Beet juice is the best juice to take for exercise. In fact, beet juice is so great for exercise that elite cyclists around the world have been using it for years to make them more powerful and to improve their endurance.
When you drink beet juice for exercise, some people might think you’re on the other kind of “juice.” As an added benefit: For the same reason that beet juice gives you awesome workouts, beet juice also improves erectile dysfuction and is almost as effective as Viagra.
Why Beet Juice Boosts Exercise Performance
The nitrates in beet juice increases vasodilation, that is, beet juice causes your blood vessels and capillaries to expand. Wider blood vessels and capillaries means you have more blood flowing into the muscle.
More blood flowing into the muscle means you have better “pumps” in the gym as well as increased performance. In this picture my body fat is higher than it should be. I am far from ripped.
Despite having a higher body fat than normal, you can clearly see vascularity in my forearms.
I was not training arms that day and I don’t use camera tricks like getting a huge pump and then selecting the most flattering pic. That vascularity effect was due solely to the beet juice.
This is not “broscience,” by the way. This is real science. Go nerd out on PubMed until your eyes glaze over. Here is one recent study touting the effects of beet juice on exercise:
Beetroot juice supplementation speeds O2 uptake kinetics and improves exercise tolerance during severe-intensity exercise initiated from an elevated metabolic rate.
Recent research has suggested that dietary nitrate (NO3(-)) supplementation might alter the physiological responses to exercise via specific effects on type II muscle. Severe-intensity exercise initiated from an elevated metabolic rate would be expected to enhance the proportional activation of higher-order (type II) muscle fibers. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to test the hypothesis that, compared with placebo (PL), NO3(-)-rich beetroot juice (BR) supplementation would speed the phase II VO2 kinetics (τ(p)) and enhance exercise tolerance during severe-intensity exercise initiated from a baseline of moderate-intensity exercise.
Dietary supplementation with NO3(-)-rich BR juice speeds VO2 kinetics and enhances exercise tolerance during severe-intensity exercise when initiated from an elevated metabolic rate.
Or just go try it for yourself! (You will also learn that anything that boosts blood flow to your muscles also gives you larger erections, as the penile muscle becomes filled with more blood.)
Beet Juice for Exercise Recipes
Beet juice is very potent and the new juicer should start off slowly. Juice 1/4 to 1/2 of a beet at first. Some people peel their beets to make the juice taste less earthy. I don’t peel my beets before juicing them, but that’s merely a preference. Try it both ways and find what works best for you.
Also, when you begin juicing beets for exercise you may find that your bowel movements resemble red velvet cake. Do not be alarmed. That’s normal. The pigments in beet juice are so strong that they’ll turn your poop red.
- 4 carrots
- 1 beet (less when you are first starting off)
- 2 lemons
- 1/2″ ginger
- (If that’s too tart, add an apple.)
Juice them all together and enjoy.
What’s the Best Juicer for Beet Juice?
You’re in luck. Beet juice is easy to make in any juicer. You can juice beets in the best budget juicer like:
- Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juice Extractor (buy it here);
- Breville BJE200XL Compact Juice Fountain (buy it here).
Or you can juice beets in the best juicer like one of these:
- Omega J8004 (click here)
- Omega J8005 (click here)
- Omega J8006 (click here)
- Omega VRT350 (click here)
- Green Star GSE-5000 Elite Jumbo Twin Gear Juice Extractor (click here)
- Super Angel All Stainless Steel Twin Gear Juicer- 5500 (click here)
Try beet juice for exercise for yourself and let us know how it goes!
Is there an optimal time to drink it? E.g. 1 hour before exercise, during exercise etc.
Lots of good info on the site. Thanks
I drink it during my workouts. I’ve drank it before training, too. I don’t think it makes a huge difference.
Thanks for the tip. I am going to give beet juice a shot.
Let us know how it goes!
Indeed I felt great when I started downing the beet juice on lifting days. Question, how big are the beets you are using? I see a huge spread of size in the store from golf ball- to baseball-sized.
A variant some might like: I find that beet+carrot is just a bit too much intensity for me, so I do beet+celery+one apple+one cucumber and it’s much fresher-tasting and less “rooty.”
People always give me a funny look when they see me drinking the beet juice. The deep color is really spectacular.
Beet juice also revs up the pecker. Between this and Soft Shell turtle fat soup (it’s delicious) you will feel younger.
I juice the beets first and then everything after to rinse any beet juice left over in the juicer, into my glass. I love beetle juice. I mean beet juice.
Great and entertaining read.
Just got a juicer Monday. Made my first beet juice today and it’s amazing. Thanks for all the info!
I bought a cheap juicer just so I could try this; thanks for the head’s up!