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Beetroot and nitrate: read who was in the studies
This is the rare case where the research was done in combat sports rather than read across from cycling. Judo and taekwondo, controlled, with positive results. Then you look at who the participants were, and the honest picture takes some of the shine off.
Worth walking through properly, because both halves are true and most write-ups only give you the first.
What was found
A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial gave 140 ml of beetroot juice, around 12.8 mmol of nitrate, to 35 male judokas, with a 7-day washout between conditions.
| Measure | Change vs placebo |
|---|---|
| Handgrip strength | +8.4% |
| Back-muscle strength | +3.2% |
| Explosive jump height | +3% |
| Total throws, Special Judo Fitness Test | +2.4% |
| Heart rate 1 min after the test | −7.9 beats/min |
| Special Judo Fitness Test index | −4% |
Immediate post-test heart rate and perceived exertion did not differ between conditions.
Grip strength up more than 8 percent is a large number in a sport where grip decides a great deal, and the drop in heart rate one minute after the test points at faster recovery between efforts.
Now read the sample
Those 35 judokas were adolescent and recreational. Not professionals, not elite, not adults.
The taekwondo work has a similar issue from a different direction. A pilot study tested two nitrate doses, 400 mg and 800 mg, taken two and a half hours before a kicking test, in just eight trained athletes.
Eight is a pilot, and the authors call it one.
A separate trial in 40 judo athletes, 17 elite and 23 recreational, set out to look at exactly this question.
Its framing is the sentence that matters: the ability of nitrate-rich beetroot juice to improve exercise depends on training status.
Nitrate works by raising nitric oxide availability, which affects blood flow and muscle efficiency. A highly trained athlete already has better nitric oxide handling than an untrained one, so there is less room for a supplement to add anything.
That pattern shows up across the wider nitrate literature, not only in combat sports. The effect tends to shrink as the athlete gets better.
So the honest summary is that nitrate has real evidence in combat sports, that most of the strongly positive combat sports evidence comes from recreational or adolescent athletes, and that the population reading this page is the one where the benefit is least certain.
Dose and timing
Review-level evidence supports two approaches: a dose taken 2 to 3 hours before exercise, or a loading period of at least 3 days. Both have been associated with meaningful performance improvement.
| Approach | Amount | When |
|---|---|---|
| Acute dose | Around 6.4 to 12.8 mmol nitrate, roughly 400 to 800 mg | 2 to 3 h before |
| Loading | Same daily amount | 3 days or more |
A standard concentrated beetroot shot usually sits at the lower end of that range, so the higher doses in the research often meant two shots rather than one.
The detail that ruins it, and it is in your bathroom
The conversion of dietary nitrate into the active form depends on bacteria living in your mouth. Antibacterial mouthwash kills them.
Use mouthwash and the pathway is blunted before the supplement has done anything. This is well documented in the nitrate literature and almost never mentioned to athletes, most of whom have no reason to connect oral hygiene with a sports supplement.
If trialling nitrate, leave the mouthwash out for the day.
Nitrate and the cut
Better than most things in this cluster, and for a simple reason: it is food.
Beetroot juice is a fluid with carbohydrate in it, taken 2 to 3 hours before competition, a slot that already exists in a fight day plan. It carries none of the usual costs: no sodium load at the wrong moment, no extra cell water as with creatine, and no weeks of loading as with beta-alanine.
The one consideration is volume and gut comfort. Two shots is not much fluid, but on a fight day everything going in has to be tolerated, and beetroot juice is not a neutral taste for everyone.
What I would do with this
Treat it as a low-cost trial rather than a protocol. Cheap, permitted, food-based, low risk. Try it in sparring, 2 to 3 hours before, and see whether anything changes for you.
Expect less than the numbers above. You are more trained than the people those numbers came from, and the literature says that matters.
Consider whole food first. Beetroot, spinach, rocket and celery are nitrate-rich, and eating them brings everything else in the vegetable along. Reaching for a concentrate is convenience rather than superiority.
No mouthwash on the day. Free, and it protects the mechanism.
Certified product if buying a concentrate. The usual rule. The tub is your responsibility even when what is in it should be a vegetable.
The reason I still include it
Most supplements marketed to fighters have no combat sports research at all. This one has judo trials, taekwondo trials and a documented mechanism, which puts it ahead of almost everything on a supplement shop shelf.
It is just that the evidence points hardest at people who are not you, and the honest thing is to say that rather than quote the 8 percent and stop.
Two complete sample documents are free to read before you buy anything.
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Oleksandr Foka is a sports nutritionist with over a decade in professional sport. He wrestled freestyle from the age of 4 until he was 22, competing as a medallist and champion at Ukrainian and international level, and has worked with amateur boxers since 2017, including champions and medallists at world championships. He has worked in world title camps in boxing with Oleksandr Usyk, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Denys Berinchyk, Vladyslav Sirenko, Murodjon Ahmadaliev, Israil Madrimov, Sergiy Bogachuk, Sabirzhan Akkalykov and Abylaikhan Zhussupov, and with the Kazakhstan national boxing team and with Kazakhstan judo athletes, and currently works on the WTA tour.
Oleksandr Foka — sports nutritionist. Questions: fokaoleksandr@gmail.com
Educational content, not medical treatment. For adults 18+. Anyone taking medication affecting blood pressure, or nitrate-based medication, should speak to a physician before using concentrated nitrate supplements. Supplement use carries contamination risk in tested sport, and under strict liability that risk is yours.