This Everyday Drink May Give Your High-Intensity Workouts A Meaningful Edge
There's a specific window, about two hours before a hard workout, when a glass of this deep red juice might meaningfully change what your body can do. Enter: Beetroot juice. Beetroot juice has been studied for years as a natural performance aid, and a meta-analysis1 of 33 randomized controlled trials is now offering some of the clearest evidence yet on where it actually delivers. Here's what you need to know
Beetroot juice & exercise performance
Beetroot juice gets its performance-boosting reputation from dietary nitrate. When you drink it, your body converts that nitrate into nitric oxide, a molecule that opens up blood vessels, helps cells produce energy more efficiently, and makes muscle contractions less taxing. So, it's interest as a ergogenic (aka performance-enhancing) aid is warranted.
This meta-analysis pulled data from six databases across 33 randomized controlled trials with 519 total participants, one of the first to examine both aerobic and anaerobic performance together. Researchers measured three outcomes:
- Sprint performance: distance covered and time during high-intensity intervals
- Mean power output: a measure of how much force you can generate
- VO₂max: how much oxygen your body can use at peak effort, a key marker of aerobic fitness
Participants ranged from amateur to professional athletes, with protocols varying between a single pre-workout dose and multi-day supplementation.
Sprint performance, power output, and aerobic capacity all improved
Beetroot juice supplementation significantly improved all three outcomes across the 33 studies:
- Sprint performance: Improved with a meaningful effect size, with the strongest impact in amateur athletes and those doing team or individual sports
- Power output: Also improved significantly, particularly in single-dose protocols and team sport athletes
- Aerobic capacity: Showed a smaller but still significant improvement, suggesting beetroot juice supports endurance, not just explosive efforts
The results held up across different athletes, protocols, and settings, not just in one narrow context.
What the results mean for different athletes
Beetroot juice may not impact everyone in the same capacity. These are a few variables that may influence the outcomes.
- Your training level: The picture varies by outcome. For sprint performance, amateur athletes showed stronger gains. For aerobic capacity, professional athletes showed more significant improvements. Your training background may shape how you respond, and in which direction.
- Your sport: Athletes in sports with repeated sprints or power bursts (cycling, soccer, rowing) may benefit more than those doing purely endurance-based training.
- How you take it: Whether you use it once before a workout or consistently over several days or weeks may affect your results.
How to time and use beetroot juice for workouts
If you want to give it a try, here's what the research supports:
- Timing: Aim for 2 to 2.5 hours before your workout. The data showed significant effects at both windows, but not at 3 hours prior.
- Dosage: Look for 300 to 600 milligrams of dietary nitrate, which typically corresponds to 70 to 140ml of concentrated juice or a small "shot." Check the nitrate content on the label, not just the volume. (Note: these ranges reflect the broader research literature, not this specific meta-analysis.)
- Form: Juice and concentrated shots are the most studied. Powders and capsules can vary in how much nitrate they actually deliver.
- Consistency: A single pre-workout dose works, but daily use over days or weeks may compound the effects.
One thing worth knowing: beetroot juice can temporarily turn stool pink or red (completely harmless, but good to know). If you take blood pressure medication, check with your doctor first, since nitrate can have a mild blood pressure-lowering effect.
The takeaway
Across randomized controlled trials, beetroot juice consistently improved sprint performance, power output, and aerobic capacity, with the strongest effects during high-intensity efforts. Plus, beetroot juice helps support healthy blood flow across the board and can even support healthy blood pressure (click here to read more).