The Juice That Makes Exercise Easier

Think outside the sports-drink bottle when you're looking for a workout beverage. New research puts the "gives you an edge" spotlight on this vegetable drink: beet juice.

In a small study, people who drank the red juice daily for 6 days needed much less oxygen during a treadmill exercise test. Translation: Exercise actually felt easier to them.

A Fitness Elixir?

Beet juice's exercise-enhancing power likely comes from the nitrates in beets. This bears out in the study, where the participants were split into two groups -- one drinking regular beet juice each day and the other drinking beet juice stripped of its nitrate content. And exercise became easier only for the juice-with-nitrates group. Compared with the no-nitrates group, the nitrates group needed about 12 percent less oxygen during the treadmill exercise test. The nitrate group was also able to run longer at fast speeds before reaching exhaustion.

Big Beet Benefits

Our bodies convert the nitrates in beet juice to nitrites -- helpful little compounds that help dilate blood vessels, increase blood flow, and help reduce the amount of oxygen muscles need to do work. So it's not surprising that the nitrates group in the study also experienced a dip in their blood pressure after drinking the juice regularly. Beets also contain quercetin and resveratrol -- two powerful antioxidants that may help protect against oxidative stress caused by exercise.

How to Make Beet Juice
 
Choosing beets: Always choose firm, smooth beets. Size doesn't matter but beets should be fresh. Look for beautifully colored beets that are somewhat shiny under the dirt that may be clinging to them. With the growing popularity of heirloom vegetables and fruits you may be able to find a variety of colors of beets including golden and pink. These add not only color variety but slight flavor differences as well.
 
How to make juice without a juicer: A juicer is helpful when it comes to making all kinds of juices but it is not essential. There are other ways to create healthy and delicious juice from beets and other vegetables and fruits.


If you have a blender you can make a good juice by blending. You will need to make sure you chop the raw vegetables finely or grate them in order for your blender to be able to get them fine enough.

Clean and peel vegetables and fruit
Grate or chop them finely
Add the vegetables and fruit to the blender with about ¼ cup of water or juice
Blend well

You may want to strain the juice through a piece of cheese cloth to get the pulp and any large pieces of vegetable out. If you do this you will lose some of the fiber and the benefits it contains but it provides a more pleasant drink.

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