Wouldn’t it be great if dark chocolate and nitric oxide could boost your athletic performance.
I’m not sure if I should have a question mark or an exclamation mark after that statement. What I do know is that I want to thank Anna for sending me the following article from the New York Times:
Chocolate Can Boost Your Workout. Really.
This article featured a new sports performance study that was published December 2015 in The Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Here’s a quick summary of this study:
There were eight male cyclists who agreed to replace one of their normal snacks with 40 grams of chocolate per day. 40 grams is 1.4 ounces or about one and a half squares. They used the Dove brand of dark chocolate. White chocolate was used as a control.
All cyclists were tested before starting their chocolate program. These tests measured their fitness and oxygen uptake during moderate rides and all-out sprints on a stationary bike. Then they were told to eat their chocolate every day for two weeks. After two weeks they returned to the lab for a repeat of these tests.
The results showed that the cyclists who consumed the dark chocolate performed better in most of their physical tests over those who ate the white chocolate. This improvement was attributed to improved nitric oxide levels. However, this was an assumption since the researchers did not directly measure nitric oxide levels.