Supercharge Your Workouts: Active Molecule of Beetroot Juice Significantly Increases Muscle Force During Exercise - SciTechDaily
In an effort to fill this knowledge gap, researchers from the University of Exeter and the National Institutes of Health in the US conducted a study in which they traced the distribution of nitrate ingested by ten healthy volunteers in saliva, blood, muscle, and urine.
The volunteers then underwent a maximal leg exercise to determine where in the body the dietary nitrate was active, providing insights into its underlying mechanisms.An hour after the nitrate was taken, participants were asked to perform 60 contractions of the quadriceps – the thigh muscle active while straightening the knee – at maximum intensity over five minutes on an exercise machine.Andy Jones, Professor of Applied Physiology at the University of Exeter, said: “Our research has already provided a large body of evidence on the performance-enhancing properties of dietary nitrate, commonly found in beetroot juice.“These results have significant implications not only for the exercise field but possibly for other medical areas such as those targeting neuromuscular and metabolic diseases related to nitric oxide deficiency.”Black, Anni Vanhatalo, Mark Burnley, Peter J. Walter, Hongyi Cai, Alan N. Schechter, Barbora Piknova and Andrew M. Jones, 6 January 2023, Acta Physiologica.