Beetroot Juice & Caffeine Work Better Than Either Alone

Beetroot has many beneficial properties, which we’ve written about before:

Beetroot For More Than Just Your Blood Pressure

…and as for caffeine, it’s a mixed bag but for most people, the benefits of moderate caffeine use outweigh the risks:

Caffeine: Cognitive Enhancer Or Brain-Wrecker?

Now, caffeine’s less desirable effects can be mitigated somewhat by pairing it with l-theanine, as we’ve also discussed before:

L-Theanine: What’s The Tea? ← l-theanine also has many wonderful properties of its own, aside from its complementary effects when taken alongside caffeine

So, what’s the deal with caffeine and beetroot juice?

A performance-enhancing balancing act

Caffeine raises blood pressure, while beetroot lowers it, but there’s a lot more to it than that.

Researchers looked into the effects of caffeine and beetroot juice, together or separately, on athletic performance (in a 1000m run) in non-athletes.

They found:

• Caffeine alone enhanced second-run performance but not the first.
• Beetroot juice alone improved first-run performance but led to a performance decline after recovery.
• The caffeine + BJ combo resulted in the best initial and repeated 1000m run performances.

Specifically, they also noted:

• Caffeine alone caused higher blood lactate levels post-exercise.
• Beetroot juice increased muscle oxygenation by 25% during runs.
• The caffeine + BJ combo led to the highest post-exercise heart rate improvements.

You can read the paper in full here:

Caffeine and Beetroot Juice Optimize 1,000-m Performance: Shapley Additive Explanations Analysis

Now, maybe you don’t have a 1000m run to do, let alone multiple ones back-to-back, but most of us could sometimes do with an energy boost during the day, and this seems like an excellent way to get it.

That said, caffeine timing can be important too; midday is generally the best time for it, because:

• of course it should not be too late in the day, because the elimination half-life of caffeine (4–8 hours to eliminate just half of the caffeine, depending on genes, call it 6 hours as an average though honestly for most people it will either be 4 or 8, not 6) is such that it can easily interfere with sleep for most people
• because caffeine is an adenosine blocker, not an adenosine inhibitor, taking caffeine in the morning means either there’s no adenosine to block, or it’ll just “save” that adenosine for later, i.e. when the caffeine is eliminated, then the adenosine will kick in, meaning that your morning sleepiness has now been deferred to the afternoon, rather than eliminated.

Another reminder that caffeine is the “payday loan” of energy. So, midday it is. No morning sleepiness to defer, and yet also not so late as to interfere with sleep.

See also: Calculate (And Enjoy) The Perfect Night’s Sleep

Want to learn more?

Check out:

The Best Form Of Sugar For Energy During Exercise

Enjoy!