Estimated read time: 4.16 minutes (about as long as it takes to convince your training partner that yes, you're drinking liquified broccoli on purpose🤔)

Hey Performance Nerds! Jonah here. 🤓

Elite runners are taking concentrated broccoli shots before hard sessions. Athletes setting half-marathon PRs swear by it.

Broccoli. For performance. Seriously.

We looked at every published study. Here's what we found.

Here's what you'll learn today:

(Augie would rather eat broccoli off the kitchen floor than let me blend it into a shot. Fair point, jk he hates broccoli.)

More of you found this newsletter in the last three months than the prior year combined. I can't thank you enough.

This has become my passion. I get to do this full time now because of you.

Race season is close. If you're deep in fueling decisions or trying to cut through the noise, reply and tell me what you need.

This week I'm breaking down something most of you have asked about but never got a straight answer on.

My job is to keep earning your trust. I plan to.

P.S. I'm working on something new. More ways to connect you directly with researchers and the science they publish. A community built for runners who think like you do. Can't share details yet, but it's close.

The gel I race with (and why):

BETA FUEL: delivers 40g of carbs per serving through a 1:0.8 maltodextrin-to-fructose ratio.

That ratio is why I've never had a GI issue with it in 3 years of racing. Fast absorption, no gut bombs. I don't earn a commission on this. I negotiated 15% off for you because I believe in the science behind it.

Marathon Science subscribers get 15% off one-time purchases with code JONAH26. Live now through May 31.

The running power meter trusted by serious athletes — is now an official performance sponsor of Marathon Science, delivering real-time pacing precision so you can train smarter and race faster.

💡 See this week’s full Stryd training tip at the end of this newsletter.

Nomio is a concentrated broccoli sprout extract. One shot delivers the equivalent of eating 2.5-3 kg of raw broccoli.

The active compounds are called isothiocyanates. You don't need to remember that name.

The active compounds flip a switch in your cells that boosts your body's own antioxidant defense. Think of it as training your cells to protect themselves.

Why runners care: the claim is that it delays how quickly lactate builds up during hard efforts.

Lactate isn't waste. It's fuel your body shuttles between muscle fibers.

Less buildup may mean you can push harder before hitting that ceiling.

This is different from beetroot juice. Beetroot lowers your oxygen cost. Nomio targets your internal defense system. Same sport, different playbook.

The main study: Flockhart et al. (2023) tested 9 healthy subjects over 7 days of hard training.

Those taking the extract could work harder before lactate spiked. Their lactate buildup happened later, at higher intensities. Time to exhaustion improved too.

The catch: 9 people. 7 days.

The senior author, Filip Larsen, co-founded Nomio. That's not fraud. But it's a conflict of interest you should know about.

One other paper (Sundqvist et al., 2025) backs up the lactate finding with dose-response data. Also from the same lab. Independent scientists haven't reviewed it yet.

The only independent work comes from the Hood lab at York University. They confirmed the mechanism works in lab cells. Important, because no one with Nomio ties ran the experiment.

But cells in a dish aren't the same as your body during a tempo run.

The contradiction: Cesanelli et al. (Antioxidants, 2026) tested broccoli powder enriched with mustard-seed powder.

No measurable performance benefit. No meaningful change in oxidative stress or recovery.

Critical detail: they used broccoli powder (low in active compounds), not sprout extract (high). The form matters.

Beetroot juice earned its credibility over 15+ years of independent replication. It's now IOC-recognized.

Nomio is where beetroot was in 2009. Real science, early evidence.

The gap between "promising" and "proven" is independent replication.

No fully independent clinical trial on broccoli sprout extract and exercise performance exists as of April 2026.

No adverse effects have been reported in any study. It's broccoli extract, so the risk is minimal.

I've been experimenting with Nomio before quality sessions for the past few months.

Anecdotally, I've noticed a difference. A few athletes I work with report the same.

Is that the broccoli extract or just good training? Honestly, hard to say. But with no adverse effects and plausible science, it's worth trying for yourself.

What would change my mind: One independent clinical trial with 30+ participants showing meaningful performance improvement in trained athletes under normal training conditions.

(That bar is genuinely hard to clear. Most exercise trials never get close.)

Bottom line: Real research, thin evidence, honest conflict of interest. Worth watching. Not worth reorganizing your supplement shelf.

Jonah

Welcome to the prove you’re a nerd section. Each week, I ask a question about a common running science myth.

Answer correctly, and you’ll be entered into a weekly raffle to win a package of Jonah’s favorite supplements.

Most runners hear “elastic” and think softer equals better. More bounce, more rebound, more free speed. But your body is not a trampoline, it is a spring that works best when it is stiff in the right places.

The correct answer?
B. Higher Achilles tendon and leg stiffness to transmit force more efficiently with less energy loss ⚡ ✅

A stiffer Achilles lets your calf muscles stay more efficient, offloading work to the tendon and reducing energy cost each step.

Here’s how the votes shook out:
🟨 A. More compliant tendons to store more elastic energy and get a bigger “rebound” each stride 🪢 – 44
🟩 B. Higher Achilles tendon and leg stiffness to transmit force more efficiently with less energy loss ⚡ – 203 ✅
⬜️ C. Greater joint range of motion (looser ankles and hips) to increase stride length and reduce restriction 🧘‍♂️ – 8
⬜️ D. Lower overall stiffness to reduce impact forces and make running feel smoother and easier 🛟 – 8

A lot of you got this one right.

The confusion usually comes from the word “elastic.” It sounds like softer tissues would store more energy. But in running, too much compliance leaks energy instead of returning it.

There is one nuance worth knowing.

You want stiffness in the tendon, not rigidity everywhere. Your joints still need to move well. But when it comes to transmitting force through the ground, stiffer systems waste less energy.

Bottom line?
If you want better economy, don’t chase “more bounce.” Build a system that returns energy quickly, not one that absorbs it.

I've been running with Stryd Duo lately. Two pods, one per foot. On my last 16-miler, something showed up around mile 12.

My left Ground Contact Time started climbing while my right stayed flat. Left Leg Spring Stiffness dropped about 6% more than my right. Same pace, same power, but my legs were no longer sharing the load equally.

A single pod can't see that. Stryd Duo captures per-leg GCT, LSS, and power contribution independently.

When fatigue builds, asymmetries emerge.

Maybe it's real fatigue. Maybe it's subconscious compensation from an old niggle. I'm still figuring out what mine means.

Why it matters:

This is one of my favorite ways to know if training is working. Whether a supplement, a strength block, or a recovery protocol actually changed something, the symmetry data doesn't lie.

On your next long run with Duo, compare left and right GCT traces in PowerCenter. The gap tells a story your total power number won't.

👉 Try it on your next run