Beet Juice vs Caffeine What has more benefits?

Usually 800 mg total for me at 190 lbs.

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There was a death recently that was attributed to caffeine powder here in Australia this month

Need to disclaimer your comment @Nate_Pearson with check with your health professional. The article suggests that the poor guy who passed away had a heaped teaspoon of caffeine powder which caused his death.

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Oh yes, itā€™s lethal in high does. A quick google says a lethal dose is around 10 grams. 800mg is a lot too, and Iā€™m a fast caffeine metabolizer.

You could have medical conditions too that would make this a bad idea.

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I believe I did and I can confirm that no caffeine was ingested.

The morning of the race I ate: small bowl of granola with blueberries and low fat yogurt. An hour before the race I had a small banana and 20 minutes before we rolled out, I had one SIS isotonic gel.

Race nutrition consisted of a handful of Jelly Babies, three Clif cubes and two 500ml bottles. One with three scoops of SIS Energy and the other was half/half water and pineapple juice.

Leading up to the race Iā€™d been preloading with Beet-It nitrate juice. Personally I love the flavour.

On the morning of the race, I felt noticeable different. I was literally bouncing. Whole body felt primed. Whilst lining up and taking the race briefing, I glanced at my Garmin and my heart rate was below 110bpm. I was totally relaxed. When I have caffeine (Iā€™m not a big fan of caffeine) I get ā€˜wiredā€™ and my heart rate becomes erratic.

Once the flag dropped I never once felt like Iā€™d made the wrong decision. I was right up the front for the whole race and the only reason I didnā€™t place higher was because I didnā€™t race ā€˜smartā€™. I felt too good and I kept pushing the envelope. Eventually something had to give but my final effort up the final hill into the 200 meter sprint was my fastest of the whole race.

For me, itā€™s beetroot juice from here on in. Iā€™d only used caffeine because I thought I was missing out but never liked how it left me feeling. Of course, this is entirely without any scientific basis and is my own opinion of the situation.

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Interesting about the wired feeling. I once took 2 x 150mg SIS caffeine shots 45 mins before the start and was literally vibrating on the start line. I didnā€™t like it and didnā€™t race well

Since then Iā€™ve popped a 500mg SIS tablet 45 mins before a race and I genuinely canā€™t tell if its having any effect, apart from the RPE feeling Nate describes in later stages of longer races.

I have a 12hr race on Saturday and some left over beet it shots and am wondering whether to revert to those after 7 months of caffeine use to see if I can determine a difference.

This is my experience too. I preloaded beetjuice for a week prior to a bikepacking endurance event last week and couldnā€™t tell any difference during cycling. However, I did notice that my muscle fatigue following 400km in 2 days fully loaded was less than I typically would have experienced and so am wondering if the blood pressure/oxyngenation benefits reported in studies like this were most noticeable following the event and require less muscle recovery overall since they were more oxygenated during the event.

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Very interesting. I guess next race you need to follow the same protocol minus the caffeine. I suspect that is the trick : finding out what works and doing it againā€¦good luck . I would be interested in hearing how it turns out.

So someone who has IBS would they benefit from beets? Iā€™m looking at beet power and blending it up with some other carbs to blend itā€¦ I have a cup of coffee in the morning usually but I would like to try this prior to a race or work outsā€¦ also for my gutā€¦ thoughts?

Iā€™ve got my next race in two weeks time. I plan to follow the same routine again. I then race again the following weekend so I think itā€™ll be interesting to see how I go. Will keep you updated.

So I dont get why a lot of pros are taking alt red and also using caffeine, if itā€™s been proven to negate each other. Can someone please explain this to me more?I thought they were both vaso dilators. What about supplementing 10 days before with beet juice and not taking caffeine until hours into your race? Please help me understand

I approach this with chronic beet consumption and targeted caffeine consumption

I do beets daily during race season and caffeine only immediately before or during events. Thus - Iā€™m hoping for the non-targeted beet benefits and the targeted caffeine benefits

My, non medical non scientific, understanding is that they do not counteract each other but that they use the same receptors so doing both at the same time will be meaningless

Hard to say if the benefits of either are strong - both are supposed to give you in the 1-3% range although there are plenty of anecdotes (such as @Nate_Pearsonā€™s) claiming significantly more

I think caffeine really helps with time to exhaustion on really long efforts. Like 5 hours into Leadville you take 400 mg of caffeine and feel like a new person.

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I guess that pretty much summarizes my understanding as well.

But has anybody else reviewed Cogganā€™s blood oxygen/nitrate data? Nitrate pretty much uniformly increased bloody oxygenation. I presume they did not control for caffeine intakeā€¦and since pretty much every adult in the western world is a caffeine addict I also presume the study subjects were caffeinated.

But they all had higher blood oxygen levels at rest & under stress.

I donā€™t have a good explanation for that. Just thought it was interesting. And it gives me a serious case of cognitive dissonance.

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Iā€™m no nutrition expert so this is just an FYI as I just stumbled upon this:

And specifically referring to three greens - quote:
ā€œAs youā€™ll see in the next video, Kidney Stones and Spinach, Chard, & Beet Greens: Donā€™t Eat Too Much,anyone can overdo the three high-oxalate greensā€”spinach, beet greens, and Swiss chard. So, for anyone doing cups of greens a day (as you should!), better to choose any of the other greens, such as kale, collards, or arugula.ā€

Yeah. Iā€™ve been doing beet juice for 2-3 days before a race (currently in CX season), but no beets on race day. Caffeine appropriately timed before the starting gun.

Tried beet and keep trying it, coffee works better by a long shot.
Dr.Ferrari (Lance Armstrong coach) was saying you need ~500ml of pure beet juice, thatā€™s a lot more than you think. Hunter Allen backs it up (but he seems to back up any snake oil that $$ him, imo)
I had good results with :

That being said, if you respond well with coffee, itā€™s pretty effective & reliable

This is of interest re beets

Give it a listen

Iā€™ve been looking for info on this for a while and canā€™t find anything. Does anyone know of studies/references for this claim? Thanks in advance.

I have no evidence for or against. Seems plausible mechanistically, but many of the ā€œX impedes Yā€ or ā€œA absorbs better than Bā€ stories in nutrition are only small percentage changes, and most can be completely overcome by just taking a bit more of Y or B.

Examples:
Caffeine & creatine.
Different iron variants.
Creatine variants.
Sodium & sugar intra-workout (might actually be meaningful but requires so little sodium itā€™s non-issue).

I suspect itā€™s the same story re: caffeine and nitratesā€™ effects, if itā€™s even a story at all.

Solution, take a bit more beet stuff.

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I am actually one of the odd ones out there (in more ways than one); I donā€™t like coffee AT ALL, but I can eat beets right out of a can and enjoy them.

I feel no performance boost from caffeine in gels or from eating beets. But I havenā€™t TRIED to test them, so it would be on feel only and that seems pretty worthless as a data point.