Research
Mixed
Dietary nitrate supplementation improves performance in highly trained athletes engaged in upper-body dominant sports (kayaking, rowing) or intermittent sprint sports.
If you are an elite kayaker, rower, or team sport player doing sprints, nitrate supplementation (8-10mmol) can help your performance. It works by improving the efficiency of your fast-twitch muscles.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
improved exercise economy has been observed in highly trained kayakers... highly trained rowers show an improvement in rowing TT performance... recent study has demonstrated that a dosing regimen... resulted in a similar improvement in Yo-Yo IR1 performance... all-out sprint-running performance was improved
Why this rating
Evidence is strong for specific modalities but less extensive than for general endurance.
Source
Dietary Nitrate and Physical Performance
Andrew M. Jones et al. · Annual Review of Nutrition · 2018
DOI 10.1146/annurev-nutr-082117-051622
narrative_reviewCited 194×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Dietary nitrate supplementation (typically via beetroot juice) improves exercise efficiency by reducing the oxygen cost of submaximal exercise and enhances muscle power/sprint performance, primarily through the nitrate-nitrite-nitric oxide pathway.Good
- Dietary nitrate supplementation does not improve performance in highly trained endurance athletes during cycling or running, likely due to higher baseline nitric oxide bioavailability.Good
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