Researchers have found that beetroot juice significantly increases muscle strength, allowing you to lift heavier weights and perform more reps.
Vegetables like beets are rich in nitrates, chemicals that increase oxygen and blood levels throughout the body and have been linked to improved endurance. Coffee is another powerful stimulant that can help during workouts by stimulating the central nervous system and giving you more energy.
In the latest study, experts from the University of Exeter in the UK recruited ten healthy men in their 20s.
They were asked to follow a low-nitrate diet for three days prior to the start of the experiment, such as avoiding leafy green vegetables.
They were then divided into two groups, half of whom received a pre-workout nitrate-fortified drink containing 4.7 fluid ounces (fluid ounces), which the researchers said was the equivalent of beetroot juice.
The rest were given a placebo drink containing placebo powder.
The researchers said the drinks were indistinguishable from each other in appearance, smell and taste. Participants then performed one exercise three hours after the warm-up.
Using electrical impulses, the researchers measured muscle tone, or the force a muscle exerts when it contracts.
They found that the torque generated by the participants was seven percent higher in the group that drank the real drink before exercising.
Muscle biopsies were also taken from the leg after drinking and before and after exercise to check tissue nitrate levels.
The scientists found higher levels of nitrate in the muscles of people who drank a nitrate drink compared to those who didn’t.
In the body, nitrates can help dilate blood vessels and increase the amount of oxygen reaching the muscles.
“These results are important not only for the field of exercise, but potentially for other areas of medicine, such as those that target neuromuscular and metabolic diseases associated with nitric oxide deficiency,” the doctor said.
Dr Andy Jones, a physiologist at the University of Exeter, said: “Our study has already provided a wealth of evidence for the performance-enhancing properties of dietary nitrate, which is commonly found in beetroot juice. Surprisingly, this latest study provides the best evidence for the mechanisms underlying why the improvement nitrate in the diet affects the performance of a person’s muscles.
Their study was published in the journal Acta Physiologica.
Source: Daily Mail
