Kelsey HigginsonSports Nutrition Coach and Founder at Clutch Day Coaching

Beet root juice could be awesome for you!

12 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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0:57

In this video, the speaker explains how beetroot juice can enhance athletic performance by delivering nitrates that cause vasodilation, expanding blood vessels (the "big straws" analogy) to increase oxygen delivery to muscles. This effect improves endurance and stamina for athletes in sports requiring sustained effort, such as football, basketball, track, and cross‑country. The speaker advises consuming beetroot juice 2–3 hours before competition, ensuring the dose provides about 400 mg of nitrate. For convenience, a concentrated beetroot juice shot is recommended as an easy way to meet the nitrate requirement.

Chapters

Beetroot juice for athletes. Who needs it and how much do you need? So who needs it? Have you guys ever tried to suck through one of those little hot chocolate straws and then you go and drink out of one of those big milkshake straws? Very different amount of liquid come through at once. That's what beetroot juice does. It goes from having your blood vessels be little and small straws to big straws that will allow for more nutrients and more blood to flow through at once, which then increases your oxygen delivery to your muscles, which then increases your endurance and your stamina and allows you as an athlete to have better endurance and stamina when you're playing your game. So So any athlete that requires endurance— football, basketball, track, cross-country— beetroot juice could be awesome for you. When you need to be taking it to actually see the benefits is 2 to 3 hours before your game or your race. You got to do it in that time window. The amount of beetroot juice that you need needs to contain 400mg of nitrate to actually allow those straws to open. So my favorite version that I recommend to athletes is actually a beetroot juice shot that, that is very small and is packed with the nitrates that you need.