Recover From Injury Faster With HMB

August 09, 2025By Quinn Rothman

Injuries suck. They sideline you from your sport, allow the competition to catch up, and take a toll on both your physical and mental well-being.

When it comes to bouncing back, your rehab plan can include smart injury management, skilled therapists, a return-to-fitness plan, and a solid diet. If you need a guide, you can download ours for managing injuries like a pro athlete.

But what about supplements?

One in particular, HMB (beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate), has strong research backing its role in maintaining muscle, reducing soreness, and speeding training adaptation. Here’s how it could help you return to peak performance faster.

What You’ll Learn in This Article

What HMB is and how it supports recovery
How HMB helps prevent muscle loss during downtime
Its role in reducing soreness and muscle damage
How it can speed your adaptation to post-injury training
Extra benefits for masters athletes
How creatine can complement HMB for injury resilience

1. HMB and Muscle Loss

Blonyx HMB Sport on a table by an athlete stretching

When you’re sidelined from training, muscle loss happens fast. HMB is known as an anti-catabolic, meaning it helps prevent muscle breakdown.

Multiple studies, like this ISSN position stand on HMB, show it’s effective in minimizing muscle loss, even in people on complete bed rest.
This makes it particularly useful if you can’t use your injured body part for weeks or months.

“After wrist surgery from a snowboarding accident, I was in a cast for 6 months but took HMB religiously and did unilateral training. Within 3 weeks of cast removal, my injured side was back to full strength.”

Takeaway: Taking HMB while inactive from injury can help you retain more muscle, making it easier to regain full strength once you’re cleared to train.

2. HMB, Muscle Damage, and Soreness

HMB is also well known for protecting muscles from exercise-induced damage.

One study showed it almost eliminated damage from heavy training.
Another found significantly less muscle damage after a 20K run.

By reducing damage, you shorten the recovery time needed between sessions, which is a major advantage during the rehab process.

Takeaway: Taking HMB can reduce soreness and muscle damage when you resume training, letting you do more recovery work with less downtime between sessions.

3. HMB and Performance Recovery

Beyond damage prevention, HMB may also stimulate muscle protein production by activating the critical mTOR pathway and signalling your body to rapidly produce new muscle proteins, improving your response to training.

Research has shown HMB can improve strength, muscle mass, and endurance performance.
Faster adaptation during post-injury training means you can rebuild performance capacity sooner.

Takeaway: HMB can speed up your body’s training adaptations, helping you return to pre-injury performance levels faster.

4. Added Bonus for Masters Athletes

Muscle loss accelerates with age, and it’s linked to higher injury risk.

A 2015 review found HMB supplementation reduces muscle loss in older adults, even without exercise.
A follow-up study in 2020 confirmed similar results, though it couldn’t determine whether adding exercise made a difference.

Takeaway: For athletes over 40, HMB can help preserve muscle mass year-round, potentially reducing both sports-related and everyday injuries.

5. Adding Creatine to the Mix

Like HMB, creatine monohydrate is a well-studied supplement that can improve performance and may also reduce injury risk.

Together, they’re a dynamic duo, helping you improve your strength and endurance over time with consistent training. That's why we creatine a combination supplement like Blonyx HMB+ Creatine.

For more on complementary supplements, check out our full guide to science-backed supplements for recovery and injury resilience.

Choosing the Right HMB Product

Not all HMB supplements are equal. Some are low quality or even counterfeit. Use our HMB product selection guide to choose a trusted source that delivers what’s on the label.

Learn more about what HMB is and how it supports recovery, strength, and long-term performance in athletes.

Key Takeaways

HMB isn’t just a performance booster, it can be a valuable tool in injury rehab and prevention.

Here’s a quick review of what it can do for you and your performance:

Prevents muscle loss during injury downtime, speeding return to strength
Reduces soreness and damage so you can train more often in recovery
Speeds training adaptation for faster performance restoration
Helps masters athletes preserve muscle and reduce injury risk
Works well alongside creatine for performance, recovery, and injury resilience

Bottom line: If you’re sidelined by injury, adding HMB to your recovery plan could help you come back stronger, faster, and more resilient.

If you learned something new from this article and are curious to know more, check out the Blonyx Blog or head to our growing list of weekly sports science research summaries where we help you further improve your athletic performance by keeping you up to date on the latest findings.