Effects of Acute and Multi-Day Beetroot Juice Supplementation on Power and Velocity During Resistance Exercise in NCAA Division I Baseball Position Players

Dietary nitrate supplementation can enhance muscle contractility in type II fibers; however, the efficacy of nitrate in exercises and populations that predominantly rely on type II fibers, such as resistance exercise in power-based athletes, remains unexplored. The purpose of this project was to determine whether acute and multi-day nitrate ingestion via concentrated nitrate-rich beetroot juice (BR) improves resistance exercise performance in NCAA Division I baseball athletes. Eighteen male collegiate baseball athletes were assigned in a randomized, double-blind, crossover design to consume: 1) nitrate-depleted beetroot juice placebo (PL) or 2) BR (~6 mmol of nitrate) for 8 consecutive days. On days 1 and 8, subjects consumed supplements 2.5 hours prior to performing back squat and bench press performed at 55%, 60%, and 65% of their one-repetition maximum. A linear transducer was used to measure peak and mean power and velocity. A two-way repeated measures analysis of variance will be used to analyze for differences in performance across condition and time. A subset of data (n=9) for peak and mean power and velocity for back squat and bench press is presented. These data will contribute to informing nitrate supplementation guidelines for enhancing resistance exercise, and for the first time, will provide insight on the efficacy of dietary nitrate as an ergogenic aid for resistance exercise in a sport-specific population.