Beet Juice Could Help Boost Exercise Performance
That extra oxygen boost may, however, be especially beneficial for your workouts.
“Beet juice may help exercise performance, but I would phrase the mechanism carefully. It is not that beet juice literally increases the oxygen content of the blood, like adding more red blood cells would,” explains Johannah Katz, a dietitian from Consumer Health Digest, who is based in Orlando, Florida.
“The nitrate in beet juice can increase nitric oxide availability, which may improve blood flow, reduce the oxygen cost of exercise, and help muscles use oxygen more efficiently. That can translate into better endurance for high-intensity exercise performance for some people,” Katz says.
For that reason, she recommends beet juice to her clients as pre-workout fuel. “But beet juice is not a permanent endurance upgrade. If someone stops using it, the acute nitrate effect does not just stay there forever. Training, sleep, fueling, hydration, and overall fitness still matter much more.”
That being said, research on beet juice for boosting athletic performance has been mixed. Some studies found that beetroot juice improved athletic performance in short-distance aerobic exercise, while others showed no positive impact. Other studies of high-intensity exercise found that drinking beetroot juice didn’t improve exercise performance.
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