Acute Supplementation with Beetroot Juice Does Not Enhance Exercise Performance among Well-trained Athletes: A Randomized Crossover Study

Bernardi BB, Schoenfeld BJ, Alves RC, Urbinati KS, McAnulty SR, Souza Junior TP. Acute Supplementation with Beetroot Juice Does Not Enhance Exercise Performance among Well-trained Athletes: A Randomized Crossover Study. JEPonline 2018;21(3):1-12. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of acute supplementation with beetroot juice on power during repeated sprints. Ten well-trained competitive mixed martial arts athletes (mean [+ or -] SD: age 24.9 [+ or -] 4.6 yrs, height 1.77 [+ or -] 0.06 m, body mass 79.29 [+ or -] 10.07 kg), familiar with intense intermittent exercise, volunteered to take part in this study. The subjects completed a high-intensity intermittent cycling test during separate 7-d supplementation periods with beetroot juice (9.3 mmoL of N[O.sub.3.sup.-]) and a placebo group consuming blackcurrant juice (0.0024 mmol of N[O.sub.3.sup.-]). The subjects completed 20 all-out 6-sec sprints interspersed with 24 sec of recovery (20 x 6 sec). There was no difference between conditions for relative peak power (supplement 10.54 [+ or -] 0.62 W/kg vs. placebo 10.52 [+ or -] 0.48 W/kg; P>0.05). Similarly, there was no difference between conditions for relative mean power (supplement 7.88 [+ or -] 0.38 W/kg vs. placebo 7.74 [+ or -] 0.48 W/kg, P>0.05). The results indicate that beetroot juice does not acutely benefit high-intensity intermittent exercise protocols. Key Words: Beetroot Juice, Intermittent Exercises, Performance