Dietary Nitrate: The Emerging Ergogenic Aid

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The emerging evidence around nitrate as an ergogenic aid has been gaining publicity.

Nitrate was one of the few substances worthy to be acknowledged and presented at the 2012 Olympic Sports Nutrition Conference in London.

Dietary nitrate supplementation, usually in the form of beetroot juice, has been heralded as a possible new ergogenic aid for sport and exercise performance. Early studies in recreationally active participants indicated that nitrate ingestion significantly reduces the O2 cost of submaximal exercise and improves performance during high-intensity endurance exercise.

Subsequent studies have begun to address the physiological mechanisms underpinning these observations and to investigate the human populations in whom, and the exercise conditions under which, nitrate supplementation may be beneficial.

Source: Andrew M. Jones, PhD - University of Exeter, Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, 2014