Beetroot juice enhances high-intensity performance and muscle oxygenation 📈

A single dose may be all you need.

Acute beetroot juice supplementation enhances short duration high-intensity exercise performance and influences muscle oxygenation in football players

Study Details

This new study recruited 16 male football players who consumed either…

1️⃣ 140 ml beetroot juice (800 mg nitrate)

2️⃣ Placebo

…2.5 hrs prior to a Wingate test 🚲

Muscle oxygenation, heart rate, blood pressure and lactate were analysed 🔍

Key Findings

Compared to placebo, beetroot juice led to significantly…

💥 Increased peak power

💥 Increased mean power

💥 Reduced time to peak power

Muscle oxygenation was not different during exercise, however post-exercise…

💪 Muscle oxygenation saturation was higher (+10%)

📉 Deoxygenated haemoglobin was lower (-13%)

…with beetroot juice supplementation.

Blood pressure and heart rate did not differ between conditions at any time point ❌

Post-exercise blood lactate was higher after beetroot juice vs placebo 🧐

Conclusion

A single dose of beetroot juice (~800mg nitrates) enhanced anaerobic power and post-exercise muscle oxygenation 📈

Your pre-exercise beetroot performance strategy may support recovery post-exercise 🔋

Reference

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41620457/

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