Beetroot Juice for Running and Lifting: How Dietary Nitrate Works (and the Mouthwash Trap)

Does beetroot juice for running actually work? A little, yes (see our evidence-based supplements guide for where it sits among the rest). Meta-analyses show small to moderate gains in how long you can hold a hard steady effort, but the effect is weaker in time trials, in very fit endurance athletes, and for most lifting outcomes.

It is one of the few supplements with a believable mechanism and a genuine research base. It also has a trap that is easy to miss: an antibacterial mouthwash can blunt the first step of the process.

How does beetroot juice work? The nitrate-nitrite-NO pathway

The active ingredient is inorganic nitrate, not the pink colour. Nitrate is abundant in vegetables, mainly green leafy ones, and beetroot is a rich source (Jones et al., 2021).

Here is the chain:

1. You swallow nitrate (beetroot, spinach, a concentrated shot).
2. Bacteria living in your mouth reduce nitrate to nitrite.
3. Nitrite circulates in your blood.
4. In low-oxygen areas, such as hard-working muscle, nitrite is reduced further to nitric oxide (NO).

That oral bacteria step is not a footnote. Jones and colleagues describe NO availability as “greatly enhanced” by mouth bacteria, and they argue the oral microbiome, circulation and skeletal muscle work as one integrated system (Jones et al., 2021).

This is a different route from the one used by L-citrulline, which feeds your body’s own NO synthase enzyme. If you want that comparison, see our piece on citrulline malate vs pure L-citrulline.

Why does it lower the oxygen cost of exercise?

This is the strangest finding in the area. In a small crossover study, eight men drank 500 mL a day of beetroot juice (a concentration of about 11.2 mM nitrate, so roughly 5.6 mmol a day) or a low-nitrate blackcurrant cordial placebo for six days (Bailey et al., 2009). On beetroot juice:

• Systolic blood pressure was lower (124 vs 132 mmHg).
• The rise in oxygen uptake at the start of moderate exercise (per watt of work) was 19% smaller.
• Time to exhaustion at a severe intensity was longer (675 vs 583 seconds).

Same work, less oxygen. How? A separate randomized crossover trial looked at muscle mitochondria after nitrate supplementation and found an improvement in oxidative phosphorylation efficiency, the P/O ratio, which correlated with the drop in oxygen cost during exercise (Larsen et al., 2011). In plain terms, mitochondria may produce a bit more ATP per unit of oxygen. The authors tied this to lower expression of a protein involved in proton leak.

Both studies are small and used healthy, young participants, so treat them as mechanism evidence, not a promise that you will feel faster.

Does beetroot juice for running improve performance? What meta-analyses say

Individual trials disagree, so look at the pooled data.

Endurance. A 2017 meta-analysis of 47 studies (76 trials) found a small to moderate benefit for time to exhaustion (effect size 0.33) but only a trivial, non-significant effect when all trials were pooled (McMahon et al., 2017). The authors concluded nitrate is more likely to help in capacity tests than in time-trial performance.

Fitness level matters. A 2020 meta-analysis of 80 studies found an overall ergogenic effect, but it was small (d = 0.174). It was not observed in well-trained endurance athletes (VO2max 65 mL/kg/min or higher) or in studies of only women (six studies) (Senefeld et al., 2020). The authors concluded that nitrate has more limited use in people with excellent aerobic fitness.

The big picture. A 2025 umbrella review of 20 meta-analyses (180 primary studies, 2,672 participants) reported benefits for time to exhaustion, total distance, muscular endurance, peak power output and time to peak power, with no significant effect on other outcomes. It also warned that most of the included reviews had low to critically low methodological quality (Poon et al., 2025).

For a recreational runner with a hard session or a 5-10 km race coming up, a small edge is plausible. If you are already running 60 km a week at a high VO2max, expect less. Our guides on concurrent training for 5K and 10K running and VO2 max training for lifters cover where the bigger gains are.

How much and when? Beetroot shot dose and timing

Most shots are sold in millilitres, but nitrate is what counts. Roughly 62 mg of nitrate equals 1 mmol.

The best dose-response data come from 10 healthy men given 70, 140 or 280 mL of concentrated beetroot juice (4.2, 8.4 and 16.8 mmol nitrate) 2.5 hours before cycling (Wylie et al., 2013):

• Plasma nitrite rose in a dose-dependent way, peaking around 2-3 hours.
• 70 mL did not alter exercise responses.
• 140 mL and 280 mL extended time to task failure (14% and 12%). Oxygen cost fell by 1.7% and 3.0%, though only the 3.0% drop was statistically significant.
• There was no extra benefit from 16.8 mmol compared with 8.4 mmol.

The umbrella review points the same way, with larger time-to-exhaustion effects when the dose was at least 6 mmol per day (372 mg) and when supplementation lasted more than 3 days (Poon et al., 2025).

A practical, hedged protocol:

Question	Evidence-based starting point
Dose	About 6-8 mmol nitrate (roughly 370-500 mg)
Acute timing	2-3 hours before the session
Multi-day option	Daily for 3+ days before an event
Test it	On a hard training day, never first on race day
What to buy	A product that states the nitrate content in mg or mmol

That last point is where most people go wrong. A “70 mL shot” tells you nothing unless the label gives the nitrate dose. The 70 mL shot in the dose-response trial contained only 4.2 mmol and did not change the exercise responses. Some other brands contain more. Read the label, and be wary of powders that do not state it.

Does beetroot juice help lifting? Power vs endurance

Here the picture is weaker. A 2022 meta-analysis of 34 studies found a trivial effect on muscular strength (SMD 0.08) and a small effect on muscular endurance (SMD 0.31), and described the effects as trivial to small (Alvares et al., 2022).

A 2023 meta-analysis limited to resistance-trained men and the back squat and bench press (six studies) found improved reps to failure (SMD 0.43), mean power (0.40) and mean velocity (0.57), but no effect on peak power or peak velocity. Squats looked more likely to benefit than bench press, and the authors noted the evidence base was limited and variable (Tan et al., 2023).

The newest trial points the other way for women. Eighteen resistance-trained women took about 6.7 mmol of nitrate 2.5 hours before explosive squat and bench sets. There was no improvement, and bench press mean power and velocity at 60% of 1RM were slightly lower with nitrate (Brennan et al., 2026). That is one small study, so do not read too much into it either way.

For lifters, the honest summary is: possibly a rep or two on higher-rep sets, little for heavy singles, and not a substitute for decent programming. If you have limited budget, creatine and plenty of protein come first (see the supplement hierarchy).

The mouthwash interaction: why your rinse can cancel the benefit

This is the part with an actual mechanism you can act on.

In a crossover trial of 12 healthy volunteers, people drank 70 mL of beetroot juice (6.2 mmol nitrate) twice a day for six days while rinsing three times daily with a strong chlorhexidine mouthwash, a weaker mouthwash, or water. Chlorhexidine reduced the rise in plasma nitrite compared with both other conditions, and even the weaker rinse reduced it compared with water (McDonagh et al., 2015). During treadmill walking, the blood pressure rise was higher in the chlorhexidine condition than in the water condition.

A second trial looked at the same bacteria without beetroot. In 23 healthy adults, an antibacterial mouthwash after exercise attenuated the post-exercise blood pressure drop by 61% at one hour and fully by two hours, and blocked the usual rise in circulating nitrite and the muscle oxygenation response (Clarke et al., 2019).

Neither trial tested race performance directly, so the link to your 10 km time is inferred from the mechanism. Still, the practical takeaway is simple:

• Skip chlorhexidine and other antibacterial rinses around beetroot doses.
• Do not rinse straight after your shot.
• If you need a medicated mouthwash for gum disease, do not stop it on a blog’s say-so. Ask your dentist how to time it.

I could not find a study that tests exactly how many hours apart is safe, so I will not invent a number.

Whole beets, shots or powders?

Format is mostly about how well you can control the dose.

• Concentrated shots: convenient and easy to dose if the nitrate content is on the label. More expensive per dose.
• Whole beets or home juice: cheap and good food, but the nitrate content varies widely and is not known to you.
• Powders: can work, but the nitrate content is often not stated. Without a number, you are guessing.
• Other vegetables: spinach, methi and other leafy greens add nitrate to your diet at almost no cost, though they are rarely tested as a performance dose.

Who should skip it or talk to a doctor first

Beetroot juice is food, and it is generally well tolerated, but a few cautions are sensible. Nitrate lowers blood pressure in some studies (Bailey et al. saw a drop of 8 mmHg in healthy men), so check with your doctor if you take blood pressure drugs, nitrate medicines (for example for angina), erectile dysfunction drugs such as sildenafil, or have low blood pressure. Beetroot is also high in oxalate, so ask a doctor if you have had kidney stones. Pink urine (beeturia) is common and harmless, but if you see unexplained blood or have pain, get checked and do not assume it is the beets.

None of this replaces medical advice, and the research here is mostly in healthy young adults, not in older people or people with conditions.

So should you use it?

Use a simple decision rule:

• Recreational runner, cyclist or rower with a key session coming up: worth a trial. Take about 6-8 mmol nitrate, 2-3 hours before, no antibacterial mouthwash.
• Highly trained endurance athlete: expect little. Test it in training and keep what you can measure.
• Lifter: low priority. Possible small help for higher-rep sets, little for max strength.
• On a tight budget: spend on protein, food and sleep first. Our free protein calculator and diet plan cover the basics.

Nitrate is a small, cheap-ish edge, not a transformation. If you like it and it fits your budget, use it well. If not, you lose very little.