Athletes have to maintain peak performance and if there is anything legal that will help them boost their performance, surely enough, they will try it. Vegetable juices, better known as green juices have gained quite a bit of traction in recent years, with more and more health conscious people choosing vegetable juices for their healthy goodness. They are often loaded with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that not only have various short-term health benefits but aid the body to stay healthy in the long term.
Improved performance is yet another benefit observed and praised by various people who drink vegetable juice. They mention how their energy levels are much higher and how they simply feel better.
Vegetable juice can be great for improved overall wellbeing. They work to keep chronic illnesses at bay and even work to reverse the signs of ageing. Many people have seen real results by incorporating vegetable juices into their diet and athletes truly have much to gain by doing the same.
Athletes can benefit from vegetable juice due to the hydration it provides them. The essential vitamins and minerals help tweak performance and vegetable juice’s have the ability to help with muscle recovery. These being the key benefits why many athletes should consider vegetable juices, some juices are simply better for athletes and for athletic performance.
For instance, if you are a runner, you would benefit by including carrot juice into your diet, for it would provide you with an added boost of energy and help better regulate your metabolism. This can lead to a leaner body through the burning of more fat.
When choosing the vegetable to juice, you want to consider those that actually help you boost your performance levels. Here is a list of the 12 best vegetable juices for athletes that will help to boost performance, simultaneously keeping you healthy and strong.
1. Cucumber Juice
Cucumber is one of the most hydrating, cooling and refreshing vegetables available. Athletes tend to lose a lot of water during training through sweating. This means you end up losing many important electrolytes that play a major role in the regulation of fluids in your body.
Drinking cucumber juice before training or practice is a great way to hydrate yourself. This means, when you start sweating, you are less likely to get tired as fast as you normally would which resultantly helps increase your stamina.
This easily accessible vegetable should be considered by all athletes to ensure proper hydration and better performance level. It is a great way to kick start a workout routine and a great way to boost your energy levels for optimum performance.
Research has pointed to the fact that many athletes who drink cucumber juice tend to be able to perform for a longer period of time without getting tired. Those who didn’t drink cucumber juice often got dehydrated much faster, which directly impacted their performance. This goes to prove that cucumber juice should be an essential element in your athletic arsenal.
2. Tomato Juice
Training and working out is an essential part of life for any athlete and is the means to improve physical fitness and endurance. As a result of this, many athletes encounter post-workout pain, which includes muscle pain.
It has been proven in clinical research studies that tomato juice actually help prevent muscle pain and fatigue that you experience the next day after an intense workout.
Workouts often involve the stressing of muscles, stretching them to their limits and even tearing them enabling muscle growth. It is these tears that cause the pain the following day. Workouts also lead to stress on the central nervous system that is responsible for communication between muscles and organs. It goes without saying that strenuous exercise causes quite a bit of fatigue and pain.
The pain is caused by oxidative stress which is a resultant effect of physical force from the stretching of muscles. Tomato juice works to control oxidative stress which works to soothe pain experienced by the athlete.
Tomato juice also contains lycopene, which is an essential antioxidant that is responsible for the reduction of harmful chemicals that cause oxidative stress, which leads to muscle pain. This helps improve the athlete’s ability to endure more pain, thereby improving performance.
3. Beet Juice
When athletes are working out, they are in constant need of oxygen. Their breathing rate often increases. The circulatory and respiratory systems that supply oxygen work to provide the muscles with the oxygen that they need. This lasts for the entire length of the workout or exercise.
Nitric oxide is an important compound in the process of oxygen delivery to muscles. They increase cardiorespiratory performance, which enables more effective oxygen delivery to muscles. What is great about beet juice is the fact that it is rich in nitric oxide.
Thus, beet juice helps with muscle recovery. The greater the supply of oxygen to your muscles, the more effective they will work and the easier it will be for muscles to recover after strenuous exercise.
Nitric oxide works to open up blood vessels which increase blood flow. This is how it manages to deliver more oxygen to the muscles. Nitric oxide also increases communication between the tissues and cells of a person which leads to more connectivity, thereby increasing the supply of oxygen to these connecting and communicating tissues and cells.
Athletes have noticed improved performance by almost 16% after taking beet juice!
4. Cabbage Juice
This is not an obvious choice of vegetable to juice but can be an amazing way to boost performance. Cabbage is highly nutritious and delicious and works really well as a juice.
Every serving of cabbage is loaded with vitamins K and C. These two vitamins are known for improved heart health and lowered risk of cancer. This also works to help increase bone density which is very important for athletes. A healthy skeletal system is an integral part of performance and the stronger your bones, the better you will perform.
Cabbage juice has been known to improve fitness in healthy athletes. It contains folate which is responsible for the repair of tissues and red blood cells. This works to increase athletic endurance and helps with post-workout recovery.
The stresses of training cause a significantly higher turnover rate of red blood cells which is resolved by folate that repairs them. Hence, it is good to have a reliable source of folate in your diet, to ensure proper cardiovascular and respiratory health. Remember, the more healthy red blood cells you have, the more effective oxygen supply and delivery will occur in your body.
5. Broccoli Juice
Broccoli is yet another incredibly nutritious vegetable that provide the body with a host of nutrients that are good for you. They are particularly rich in potassium and vitamins A, B6 and C.
Potassium is the fluid that is present in intracellular fluid which is responsible for the regulating of the total body water. It also enables the stabilising controlled and automatic muscle contractions in the body. Potassium is an essential part of health and performance and is often lost as sweat during exercise. This is why it is important to have a reliable potassium source before a workout and after a workout to replenish the body of lost potassium.
When potassium is released into the bloodstream by cells, they increase the serum levels during exercise. This keeps fatigue at bay enabling you to build endurance and stamina. This is the main reason many athletes eat a banana during exercise, to boost their potassium levels.
Broccoli can be a great juice to provide your body with a good dose of potassium. Further to potassium, they contain essential antioxidants and vitamins that work to keep oxidative stress in check, leading to faster and more effective recovery from exercise.
6. Spinach Juice
This leafy green is considered a superfood and with just cause. It is mild in taste and is loaded with vitamins A and C. They also contain a healthy dose of antioxidants such as lutein, quercetin and kaempferol.
The nitrates in spinach work to aid the heart and keep the heart in good shape. Nitrates also improve muscle efficiency by increasing the supply of oxygen to muscles. They help improve endurance and performance, enhancing the skeletal muscle contractile function.
The antioxidants in spinach help reduce oxidative stress which helps promote recovery. This leads to enhanced performance.
If you are looking for the means to build your endurance and stamina, adding spinach juice to your workout regimen can be a great way to achieve this.
7. Carrots Juice
Carrots have a sweet flavour, however are not loaded with unhealthy sugars. They are low in calories and is high in vitamin A, biotin and potassium.
Potassium works to keep fatigue at bay and helps build stamina and endurance. You are more likely to exercise for a longer period of time if you have a reliable reserve of potassium in your body. This is why many long-distance runners drink carrot juice. It is a reliable source of potassium and gives them an added boost when it comes to stamina and performance.
Biotin that is present in carrots helps you take full advantage of the carbohydrates that you have stored in your muscles and liver. This enables you to push through long training sessions and helps build stamina. Tapping into these energy reserves can be a great way to enhance performance and give you a competitive edge and biotin in carrots provide just that.
8. Kale Juice
This versatile leafy green works really well as a juice. They have a mild flavour and works great when paired with other fruits and vegetables.
Kale is loaded with nutrients including vitamins A, C and K. Vitamin C in particular plays an important role in the slowing down of the processes that cause cell damage in the body. An example of this is inflammation that is caused by exercise and training. As a result, vitamin C is known to be beneficial in aiding and assisting with recovery and also support recovery from injury.
Vitamin C is also responsible for greater skeletal muscle mass and maintaining stronger muscles. It also plays an integral role in bone health. Both of these tangents help boost performance. It will work to make you stronger, enabling you to perform at higher levels.
9. Celery Juice
Celery juice has gained quite a bit of traction in recent years for its ability to keep people healthy. It is also great for athletes who are looking for a competitive edge.
It has a high water content, which enables good hydration. You tend to lose a lot of water during exercise and training and you need to ensure that you are well hydrated to improve performance. The better hydrated you are, the better your performance levels will be.
They also contain antioxidants such as caffeic acid, ferulic acid and kaempferol which helps fight oxidative stress thereby improving recovery. They also contain vitamins A, K and C which support bone health, respiratory health and improves cardiac function. All these elements play integral roles in improved performance.
If you are looking for a competitive edge, celery juice may provide just that!
10. Wheatgrass Juice
This edible grass is considered one of the most popular vegetables for juicing. They are amazingly nutrient-dense and supplies the body with a rich source of iron, phosphorus, magnesium and copper. They also contain 17 different types of amino acids.
The amino acids in wheatgrass are especially useful for athletes who are looking to grow muscle mass. These amino acids are the building blocks of protein and work to aid muscle recovery and growth.
Iron is an essential mineral that works to transport oxygen from the lungs to other parts of the body. This means iron is especially important during exercise. During exercise, your muscles require sufficient oxygen to execute the function. There is higher work demand placed on muscles during exercise and training. Hence, iron, as that found in wheatgrass juice, becomes an important aspect of performance, preventing muscle fatigue by effectively providing your muscles with sufficient oxygen.
Wheatgrass is incredibly nutritious and contains chlorophyll which has anti-inflammatory properties. This comes in handy to reduce inflammation caused by exercise. It works well as both a pre-workout and post-workout drink.
11. Swiss Chard Juice
This leafy green vegetable is packed with vitamins and minerals. They contain plenty of vitamins A and C which are essential nutrients that double as antioxidants.
Vitamin A plays a significant role in health. It works to improve vision health which may be important for some athletes like basketball players. Vitamin A works to fight free radicals that cause oxidative stress which enables faster recovery from exercise. It also plays a significant role in bone health.
Vitamin C works to slow down the process of cell damage in the body which enables the recovery from inflammation caused by training. Hence, Swiss chard juice can be a great post-workout drink to replenish lost nutrients and recover from inflammation from exercise.
Swiss chard is a great way to stay hydrated and plays an important role in recovery. It will work to boost performance by allowing you to beat fatigue and build endurance and stamina.
12. Parsley Juice
Often dismissed as a garnish, parsley is a herb that works wonders for athletes. It is a great source of vitamins A, K and C, the combination of which provide exceptional boosts to performance for athletes.
The vitamins in parsley help improve recovery time, thereby allowing you to bounce back from training faster. This allows you to build endurance and stamina, enabling you to outperform your competitors.
Vitamins A, K and C work to improve blood sugar and supports heart, kidney and bone health. Not only will it keep you the athlete in optimum health, but it will also work to improve your performance by building stamina, enabling you to beat fatigue from muscle recovery.
Benefits of Vegetable Juices for Athletes
Vegetable juices are a great way to hydrate yourself which enables better performance. The hydration and nutrients that are found through vegetable juices help with recovery from exercise and helps build endurance and stamina. You will be able to push yourself to higher levels. Some vegetable juices even help with managing post-workout muscle pain.
The most important aspect of vegetable juices is the boost that it provides to endurance and stamina. The vitamins and minerals in vegetable juice help to fight fatigue which enables you to keep training for longer without getting tired. It can be a great drink to start the workout and even works well post-workout to replenish the nutrients and aid recovery.
Vegetable juices are a great way to maximise nutrition and facilitate a healthier self. It is easy to make many of these juices. All you require is a juicer or a blender and you can make your juice in minutes. This is especially great for athletes on the run, who don’t have too much time to waste before or after workouts.
Vegetable juices not only work to build endurance and stamina, they also work to increase muscle and bone strength. A stronger muscular and skeletal system will mean you will get stronger as you train, giving you more of a competitive edge to your opponents.
Vegetable juice can be an efficient way to acquire some essential nutrients for athletes and all athletes should try to include some form of vegetable juice in the training regimen.
To Conclude
Vegetable juice can be a great way to get the nutrients that your body needs and replenish nutrient reserves after strenuous exercise. They provide the athlete with the ability to beat fatigue, endure longer, thereby building stamina.
Though we have mentioned each vegetable separately to give you a good idea of the various benefits of each vegetable, you don’t have to only include one vegetable in your juice. You can easily mix the vegetable juices and even add fruits and nuts to make yourself something that pleases your taste buds and contains all the nutrients that your body needs for peak performance.
Remember, some nutrients aid with recovery, others increase endurance and some even build stronger muscles. You should always keep this in mind and find the right vegetable for you that will provide you with exactly what your body needs, based on your specific requirements.
We aimed to provide you with a comprehensive list that would help you better understand how vegetables help boost performance. We hope, after reading this word to word, you have a better idea of what vegetable juices to add to your regimen to improve performance.
Happy Training!
