Beet, Pray, Love. The Potential Performance Enhancing Properties of Beetroot Juice.
We start this week’s blog with a warning. That is a warning about the amount of time that you can lose trying to come up with beetroot puns. Only do it if you have to, and even then you still won’t be happy with the outcome. “Beet, Pray, Love” was the lesser of many evils. Anyway, now that disclaimers out the way you have probably guessed that this week’s blog is about Beetroot. More specifically Beetroot Juice, more specifically still, the evidence around its potential performance-enhancing benefits! The inspiration this week arose from a post from the wonderful David Nolan of Synapse performance highlighting a study from 2020 looking into the impact Beetroot juice can have on muscular endurance! Now we will get to that in due course, but It got me thinking on potentially how little people may know about this supplement!
What is Beetroot Juice and Why is it Popular in Performance Nutrition?
Enter this blog, designed to shine a light on the humble beet and it’s suggested performance-enhancing benefits such as reducing the energy cost of exercise, the potential muscular endurance benefits mentioned above AND it’s potential health benefits. We’ll dive into how it works and when/if you should even consider supplementing it! I’ll be resisting the urges to make many beetroot puns, so don’t look so downbeet!
First, we need to tackle what it is in the beetroot juice that is so interesting to the performance sport community. The main compound that us performance nutritionists care about is that of Nitrate and nitric oxide. Beetroot is high in nitrates with more than 250mg of nitrate per 100g beetroot! This nitrate is subsequently used to produce nitric oxide in the body. This is thought to be the main compound responsible for the performance-enhancing properties of beets! BUT there’s more to the humble beetroot than just nitrates we know it’s high in antioxidants and the two polyphenols of resveratrol and quercetin both of which have other suggested benefits for the human body. For now, let’s focus on nitrates.
Key Performance Benefits of Beetroot Juice
We’ve gone all this time and we haven’t actually addressed what the performance-enhancing benefits I’m eluding to are. Research into this field has been carried out for over a decade and so far the following potential benefits that have been found are: Reducing the oxygen cost of low-intensity exercise (less oxygen consumed for same output), Improving cycling economy (higher power output for same oxygen consumption when cycling), improve tolerance to high-intensity exercise, potentially increase cognitive function and now it’s been found to POTENTIALLY improve weightlifting performance through improving power production, contraction speed and as eluded to above the number of reps to failure (however only at 60-70% of your 1RM). Outside of performance, we know that nitrates can also reduce blood pressure or at least contribute to a reduction in blood pressure when paired with other lifestyle changes. The humble beet can bring a LOT to the table
BUT HOW?! How does nitric oxide do this… there are several theories. In terms of improving exercise economy and reducing oxygen cost, it is known that nitric oxide may increase the efficiency of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (the process by which ATP is produced in the presence of oxygen), it is thought to achieve this by increasing the phosphate/oxygen ratio and thus leads to more ATP being produced per oxygen molecule! From a cognitive point of view, the enhanced blood flow caused by nitrate will also apply to the brain and thus improve cognitive function. This enhanced blood flow may also play a role in the potential increases in weightlifting performance due to increased blood flow to the muscle. BUT other factors may be at play here too! It was found that when supplementing with nitrates there was an increased expression of calcium handling proteins in type 2 muscle fibres! Calcium ions (Ca2+) as we know play a very large role in stimulating muscle contraction We also know that a failure to release these Ca2+ ions from actin in the muscle can lead to muscular fatigue. It could well be that the increased concentration of calcium handling proteins play a role in the reduction of fatigue we’ve seen! Notice my very liberal use of the words MAY And POTENTIALLY. Even the research says that the exact mechanisms are unclear at the minute, so for me, a man that desperately wants to be in research but isn’t. May’s and Potentially’s is all you’re getting.
Who Should Consider Beetroot Juice for Performance Enhancement?
Now that we know what the nitrates in beetroot juice do and we have some (still unclear) idea as to how they do it. Let’s talk why you should, who should, how you should and when you should supplement it. Starting with the why, well this is an easy one. Potential increase in performance in both submaximal intensities and intermittent high intensities along with a potential increase in weightlifting performance and muscular endurance. Sweet as. Ok, WHO should supplement it. Due to the research that’s been carried out in the cycling world that has shown it to improve cycling economy and time trial performances in 4 and 16kms then cyclists…. Also, anyone that partakes in intermittent high-intensity exercise that may involve weightlifting and moving weights at 60-70% of your 1RM max (COUGH CROSSFIT COUGH) should seriously consider it! Cool, HOW and WHEN do I do it?! Doses of 6-8mmol of nitrate 2-3 hours before exercise is the suggested protocol within the literature. This equates to either around 500mls of beetroot juice or 70mls of the more concentrated supps! Beautiful. But before we sign off there it is worth pointing out that there are no credible studies that look into the risk of nitrate supplementation so at this point in time I simply cannot comment on the risk of it. We definitely need more studies that look into this. What we do know for sure is that it may make your pee turn purple and this may be scary. As with any change in diet it HAS TO WORK FOR YOU! You are the single most important factor in your performance. If it upsets your stomach or causes bloating then this may do more harm than good. LISTEN TO YOUR BODY. And ALWAYS practice a protocol or dietary change BEFORE an important competition setting.
So there we have it. Don’t Beet yourself up if Beetroot juice doesn’t work for you. Be(e)true to yourself and what works for you. If it make’s you feel more up Beet then sweet as! But why anyone that has every other aspect of their nutrition sorted would not give it a try sure Beets me. Anyway, as I said at the start, don’t start coming up with Beetroot puns. You’ll lose hours of your life and probably many friends. Thank you for putting up with the insufferable puns here.
Looking To Optimise Your Nutrition?!
I’m a performance nutritionist with years of experience working with endurance athletes to optimise their performance. Check out my race/competition packages here and see how I can help you.
