Want to exercise harder? Try necking beet juice

If you want to exercise harder, you may want to try drinking beet juice, which as per a new study, improves sprinting and decision-making during workouts.

Rugby players take note: drinking high nitrate beetroot juice improves both sprint performance and decision-making during prolonged intermittent exercise such as rugby and football, according to scientists from the University of Exeter.

As excitement mounts for the Rugby World Cup, the research adds further weight to the case for beetroot juice as a superfood for elite both elite and amateur sports players and athletes.

Lead author Chris Thompson, of the University of Exeter, said that this research is a really exciting landmark in the work conducted on nitrate supplementation so far, adding that the improvement they found may seem small, but it's likely to provide a meaningful advantage to the athlete on the sports field.

He noted that it could mean that team sport players are able to make those important decisions faster and cover more ground than their opponents in the seconds when it matters most.

The study is published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology.