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Caffeine or beets?
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Trying to make sense of the research on the performance effects of caffeine, beets, and their interaction. From what I can gather, both caffeine and beets at the right doses can have positive effects, but that, in interaction, caffeine basically eliminates any positive effect of the beets. So, three questions:

1) Am I understanding this correctly? Anybody seen anything different?
2) If it is correct, then it would seem to make sense only to take caffeine *or* beets. is there anyway to know which is likely to have the more beneficial effect?
3) Or is there some hybrid that makes sense--beets before the race; caffeine at some point during the race as a stimulant.
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Re: Caffeine or beets? [proftri] [ In reply to ]
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Coffee tastes great. Beetroot powder is awful. It is a simple choice.
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Re: Caffeine or beets? [proftri] [ In reply to ]
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I haven't done any recent reading on the subject , but my understanding was that consuming nitrites via beets or other vegetables, was best done over a period of a week or two before the race, whereas caffeine is best used during the race, generally in the later stages if it's a long distance event. I've also seen suggestions that reducing caffeine intake leading up to the race may maintain better effectiveness during the race - not sure if this is based on data or otherwise....
I don't remember ever seeing anything about interaction.
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Re: Caffeine or beets? [Ai_1] [ In reply to ]
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Yeah, the guys on the TrainerRoad podcast were talking about it a week or two ago: beets have a positive effect, but the effect disappears when you add caffeine. Some googling around found the studies that those comments were based on.
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Re: Caffeine or beets? [proftri] [ In reply to ]
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I wasn't aware of this, I'm going to have to experiment on myself to confirm.
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Re: Caffeine or beets? [proftri] [ In reply to ]
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Don't make it too complicated. Coffee with breakfast and beets in your salad at dinner.

If you get either on your clothes, good luck getting them out (especially beets).
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