Can Beetroot Juice Improve Sprint Performance? New Study Says It May Help You Fight Fatigue

If you've ever looked into sports supplements, you've probably heard about beetroot juice.

Rich in naturally occurring dietary nitrates, beetroot juice has become one of the most researched supplements for endurance athletes. Numerous studies have shown that dietary nitrates can improve exercise efficiency, reduce the oxygen cost of exercise, and even enhance endurance performance.

Because of this, beetroot juice has earned a reputation as a supplement for marathon runners, cyclists, and triathletes.

But what about athletes who compete in sports requiring repeated bursts of maximum effort?

Think about a soccer player making repeated runs up and down the field. A hockey player skating hard during every shift. A CrossFit athlete moving through multiple rounds of high-intensity exercise. Or a runner completing an interval workout on the track.

These athletes aren't limited by a single sprint, they're limited by how well they can maintain their power as fatigue builds.

A new randomized, placebo-controlled crossover study explored exactly that question.

Rather than asking whether dietary nitrates increase peak power, researchers wanted to know whether they could help athletes resist fatigue during repeated maximal efforts.

The findings suggest they can.

Why Repeated Sprints Are So Challenging

Repeated sprint exercise places enormous demands on your muscles.

During a single all-out sprint, your body relies primarily on stored phosphocreatine and anaerobic energy pathways to rapidly produce ATP—the energy currency that powers muscle contraction.

Unfortunately, those energy stores are limited.

With each successive sprint:

• Phosphocreatine stores become depleted.
• Metabolic byproducts begin to accumulate.
• Muscle contractility declines.
• Fatigue increases.
• Power output gradually falls.

For most athletes, producing one great sprint isn't the problem.

The real challenge is producing the second, third, and fourth sprint with nearly the same intensity.

That's why repeated sprint ability is such an important component of sports like soccer, basketball, football, rugby, hockey, swimming, and CrossFit.

The athlete who maintains their power longest often performs best late in competition.

What Are Dietary Nitrates?

Dietary nitrates are naturally occurring compounds found in vegetables such as:

• Beets
• Spinach
• Arugula
• Celery
• Swiss chard

After you consume these foods, nitrate is converted into nitrite by beneficial bacteria in your mouth. Nitrite is then converted into nitric oxide inside the body.

Nitric oxide is involved in numerous physiological processes, including:

• Blood vessel dilation
• Blood flow regulation
• Muscle contraction
• Mitochondrial efficiency
• Exercise performance

Previous research has shown that increasing nitric oxide availability can improve endurance exercise by reducing the amount of oxygen required to perform a given workload.

But much less research has examined whether nitrates can help during repeated, high-intensity efforts.

The Study

Researchers recruited 36 recreationally trained adults, including 19 men and 17 women, to participate in a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover study.

Each participant completed two testing sessions.

Before one session, they consumed:

• 140 mL of nitrate-rich beetroot juice providing approximately 13 mmol of nitrate

Before the other session, they consumed a nitrate-depleted placebo beverage that looked and tasted similar.

Importantly, participants consumed the beverage approximately 2.5 hours before exercise, allowing enough time for dietary nitrate to be converted into nitric oxide before testing began.

Researchers then had participants perform:

• Four 30-second Wingate cycling sprints
• Four minutes of recovery between each sprint

Throughout the testing session, investigators measured:

• Peak power
• Mean power
• Total work performed
• Fatigue
• Muscle oxygenation
• Microvascular function
• Corticospinal excitability

This comprehensive approach allowed researchers to evaluate not only whether dietary nitrates improved performance, but also the potential mechanisms behind those effects.

What Did Researchers Find?

The results were both encouraging and practical.

If you were expecting beetroot juice to dramatically increase peak power during the very first sprint, that's not what happened.

Instead, the greatest benefit appeared as fatigue began to build.

Participants who consumed the nitrate-rich beetroot juice were better able to maintain their performance across four repeated maximal sprints than when they consumed the placebo. Specifically, dietary nitrate supplementation significantly reduced the decline in peak power, mean power, power output, and total work completed over the course of the repeated Wingate tests.

That's an important distinction.

The real value of dietary nitrates wasn't making athletes produce one incredible sprint.

It was helping them maintain a higher level of performance when fatigue normally causes power output to drop.

Fighting Fatigue May Be More Important Than Increasing Peak Power

For many sports, success isn't determined by one explosive effort.

Instead, it's about repeatedly producing high-quality efforts over the course of a game, race, or workout.

Think about:

• A soccer player making repeated runs during a 90-minute match.
• A basketball player sprinting on every fast break.
• A hockey player skating hard during multiple shifts.
• A CrossFit athlete pushing through repeated rounds.
• A swimmer racing several heats in the same meet.

These athletes rarely lose because their first sprint wasn't fast enough.

They lose because fatigue gradually reduces their ability to maintain speed and power.

This study suggests dietary nitrates may help slow that decline.

Men and Women Responded Equally Well

One aspect of this study that deserves attention is its inclusion of both male and female athletes.

Historically, many sports nutrition studies have been conducted primarily in men, making it difficult to know whether the findings apply equally to women.

This study intentionally recruited:

• 19 recreationally trained men
• 17 recreationally trained women

Researchers found no meaningful differences between the sexes.

Both men and women experienced similar reductions in performance decline following nitrate supplementation, suggesting that dietary nitrates may benefit both sexes during repeated high-intensity exercise.

That's encouraging news for athletes and coaches looking for evidence-based supplements that appear to work across a broad range of competitors.

The Biggest Surprise

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this study wasn't the performance improvement.

It was what didn't improve.

Researchers expected dietary nitrate supplementation to increase performance by improving:

• Muscle blood flow
• Muscle oxygenation
• Microvascular function
• Neural drive to the muscles

Surprisingly, they found no detectable changes in resting measures of corticospinal excitability or muscle microvascular reactivity after nitrate supplementation.

In other words...

Athletes performed better.

But not for the reasons researchers originally expected.

So How Might Dietary Nitrates Reduce Fatigue?

Although this study wasn't designed to definitively answer that question, the authors discuss several possibilities based on previous research.

Improved Muscle Contractility

Nitric oxide appears to influence how efficiently muscle fibers contract.

Better muscle contractility could help athletes maintain force production during repeated maximal efforts.

Better Calcium Handling

Nitric oxide may improve the release and recycling of calcium inside muscle cells.

Since calcium is essential for muscle contraction, more efficient calcium handling could help delay fatigue during repeated sprints.

Improved Mitochondrial Efficiency

Previous research has shown that dietary nitrates can improve mitochondrial efficiency, allowing muscles to generate ATP more efficiently while using less oxygen.

Although repeated sprint exercise relies heavily on anaerobic metabolism, improved energy efficiency during recovery periods may help athletes prepare for the next sprint.

Faster Recovery Between Efforts

Another possibility is that dietary nitrates help restore phosphocreatine more rapidly between repeated bouts of exercise, although this wasn't directly measured in the present study.

Together, these mechanisms may explain why athletes maintained performance even though blood flow and muscle oxygenation didn't appear to change.

Practical Applications for Athletes

This study expands our understanding of who may benefit from dietary nitrates.

While nitrates have traditionally been associated with endurance events like marathons and cycling, these findings suggest they may also be valuable for athletes performing repeated high-intensity efforts.

Examples include:

• Soccer
• Basketball
• Football
• Hockey
• Rugby
• Sprint swimming
• Track cycling
• CrossFit
• HIIT workouts
• Functional fitness competitions

If your sport requires repeated bursts of maximum effort with limited recovery, dietary nitrates may help you maintain your performance deeper into training sessions and competitions.

How Should You Take Dietary Nitrates?

One of the practical strengths of this study is that it used a protocol athletes can realistically follow.

Participants consumed approximately:

• 140 mL of nitrate-rich beetroot juice
• Providing roughly 13 mmol of dietary nitrate
• About 2½ hours before exercise

That timing allows enough time for dietary nitrate to be converted into nitric oxide before exercise begins.

Research also suggests avoiding antibacterial mouthwash around the time of nitrate consumption, since beneficial bacteria in the mouth are responsible for converting nitrate into nitrite—an essential step in nitric oxide production.

Simply Good Tip

If you're looking to increase your dietary nitrate intake before a hard workout or race, timing matters just as much as the dose.

In this study, athletes consumed dietary nitrates about 2½ hours before exercise, which is consistent with previous research on nitric oxide production. If drinking concentrated beetroot juice isn't your favorite pre-workout ritual, Simply Good EndoFlow provides a convenient, standardized source of dietary nitrates that can easily fit into your nutrition plan.

Pair dietary nitrates with proper hydration, adequate carbohydrate intake, and a well-designed training program for the best results.

Important Limitations

As encouraging as these findings are, it's important to keep the results in perspective.

Although this was a well-designed randomized, placebo-controlled crossover study, it included only 36 recreationally trained athletes. That means we can't automatically assume the same results would apply to elite athletes, youth athletes, or individuals who are untrained.

It's also worth remembering that this study examined the effects of a single dose of dietary nitrate taken before exercise.

The researchers did not investigate:

• Long-term nitrate supplementation
• Daily beetroot juice consumption
• Different nitrate doses
• Real-world competition performance
• Team sports played on the field

Future research will help determine whether chronic supplementation or different dosing strategies provide even greater benefits.

The Bottom Line

Most athletes think of dietary nitrates as an endurance supplement.

This study suggests they may also be a valuable tool for athletes performing repeated high-intensity efforts.

Rather than dramatically increasing power during the first sprint, dietary nitrate supplementation helped athletes maintain higher power output across multiple repeated sprints, reducing the normal decline in performance caused by fatigue.

Researchers also found that:

• Men and women responded similarly.
• Performance benefits occurred without measurable changes in corticospinal excitability or muscle microvascular function.
• The findings suggest dietary nitrates may improve repeated sprint performance through mechanisms other than simply increasing blood flow.

While additional research is needed to better understand exactly how dietary nitrates reduce fatigue, these findings expand the potential applications of nitric oxide supplementation beyond traditional endurance sports.

Whether you're sprinting down the soccer field, pushing through a CrossFit workout, or tackling interval repeats on the track, dietary nitrates may help you maintain your performance when it matters most.

References

1. He Y, Ge X, Tang C, et al. Dietary Nitrate Supplementation Reduces Performance Decline During Repeated Sprint Exercise Independent of Sex. Biology of Sport. 2026.
2. Bailey SJ, Fulford J, Vanhatalo A, et al. Dietary nitrate supplementation enhances muscle contractile efficiency during knee-extensor exercise in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2010. (Referenced by the study.)
3. Wylie LJ, Park JW, Vanhatalo A, et al. Human skeletal muscle nitrate stores: Influence of dietary nitrate supplementation and exercise. Journal of Physiology. 2019. (Referenced by the study.)
4. International Olympic Committee. IOC Consensus Statement: Dietary Supplements and the High-Performance Athlete.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does beetroot juice improve sprint performance?

This study found that beetroot juice did not dramatically improve the first sprint. Instead, it helped athletes maintain their power across repeated maximal sprints, reducing fatigue over time.

How long before exercise should I take dietary nitrates?

Participants consumed nitrate-rich beetroot juice approximately 2½ hours before exercise, allowing time for dietary nitrate to be converted into nitric oxide before the sprint protocol began.

Do dietary nitrates work for women?

Yes. One of the strengths of this study was its inclusion of both male and female athletes. Researchers found no meaningful sex differences, with both men and women experiencing similar reductions in performance decline.

Who benefits most from dietary nitrate supplementation?

Based on this study, dietary nitrates may be particularly useful for athletes who perform repeated high-intensity efforts, including soccer players, basketball players, hockey players, swimmers, CrossFit athletes, and runners performing interval training. More research is needed to determine whether the same benefits extend to elite athletes and other populations.