UN-BEET-ABLE: Increase athletic performance with Beets

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UN-BEET-ABLE: Increase athletic performance with Beets


Nutritional supplements have long been used to enhance athletic performance, common supplements include creatine, whey protein isolate, and caffeine. In recent years studies have shown performance enhancements from the consumption of beets or beetroot juice. Beets contain compounds that increase levels of nitric oxide in the body, this increase has multiple performance-enhancing effects related to blood flow, gas exchange, efficiency, strength of muscle contractions as well as mitochondrial biogenesis. The enhancements presented with supplementation indicate beneficial ergogenic effects on cardiorespiratory endurance. Supplementation increases efficiency in the cardiorespiratory system expanding the time to exhaustion at sub-maximal intensities at various distances and improves VO2max scores through increasing max oxygen uptake and anaerobic threshold intensities. It’s important to note that while beetroot juice may be a great addition to athletic performance there are other great ways to incorporate beets in your diet without buying special powders or juices! Beets are great when peeled and thrown into a vegetable roast in the oven, I typically do beets, sweet potatoes, carrots, onion, and brussel sprouts. Another great way to incorporate beets is in the pickled variety, pickled beets are a great addition to a salad or wrap. Regardless of whether you are seeking athletic enhancements or not beets are a great root vegetable to incorporate into your diet for overall health and to help you stay up-beet!

Pro Tip: beets can be very messy, plan accordingly.

Source: Domínguez, Raúl, et al. “Effects of Beetroot Juice Supplementation on Cardiorespiratory Endurance in Athletes. A Systematic Review.” Nutrients, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 6 Jan. 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5295087/. 



SN

Comments

  1. nina macaliMay 3, 2024 at 11:30 AM

    Beets is such a sueprfood! This is very informative and a great read! Also, I love the title, its very catchy and creative. I am not a huge beet eater, but your title made me want to see what it was all about! I'm going to try and incorporate more beets to stay up to beet lol!

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