With exercises like resistance training, one of the goals is muscle growth. But your habit of consuming Advil before exercise could actually be hindering this goal. 

A 2017 study published in the journal Acta Physiologica done by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm found that ibuprofen could be messing with your gains, per Men’s Health. The study employed 31 participants (men and women) between the ages of 18 and 35, and got one group to consume 1,200 milligrams of one kind of NSAID (ibuprofen) daily for eight weeks and another group to take another kind of NSAID (aspirin) at 75 milligrams every day for the same length of time. While they were on the pain relievers, the participants engaged in leg workouts 2-3 times a week. At the end of the trial period, their muscle gains were monitored using an MRI. The youth who were in the aspirin group had two times the muscle gains when compared with the ones in the ibuprofen camp. The results of the study point toward the fact that the inflammation-suppressing properties of ibuprofen can actually hinder muscle gains. There’s a benefit to post-workout inflammation as far as muscle growth is concerned.

As Tommy Lundberg, lead author of the study and researcher at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Laboratory Medicine, shared (via Science Daily), “Our results suggest that young people who do weight training to increase their muscle mass should avoid regular high doses of anti-inflammatory drugs.”