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Nitrate and Exercise Performance

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Part of the book series: Nutrition and Health ((NH))

Abstract

Nitrate (NO3 ), which can be increased via dietary supplementation, is a precursor for nitric oxide (NO) synthesis in hypoxic and acidic conditions. Skeletal muscles become acidic and hypoxic during exercise, increasing the potential for NO synthesis after NO3 supplementation. NO3 supplementation has been shown to improve exercise economy and endurance performance in moderately trained, but not well-trained subjects. More recently, NO3 supplementation has been shown to improve short-duration, high-intensity exercise performance. Overall, NO3 supplementation has significant potential to enhance exercise performance and this review summarizes the NO3 supplementation procedures, exercise settings and subject groups in which performance enhancement is most likely.

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Bailey, S.J., Vanhatalo, A., Jones, A.M. (2017). Nitrate and Exercise Performance. In: Bryan, N., Loscalzo, J. (eds) Nitrite and Nitrate in Human Health and Disease. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46189-2_20

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