Does Beetroot Juice Actually Improve Your Workout?
Does Beetroot Juice Actually Improve Your Workout?
By Jaden Choi — a plain-English look at what the exercise studies actually found, effect sizes and limits included.
Short answer: for a lot of people, yes — but the effect is real and modest, not the rocket fuel the marketing implies. Beetroot juice is rich in dietary nitrate, and a large body of research shows that a well-timed dose can make hard efforts feel slightly more tolerable and shave a little off endurance and high-intensity performance.
The catch is in the details: who benefits (recreational exercisers more than elite athletes), how much you actually need, when to take it, and how wildly the nitrate content varies between products. Here's what the studies show — and what they don't.
- Beetroot's active ingredient is nitrate, which your body converts to nitric oxide — widening blood vessels and lowering the oxygen cost of exercise by roughly 3–5% in studies.
- Benefits are small-to-moderate and most reliable for endurance and high-intensity intermittent efforts in recreational and moderately-trained people; the response is often blunted in elite athletes.
- Research points to about 6–13 mmol of nitrate (roughly one to two concentrated "shots"), taken 2–3 hours before exercise — but labeled and actual nitrate content differ a lot between brands.
What's Actually in Beetroot Juice
The "active ingredient" isn't some exotic compound — it's inorganic nitrate, the same nitrate abundant in leafy greens like spinach, arugula, and rhubarb. Beets just happen to be one of the most concentrated everyday sources.
Once you swallow it, nitrate travels through a well-mapped pathway. Bacteria on your tongue reduce some of it to nitrite, which is then converted in the body to nitric oxide (NO) — a signaling molecule that relaxes and widens blood vessels. As physiologist Andrew Jones summarized in a 2014 review in Sports Medicine, this "nitrate–nitrite–NO pathway" is the reason a food can plausibly affect how your muscles use oxygen during exercise.
Two downstream effects matter for a workout:
- Better blood flow. More nitric oxide means more oxygen and nutrients delivered to working muscle.
- Cheaper energy. Nitrate appears to make muscle contraction more oxygen-efficient, so a given pace or power output costs your body a little less oxygen.
What the Research Actually Shows
This is one of the better-studied supplements in sports science, which is why we can be specific instead of hand-wavy. A 2025 umbrella review in Sports Medicine — a "study of studies" pooling 20 separate systematic reviews with meta-analyses — found that dietary nitrate consistently produced small performance benefits, with most reviews reporting improved time-to-exhaustion (how long you can sustain a hard effort).
The most reproducible physiological finding is that nitrate lowers the oxygen cost of submaximal exercise by about 3–5%. In plain terms: at the same jogging or cycling pace, your body uses slightly less oxygen — so the effort feels marginally easier and you can hold it a little longer.
Where the evidence is strongest and weakest:
- Endurance and "exercise tolerance" (time to exhaustion, holding a hard pace): most consistent benefit.
- High-intensity, intermittent efforts with short rest — think interval sessions or team-sport bursts: small-to-moderate benefits, one of the more promising areas.
- Long steady time trials (like a set 10 km): benefits are smaller and less consistent.
- Pure maximal strength / one-rep power: little reliable evidence — this isn't a strength supplement.
An honest caveat runs through all of it: results have long been inconsistent, with some well-run trials finding no benefit at all. Beetroot juice is a legal, food-based nudge worth a few percent at most — not a substitute for training.
Who Actually Benefits (And Who Doesn't)
This is the detail most headlines skip, and it's the most useful part. The fitter you already are, the less beetroot juice tends to do.
Highly trained and elite endurance athletes already have very efficient nitric-oxide metabolism and oxygen delivery, so there's less room to improve. Jones's 2014 review noted that acute nitrate often fails to enhance time-trial performance in this group, and multiple trials in elite athletes have found no effect. Recreational and moderately-trained exercisers — the majority of people reading this — sit in the sweet spot where the effect is most likely to show up.
A few other factors seem to shift the response:
- Muscle fiber type. Nitrate appears to act more on fast-twitch fibers, which may explain why high-intensity and sprint-type efforts respond well.
- Baseline diet. If you already eat a lot of leafy greens and beets, an extra shot may add less.
- Individual variability. Even in studies that show a benefit on average, some participants respond strongly and others not at all — you may need to test it on yourself.
How Much, and When — What the Studies Used
The best guidance here comes from a classic 2013 dose-response study in the Journal of Applied Physiology by Wylie and colleagues. They compared roughly 4, 8, and 16 mmol of nitrate and found a clear threshold: the lowest dose (about 4 mmol) did little, while the higher doses reduced the oxygen cost of exercise and improved time to exhaustion. Importantly, the oxygen-efficiency effect plateaued around 8 mmol — more wasn't better.
Pooled research since then points to a practical window of about 6–13 mmol of nitrate (very roughly 350–800 mg), and reviews of the newest trials suggest the biggest benefits when it's taken about 2–3 hours before exercise — the time it takes blood nitrite to peak. Loading for several days beforehand works too.
Nitrate by beetroot form (what studies typically use)
| Form | Typical study amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Concentrated "shot" | ~70–140 mL (1–2 shots) | The most common research format; nitrate is standardized per bottle by many brands. |
| Standard beetroot juice | ~250–500 mL | Larger volume needed to reach the same nitrate; content varies by product. |
| Whole cooked beets | Several servings | Real food and fine as diet, but nitrate content is variable and harder to hit a target dose. |
| Beet powder / capsules | Varies widely | Some products contain little actual nitrate — check whether nitrate content is stated, not just "beet extract." |
These are the amounts used in studies, shared for context — not a personal recommendation. Product nitrate content varies a lot, so exact milligrams are hard to guarantee from a label alone.
The Catch: Product Variability
Here's a wrinkle that undermines a lot of real-world use: the nitrate content of commercial beetroot products swings widely, both between brands and even between batches of the same product, and measured amounts often don't match the label. Sourcing, processing, and storage all change how much nitrate actually survives in the bottle.
The practical takeaway: two people doing "the same" beetroot protocol may be taking very different nitrate doses. If a product doesn't state its nitrate content in millimoles or milligrams — only a vague "beetroot extract" — you have little idea whether you're near the effective range. This variability is one reason study results, and gym-bag experiences, are so inconsistent.
Is Beetroot Juice Safe?
For most healthy adults, beetroot juice is a food and is generally well tolerated. Two things are worth knowing:
- Beeturia. Beets can turn urine and stool pink or red. It's harmless and often mistaken for blood — but if you're ever unsure whether it's food or something else, check with your doctor.
- Digestive upset. Large volumes of juice can cause stomach discomfort in some people, which is one reason concentrated shots are popular.
One genuinely important note: because dietary nitrate modestly lowers blood pressure — the same mechanism behind the exercise effect — anyone taking blood-pressure medication, nitrate heart medications, or being treated for a cardiovascular condition should talk to their doctor or pharmacist before using it regularly. This article describes what research has found; it isn't medical advice, and it can't account for your individual health or medications.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long before a workout should you drink beetroot juice?
Most studies dose it about 2–3 hours before exercise, because that's roughly when blood nitrite — the intermediate that raises nitric oxide — tends to peak. Chugging it right before you start is less likely to help.
Do you have to take it every day, or just before exercise?
Research shows benefits from both a single dose a few hours before a session and from "loading" over several days beforehand. There's no strong evidence that more than about 8 mmol of nitrate at a time adds further benefit — the oxygen-efficiency effect plateaued around that level in dose-response testing.
Is beetroot juice worth it if I'm already very fit?
Possibly less so. Highly trained and elite endurance athletes often show a blunted or absent response, likely because their nitric-oxide systems and oxygen delivery are already highly optimized. Recreational and moderately-trained exercisers tend to see the most benefit.
Can I just eat beets instead of buying juice?
Whole beets and leafy greens are a perfectly good source of dietary nitrate and a healthy part of a diet. The practical issue is hitting a consistent, effective dose: nitrate content varies with the vegetable and how it's cooked, so it's harder to know how much you're actually getting than with a standardized shot.
Why do some studies find no benefit at all?
A few reasons: the participants were elite (less room to improve), the dose was too low, the product's real nitrate content was lower than assumed, or the activity tested wasn't one that responds well (like pure maximal strength). Individual variability plays a role too — some people respond strongly and others barely at all.
Bottom Line
Beetroot juice is one of the few "natural" performance aids with real, repeatable science behind it — but keep the scale honest. It works through dietary nitrate, lowers the oxygen cost of exercise by a few percent, and can nudge endurance and high-intensity performance in recreational and moderately-trained people. It does far less for elite athletes and isn't a strength or power supplement.
If you want to try it, the research points to a moderate nitrate dose taken a couple of hours before a session, using a product that actually states its nitrate content — and, if you have any heart or blood-pressure condition, a conversation with your doctor first. Treat it as a small, legal edge on top of good training, not a shortcut around it.
Sources
- Wylie LJ, Kelly J, Bailey SJ, et al. "Beetroot juice and exercise: pharmacodynamic and dose-response relationships." Journal of Applied Physiology, 2013;115(3):325–336. PubMed
- Jones AM. "Dietary nitrate supplementation and exercise performance." Sports Medicine, 2014;44(Suppl 1):S35–45. PubMed
- "Dietary Nitrate Supplementation and Exercise Performance: An Umbrella Review of 20 Published Systematic Reviews with Meta-analyses." Sports Medicine, 2025. Springer (Sports Medicine)
- Cleveland Clinic. "Can Beetroot Powder Improve Athletic Performance?" ClevelandClinic.org
This article summarizes published research for general educational purposes and is not medical advice. It does not diagnose, treat, or recommend any specific treatment, dose, or supplement for any individual. Dietary nitrate can lower blood pressure and may interact with certain medications — research evolves and findings can be revised, so talk to your doctor or a licensed healthcare provider before making any health or supplement decision. Information is current as of July 2026.