Hey y'all and welcome to the everyday athlete podcast recorded live from Omaha, Nebraska and I'm your host, Katie danger U S army veteran and founder of Red H Nutrition providing everyday athletes just like you, clean, effective nutritional solutions, custom formulated to help you reach your absolute potential every single day.
Athletes, can you believe we're already on episode number 19 you guys, thank you so much because I'm enjoying getting a moment to spend each week with you. I really, really am. I know you're all super busy and you're taking the time out of your day to spend with me and I really appreciate it. So I only want to provide relevant, important topics that you can take, digest easily and quickly and apply to your life because it should all make sense to you. I'm not going to waste your time. So staying on that theme here is my secret for you this week. Beets. Yes, beets. Those are red root vegetables that grow in dirt and some people say tastes like dirt. Now personally, I'm actually a fan of beats. I really enjoy beats and I always have. So when I started learning about how beats could affect my fitness performance and not only make my belly happy, I thought that was pretty cool. So what are beats? The beat is a root vegetable and it grows as a round bowl.
(01:18): It has a leafy top and it grows in the ground. So beets are similar in shape to turnips and radishes, but they're actually not related. The most common garden beat is that deep Ruby red color that you're probably all very familiar with. Now, while beads is the most common name for the vegetable in the United States, beats are actually referred to as beetroot in other English speaking countries outside of the United States. Now the distinction is important because in recipes the leaves are also edible. So they say beetroot in other countries to signify just the root and not the leaves Moreno, right? So beets are native to the Mediterranean region and really the leaves have an Eaton for longer than humans have been writing history. But the beet root is traditionally used medicinally. It really didn't become popular for food until in the 18 hundreds the French chefs started using it in their cuisines.
(02:13): Now today they're really inexpensive and they're mostly used in soups and salads, but now beats aren't just being eaten. They're being used for detoxification purposes. They're being made into juice and they're also being used for significant performance benefits for athletes like you and me, but how the heck do beats help us? How do beats help athletes do more work faster, improve their performance? Well, I'm really glad you asked and I'm really glad you tuned in because I'm going to tell you all about it. Beats are a rich source of potent antioxidants and they're also high in nitrate levels. Nitrate is a chemical naturally occurring in certain foods and is converted to nitric oxide when consumed drinking beetroot juice raises nitric oxide levels in your body, so or eating it does the same thing. Research shows that nitric oxide can increase blood flow, improve lung function, and strengthen your muscle contraction.
(03:07): So all of those three things that you put together, blood flow, lung function, better muscle contraction, you use that. It's obvious that athletes have found that supplementing with Beirut leads to improving their cardio and endurance and overall performance during training and competition. Nitric oxide works by stimulating body functions affecting oxygen utilization. It opens up your blood vessels. This is also called vasodilation, so it opens up your blood vessels vasodilator that increases blood flow and it feeds more oxygen to the muscles that are working. Nitric oxide also functions as a signaling molecule that communicates with your cells and body's tissues. When you have this high level communication, it ensures that more blood flow to the muscles and adequate oxygen intake happens inside the muscle. In fact, in 2009 there were some pretty amazing research done at the university of Exeter and they found that athletes, when you had the performance group versus the control group, they found that the athletes who utilize beetroot juice prior to their activity ended up increasing their performance by 16% 16% compared to the control condition.
(04:16): Now, I don't know who you are as an athlete, but 16% improvement in anything I would take. I'm going to get a little sciency with you here, but I'm going to do a Katy danger style. I really think beats are amazing and I want to communicate that. So if you're not using beats right now in some way, shape, or form, I want to convince you to do it. And here's the deal. Here's exactly how Beetroot gets into your body and improves the economy efficiency and overall performance of your cardiovascular system. It happens really, really quickly too. So stick with me first. You drink, you eat, or you supplement with beats. Those nitrates are broken down into nitrites by anaerobic bacteria in your mouth. Then nitrites are broken down into single molecules of nitric oxide in the stomach. The results of the increased nitric oxide concentration includes improve nasal dilation, improve VO2 max mitochondrial production, energy improvement, contraction, relaxation of the muscle improvement, and improved glucose uptake. So when your muscles get a boost from this nitric oxide, the improved vasodilation, the glucose, the contraction reelection athletes experience improved economy performance, inefficiency of their cardiovascular system.
(05:31): Essentially you'll be able to stay stronger longer during your workouts. Ever heard the same? Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. A major component to your competitive success will be your nutrition prep and I create a competition nutrition guide to help you utilize pre-internet and post-competition nutrition protocols. Boost your confidence heading into a competition, recover quicker post you get right back to training and increase your power output and max capacity so you can own that podium. I created this guy just for the everyday athlete and you can get your free copy at competitionnutritionguide.com. I'll say again, competition nutrition guide.com
(06:09): Beets also have some really cool superfood power too and these will keep you healthy and strong outside of the gym. Beats are really great for you to talk about suffocation and resetting your body. They're high in antioxidants and they help fight free radical damage to new developing and or hypertrophic muscle tissue. So if you've just had a workout session and you know that you have done the breaking down in the muscle tissue to build it back up, the great thing about beats is they help prevent any damage to your new muscular tissue that's developing so you can grow. To stay stronger and recover quicker. If you're an athlete who struggles with inflammation in your joints, beats are a great benefit to your diet. Beets are high in beta liens, a phytonutrient that reacts with enzymes to prevent inflammation, so in addition to your current inflammation routine, whether you've got tumeric in there already, it's nutrition super flexy or some other over the counter remedies add in beats because it will help with your inflammation and remember, whether it's 16% or 1% better, it's an improvement.
(07:18): Another significant benefit to a beat rich diet includes lowering your blood pressure and naturally helps with hypertension. The cool thing is even if you don't have high blood pressure or any hypertensive tendencies, regulating your blood pressure and heart rate during exercise helps your body stay relaxed. It helps prevent that fight or flight when you start to red line, it keeps you efficient and strong for the duration of your workout. So athletes with all that, have I convinced you to use beats the next time you work out yet? If I have, I'm going to tell you exactly how you can start adding them into your pre-workout nutrition to really amp up your workouts and level up. Here's one quick FYI before we go on though, you need to consume approximately four to five beats. This four to five Rob beats to reap the performance enhancing benefits.
(08:03): Now if you dried those beats up and reduce them to a powder, you'd have about 700 milligrams of beet root powder. Now there's lots of ways you can get beats in your diet. You can buy beats and you can cook them and eat them. You can buy beet juice and drink it before your workout, or you can take beetroot powder in a drink or a pill form. My favorite way, my favorite way to get beats and for performance benefits is to take apex, so to apex has the power of 140 beets in one bottle. So it's a really quick and easy way to add beats into your pre-workout nutrition, but it's not just the beats. Here's what makes it different than just drinking juice or perhaps another competitor beat product apex. So two takes all the great things about beats being able to do more work for a longer period of time.
(08:47): But what I added to it was cocoa polyphenols and those further delay, the onset of fatigue, and then I added tart extract because you've got to be able to recover faster from these longer and more intense workouts. So you're able to do so. Listen, athletes, it's all fun and games. If you can do more work and do it faster, that's fantastic, but if you're not recovering from those high intensity bouts of effort, then what does it matter? What does it matter? If you had a great workout but then you're trash for like two or three days because you had such an intense workout. So that's where we're apex [inaudible] really, really hits the bullseye and I really want you to take a heart and take note of the product itself. It's formula with beetroot for your performance Coco to extend your performance and delay fatigue and then tart cherry so you feel fresh and can go strong and your very next workout if you're ready to add beats into your pre workout routine so you can also reap the rewards of their superfood powers.
(09:39): You've got to use apex Oh two and you know what a listener is. You can grab your very own bottle@redditshop.com and I have a secret code for you if you use the code at red hot two five at checkout. I'm also going to give you 25% off of that first bottle code red hot to five, so head on over to red eight shop.com grab your bottle of apex [inaudible] because you were made for more. I want you to get the right supplements now. I want you to destroy your PRS and do more work and do it faster than you ever thought, capable athletes. Thank you so much again for tuning in with me this week. It's been fun and I always enjoy being invited into your time every single week. Next week. I have another goodie for you. In episode number 20 I'm going to be talking all about over-training and how you can use all these tools and trackers out there to really monitor how your body is reacting and recovering from training. I'll be talking about heart rate variability, the adrenal system, the nervous system, and more so you're really going to want to tune in. All right guys, this is Katie D over and out.
(10:43): This is ThePodcastFactory.com.
