Beetroot juice vs creatine for resistance-training performance 💪
Do you have to choose though?
Beetroot juice or creatine: which yields greater short-term benefits for resistance training capacity, performance and key physiological responses?
Study Details
This new study recruited 11 novice lifters to complete bench press and back squat exercises after taking either…
🍷 Beetroot juice
💊 Creatine
🥤 Placebo
Performance and cardiometabolic outcomes were assessed 🔍
Here is what they found ⬇️
Key Findings
💊 Creatine significantly improved bench press reps at 80% 1RM vs placebo
⚡️ Both creatine and beetroot juice improved lifting velocity
…with beetroot juice showing superior effects.
Beetroot juice also led to significantly…
🫁 Enhanced intramuscular-oxygen-saturation
🫀 Lower peak heart rate
🔋 Better autonomic recovery
…compared to creatine and placebo.
Overall, there were more consistent performance improvements with creatine vs beetroot 📈
Conclusion
Creatine appears to preferentially enhance mechanical performance ⚙️
Whereas beetroot seemed to provide broader cardiometabolic and autonomic benefits 🫀
In reality, it’s never really going to be a choice between the two. You’d probably end up using them both together for optimising performance ✅
Reference
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41702723/
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