lab rat

Lab Rat: Can a Muscle Gel Make Me a Workout Wonder?

As I’ve been subjecting my body to Beyoncé workouts, I’ve come to realize that being Beyoncé is really, really hard (duh). We all have the same number of hours in a day, yet Beyoncé still manages to do more squats than the rest of us. And after a succession of Beyoncé-inspired workouts, I was moving about as fast as Blue Ivy. To speed things up, I turn to Mio’s Workout Wonder Muscle Gel.

Mio, the creators of the cult pregnancy skin-care line Mama Mio, have created a line of high-performance skin products to give you “fit skin,” meant to help with fitness-related beauty concerns, like the kind of achy muscles that make it painful to sit through an entire episode of The Daily Show. The Workout Wonder Muscle Gel is a tingly gel that you apply to sore muscles to calm and invigorate them (like a fancy version of Ben-gay). Olympians can sit in ice-cold tubs after events to soothe inflamed/overworked muscles — this is the same concept, except less uncomfortable

Following one class in which we attempt the choreography to “Crazy in Love” and I begin to feel sports bra indentations forming, I apply the gel pre-shower all over my upper back. The effect is immediate — it feels like a cooling menthol patch (minus the smell). The gentle tingle lingers all the way as I take the subway downtown to uptown, or roughly the same amount of time it takes for Beyoncé’s chef to whip her up a tasty vegan meal. The gel, made out of a blend of arnica (a flower that’s like a daisy, but more tingly), natural magnesium, horse chestnut, murumuru butter, and fresh spearmint. The gel also slightly resembles a hydrating cream, thanks to the murumuru butter. It’s not enough moisture to act as a hydrating lotion on its own, but it’s non-drying.

After applying the gel to my sore legs as well, I feel better. While the effects are definitely temporary, a few days later, I’m back at yet another Beyoncé-inspired workout class. Surfbort.

Lab Rat: Can a Gel Make Me a Workout Wonder?