The Best Juice to Complement an Exercise Program

by Evie Coles
(US)

The biggest disadvantage about growing up with a father who has been on the national Olympic team is that no matter how much training you do, he is still going to easily best you. The upshot, of course, is that he can also teach you a lot and he can act as your personal trainer. That is why I have always been better at sports than most of school my colleagues, but it is also why I have always feared the training time I would spend with my father.

The reason was that he could easily push me to my limits and he did not seem too bothered by what I considered intense and rigorous physical exercises. However I did have an advantage over him and that was the fact that he was so highly motivated to keep fit and I just wanted to be able to keep up with him without overtaxing myself.

So I started looking for the best natural drinks that could help me. That is because my father is somewhat old school so I was never allowed to drink cola (it doesn't mean that I don’t) and I would never have been allowed to use any kind of energy drinks. Luckily I came across several tests done on plants and I found a juice that really helped me, apple juice.

What to Drink before Exercises

My father is a big fan of freshly squeezed apple juice and I must admit that a shot of that during a mountain hike is better than anything my friends ever had me try. But in order to keep up with my dad I started adding two and sometimes three beets to every half a gallon of apple juice. Now, I do think that straight up beet juice would be better but I simply cannot stand the taste.

A study was done on a group of students using treadmills. They were performing a task using equal energy while walking on the treadmills and some had been given beet juice prior to the test. The people who drank beet juice needed 12% less oxygen to perform the additional task. That means their bodies actually needed less oxygen to perform, which further implies that their cardiovascular system, their hearts and lungs, felt more relaxed.

As for my part I can confirm that when I drink beet juice mixed in with my apple juice I can keep up with my father’s workouts far more easily than before.

When to Do Your Exercises

Remember, my goal has always been to make the exercises feel easier, and while researching natural juices I came across a study done in Cane, France which showed that people working out in the afternoon were more efficient and able to generate more power than people who exercised in the morning. And because my father didn't really care when we exercised I got him to switch to an afternoon schedule rather than the morning schedule we had been following.

Again, this is just my own experience, but jogging and bicycling in the afternoon did seem to be easier for me. Luckily we kept the same regimen of exercises so I was able to enjoy that extra energy. I can only confirm that the experiment performed in Cane did point to some interesting results which I was able to replicate.

Should You Use My Ideas?

The answer really depends on the reason why you are doing the exercises. If you are trying to lose weight fast then I think that exercising in the morning would be better. You get the added bonus of not having eaten overnight so your body is forced to dig into the fat energy resources it has set aside. You should definitely stay away from beet juice before a morning workout, since you are trying to achieve is an intense cardiovascular workout.

Then again, if you are happy with the way you look and just want to enjoy your workout then I strongly recommend beet juice. It will give your muscles the workout they need and will give you more energy all around. I believe that jogging in the morning is good because there have been numerous studies about the benefits of doing physical exercises in the morning, showing that they improve the quality of your sleep, lower cholesterol and even improve your mood throughout the day. However, if your primary concern is performance, then you should definitely consider changing to an afternoon workout.

In summary, I recommend that you try drinking some beet juice mixed with apple juice for extra energy before exercising, and also consider your reasons for exercising in order to best schedule the time of day for your workout.
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Author
Evie Coles wrote many of articles on health and nutrition published on different sites. In this article, she focus on health drinks that people naturally takes at the time of exercise. She also writes about diet clinics and way of maintaining a proper diet.

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