Beetroot juice boosts endurance by converting dietary nitrate to nitric oxide, which dilates blood vessels and delivers more oxygen to muscles. The effective dose is 400 mg nitrate (a concentrated shot or 1.5-2 cups of cold-pressed juice), taken 2-3 hours before competition. It works for runners, cyclists, and team-sport athletes, but skip it for kids and always trial it in practice first.
I recommend to a lot of the athletes in my coaching program to take beetroot juice. Beetroot juice is awesome. So in this video, I'm going to tell you what it does, who it's for, how much of it you should take, and when you should be taking it. Let me start this video by saying that this is not going to solve all of your problems. This is not going to help you play better if you aren't training right, if you aren't eating right, if you aren't sleeping right. This is a supplement, not a replacement. So if you aren't dialed in on your training, nutrition, and sleep, don't start here. But if you are dialed in on those things, here's how you can use it. The more oxygen that you can get to your muscles at once, the better have. So beetroot juice has something called nitrate in it. So when you drink beetroot juice, your body turns these nitrates into something called nitric oxide. Nitric oxide does something really cool to your blood vessels. So I want you to imagine that your blood vessels are like a straw, a small little straw. So this little straw has blood flowing through, which is carrying oxygen. But when you drink beetroot juice— imagine that is beetroot juice right there— it is going to open your blood vessels, or it is going to make it so your blood vessels are like a bigger straw, which then allows it to carry more blood at once. The more blood that goes through your vessels at once, the more oxygen your blood can carry to your muscles. The more oxygen we can get to your muscles at once, the better. Beetroot juice makes your blood vessels turn from a small straw into a big straw, which improves your endurance and allows you to not fatigue as quickly. So in a game, this could look like being able to push a little bit harder and have a little bit more stamina, feel like your conditioning is a little bit more on point than normal. In a race, Similar thing, it might allow you to hold a little bit faster of a pace for longer. It's going to give your endurance a small little edge amongst your competition if you're fueling right. If you got no fuel in the tank, then this isn't going to grab for you. Next, who is this for? It is for high-intensity endurance athletes. This could be runners, this could be football players, this could be basketball players, this could be cyclists, swimmers maybe. I wouldn't say golf or baseball or softball would benefit too much from this, but if you consider your sport high intensity and you're needing good endurance good stamina, this could be an awesome supplement to look into. I will say they don't do studies on supplements for young athletes, so I don't recommend supplements to young athletes. Typically I say after you've hit puberty, that's the rule of thumb that I give to my athletes, is once you've hit puberty, we're going to look into these things. If you're younger, just focus in on your training, your sleep, and your food. So that is who it's for. And then it's how much you take. What you're looking for, the magic number is 400 milligrams of nitrate. This could come from a beetroot juice shot. So there's many, many shots where they purposely put this 400mg of nitrate in. If you don't have enough nitrate, this won't work very well. You got to make sure it's 400mg for your blood vessels to really open up and become that bigger straw. So you could do the shot. You could also look for cold-pressed real beetroot juice. Typically you want to have about 1.5 to 2 cups of that. And the reason why I say cold-pressed is when beetroot juice gets heated up or when it's pasteurized, it actually kills a lot of the nitrate or the nutrients within the juice itself. So cold press makes it so that those nitrates haven't been killed. If you are using normal beetroot juice, you'd have to drink a lot more than 1.5 to 2 cups, which probably most athletes don't want to do because beetroot juice doesn't taste the greatest. But you could put it in a smoothie and have it taste a little bit better with some fruit and stuff with it. So that is how much. 400 milligrams of nitrate is the magic number. And here's when to take it. You don't have to take it every single day. You just gotta take it on competition day. It takes time for your body to do this. Right? It doesn't just happen instantaneously. It takes time. It takes about 2 to 3 hours for it to do that. So the rule of thumb is about 2 to 3 hours before your race or before your competition, not before warmups, but before the actual start time of your game or your race. The last thing I will say is you practice taking beetroot juice, like for a practice before you do it for an actual race or game, just to make sure it sits well in your body and that you feel good and that it doesn't cause any digestive issues. It shouldn't, But anything new to your body might take time to get used to. So I definitely try this once or twice at practice and see how you feel before you ever implement it on a race day or a game day, just to play it safe. Okay, so there you have it. You know everything you need to know about beetroot juice now. What it does, who it's for, how much you need, and when to take it. So like I've mentioned before, supplements are the final piece of the puzzle. We want to make sure that your training, your nutrition, and your recovery are dialed. So if you're one of these elite high-intensity athletes, usually your skills and your training are pretty dialed, but the next thing you need to be focusing on is the right nutrition for your body and for your goals. So that is you, if you're trying to figure that out, we have a program. That is what I am here for. I will help you get a meal plan for your goals, for your sport, for your body. We'll help you implement the things, we'll hold you accountable. Come join.
