For Exercise, You Can’t Beat Beets!

There has been a growing body of evidence that drinking beet juice improves athletic performance. A new placebo-controlled study of soccer players has expanded the scientific evidence. . . .

32 men who played for Dutch amateur league soccer teams were given either 140ml of beet root juice containing 800mg of nitrate or a placebo beet root juice depleted of nitrate every day for 6 days. They then took part in 2 days of testing of high intensity intermittent running performance.

Athletic performance improved by a significant 3.4% in the nitrate-rich beet juice group. The soccer players in the beet juice group also had significant beneficial decreases in heart rate compared to the placebo beet juice group. This study may be the first ever to demonstrate that beet juice can positively affect heart rate.

This study shows that beet root juice improves high intensity, intermittent type exercise performance and adds to a growing body of evidence that beet root juice is an important sports nutrition food for athletes and exercisers. An earlier study found that beet root juice benefits exercise efficiency (Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 2010;299:R1121-31), and a second study found men drinking beet root juice could exercise longer before becoming exhausted while significantly improving the amound of oxygen used by their bodies (J Applied Physiol 2009;107:1144-55).

Related research has shown that the nitrates in Subscribe!

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