they improve both your energy metabolism and muscle development.
Jinfiniti’s T-A-O method—Test, Act, and Optimize—provides a simple framework. By testing your NAD+ levels and adjusting supplementation based on your results, you’re making an investment in muscle health that will benefit you for decades.
Referenced Sources
- https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13103 ↩︎
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-00311-7 ↩︎
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13694-1 ↩︎
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7442590/ ↩︎
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413116302443 ↩︎
- https://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(14)00562-1 ↩︎
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4985182/ ↩︎
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5840929/ ↩︎
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19768354.2022.2106303 ↩︎
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212877817303162 ↩︎
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