Beetroot: The Legal Performance Enhancing Drug for Athletes?

Move over steroids, mother nature has sorted us out with a natural alternative.

All jokes aside, if you're serious about training, you're probably already familiar with the usual suspects. Protein. Creatine. Electrolytes. But there's another ingredient that's been getting plenty of attention in the sports world: Beetroot.

Why are athletes becoming increasingly interested in beetroot?

Beetroot naturally contains dietary nitrate, which is one of the reasons it's been studied so extensively in sport. Your body can convert nitrate through a series of steps into nitric oxide, a molecule involved in normal blood-vessel function.

That has made beetroot particularly interesting to researchers looking at exercise and physical performance. And there's now a growing body of research behind it.

A 2026 systematic review (opens in a new tab) and meta-analysis looked at 33 studies involving 519 athletes and found that beetroot juice supplementation was associated with improvements in high-intensity interval sprint performance, mean power output and VO₂max.

That's pretty interesting for something that started life looking like a rather unexciting vegetable.

Beetroot and the search for marginal gains

For athletes, performance isn't always about finding one enormous advantage. Sometimes it's about stacking up lots of small things that help you train, recover and perform consistently. That's where beetroot has attracted attention.

Research has looked at beetroot supplementation in activities involving:

• Cycling
• Running
• High-intensity intervals
• Repeated sprint efforts
• Aerobic exercise
• Power output

The 2026 meta-analysis found statistically significant improvements across several of these performance measures, although the researchers also noted that factors such as the type of athlete, sport and supplementation strategy may influence the results.

In other words, beetroot isn't a magic button.

Beetroot isn't going to replace training, good nutrition, sleep or recovery. Think of it as a potential marginal gain, rather than a miracle. And that's probably the most sensible way to look at sports nutrition in general. You don't need one magic ingredient. You need lots of good habits that you can consistently stick to.

But there's a problem with beetroot juice...

If you've ever used beetroot juice before, you'll know that it's not exactly the most convenient thing in the world.

There's the bottle.

There's the fridge.

There's the measuring.

And if you're making your own?

There's the chopping.

Then there's the cleaning.

For athletes with training, work, family and everything else going on, convenience matters. The 2026 study also found that the optimal timing for consuming beetroot juice is 2 to 2.5 hours before exercise. So finding a supplement routine you can actually stick to is key.

Capsules make beetroot much easier

This is where capsules have an obvious advantage.

There's no juicer.

No preparation.

No measuring out a glass.

No refrigeration.

And no gluggling down a glass of purple juice before a training session.

With BeetBoost, your daily serving is simply one capsule. Keep the bottle in your cupboard, take your daily serving as directed and get on with your day.

Built around a simple routine

BeetBoost contains: 300 mg of 50:1 beetroot extract

That's equivalent to: 15,000 mg of beetroot powder

alongside vitamin B12 and black pepper extract.

The idea is simple: take the interesting part of beetroot and put it into a format that fits easily into an athlete's routine.

Because whether you're heading out for a morning ride, going to the gym after work or preparing for your next race, you don't necessarily want another complicated job to add to the list.

But if you'd rather have your beetroot ready to go in a simple daily capsule, BeetBoost makes it considerably easier.