If you've been on cycling Instagram in the last six months, you've seen the green shots. Mads Pedersen drinking one before Paris-Roubaix. UAE riders posting them in pre-stage stories. Visma–Lease a Bike using them around hard blocks. They're not beetroot juice. They're not a copy of anything else on the supplement market. They're called Nomio, and the active compound is something most cyclists have never heard of.
Dr Filip Larsen, exercise physiologist and the scientist behind the product, sat down for this conversation to walk through what's actually inside, what the cycling study showed, and where the boundaries of the claim sit. This is the honest version.
What Nomio actually is
Composition is straightforward. 80% stabilised broccoli sprout extract. 15% lemon juice. 5% sugar. The lemon and sugar are there for taste and shelf-stability. The active ingredient is the broccoli sprout extract — concentrated for a class of compounds called isothiocyanates.
Isothiocyanates aren't new to nutrition science. Sulforaphane, the most studied member of the family, has been on the longevity-research radar for two decades. It shows up in broccoli sprouts at much higher concentrations than mature broccoli — roughly 50-100x — which is why every isothiocyanate-targeting supplement uses sprouts as the source.
The Nomio innovation isn't the source. It's the stabilisation. Isothiocyanates are notoriously unstable — exposed to oxygen and processing they degrade fast. Most "broccoli supplement" products contain a fraction of the active compound the label claims because the stabilisation step is hard. The Nomio formulation locks the isothiocyanates in a form that survives the manufacturing process and the digestive system in concentrations the lab can verify in blood samples post-consumption.
That's the part that matters scientifically. You can buy broccoli sprouts at a market. You probably won't get the same blood-level isothiocyanate concentration as you do from a stabilised shot. The shot exists because the bioavailability problem is real.
The mechanism: Nrf2
Here's where it gets interesting from a training-adaptation perspective.
Nrf2 is a transcription factor that lives in muscle cells. Most of the time it's bound up in a complex that keeps it inactive. When it gets released, it translocates to the cell nucleus and switches on a battery of genes — antioxidant defence enzymes, mitochondrial biogenesis pathways, glutathione synthesis, others. Nrf2 is, in effect, the muscle cell's "I need to handle stress better next time" master switch.
Hard exercise activates Nrf2 transiently. The activation is a major part of how training works at the cellular level — the stress signal triggers the adaptation programme, which means next time the same stress shows up the cell handles it more efficiently.
Isothiocyanates also activate Nrf2 — through a slightly different chemical pathway, but the downstream effect overlaps with the exercise-induced activation. The hypothesis Nomio tested: if you stack isothiocyanate supplementation on top of a hard training block, do you get more total Nrf2 activation, more mitochondrial production, and a better adaptation to the same training load?
The cycling study was designed to test exactly that.
The study Larsen ran
Randomised double-blinded crossover. Athletes completed a one-week heavy training block — 4-8 minute build-to-max intervals every day. The intent was to push them into slight overreach, force the body into a strong adaptation signal, then track recovery and supercompensation across the following days.
Half the athletes got Nomio during the block. Half got placebo. Then they crossed over and repeated with the opposite condition, eliminating individual response variance.
Two outcomes mattered.
Lactate at threshold. After the heavy week, lactate at the same workload (around 250W for the threshold of these athletes) actually rose in the placebo condition — the riders failed to adapt and got worse at clearing lactate at that intensity. The same riders on Nomio showed lower lactate at the same workload. The supplement group adapted; the placebo group didn't.
Muscle biopsy markers. Nrf2 expression was elevated in the isothiocyanate condition. The mechanistic check confirmed the hypothesis — the supplement was switching on the genes the model predicted it would.
That's a clean signal for adaptation amplification. The supplement didn't make athletes faster on day one. It made them adapt better to the training block they were doing — which is the lever that actually matters for long-term progression.
The dosing surprise
The acute-response follow-up study (still on bioRxiv as a preprint as of the conversation) tested different doses against blood isothiocyanate concentration. The result that surprised even Larsen: one shot outperformed two.
Two shots produced roughly the same peak blood concentration as one. Adding a second dose didn't extend or amplify the response. The mechanism saturates at relatively low doses, and pushing past saturation just wastes the supplement.
Peak blood concentration occurred about three hours after consumption. That's the window when Nrf2 activation is strongest. Implication for cyclists: take it three hours before the hard session you want to amplify, not immediately before. The "drink it 15 minutes before the race" model doesn't fit the pharmacokinetics.
This is also why Nomio is positioned as a training-phase tool rather than a race-day stimulant. Beetroot juice (nitrate) lowers oxygen cost acutely and can improve race performance for several hours after consumption — that's a different compound doing a different job. Isothiocyanates work over training cycles. They're for the week of hard intervals before the race, not the morning of the race itself.
The "trained athletes respond more" finding
Most supplements show diminishing returns as the user gets fitter. The fitter you are, the harder it is to move the needle with anything you eat or drink.
Larsen's data went the other way. Trained athletes responded more strongly to isothiocyanate supplementation than untrained subjects. The mechanism makes sense if you think about it — Nrf2 amplification matters more when your training stimulus is large enough to require strong adaptation. Sedentary people aren't training their mitochondria to a meaningful degree. Trained cyclists are.
This is unusual for a supplement claim and worth flagging because it changes the audience. Most "longevity" or "recovery" supplements target the general wellness market and underperform in serious athletes. This one was developed in serious athletes and the response is biggest in people doing actual hard training.
Where the science is and where it isn't
The honest position on the evidence base.
What's solid. The Nrf2 mechanism is well-established in non-cycling contexts. The supplement-and-cycling-adaptation study is published, peer-reviewed, randomised double-blinded, with mechanistic biopsy markers that align with the performance markers. The acute dose-response follow-up is internally consistent.
What's still under construction. Independent replication by research groups outside Larsen's institution is in progress but not yet published as of the conversation. The 2024-25 cohort of follow-up studies will tell us whether the effect generalises across populations and protocols.
What's reasonable to do with the current evidence. Treat Nomio as a credible training-block tool with a defensible mechanism and a reasonable supporting study. Use it during heavy intensity blocks where adaptation is the limiting factor. Don't treat it as a magic bullet. Don't treat it as a race-day stimulant. Don't expect it to fix poor recovery, poor fuelling, or grey-zone training — those structural problems aren't solved by any supplement.
How to fit Nomio into a training programme
Three honest scenarios where it makes sense to try it.
During a peak intensity block before an A-race. The 3-4 weeks where you're stacking VO2 sessions, sustained threshold work, and sweet-spot — that's when adaptation amplification matters most. Daily Nomio across the block, taken 2-3 hours before the hard session, is the protocol that maps cleanest to the study design.
During a return-to-training block after illness or injury. When you're trying to rebuild capacity in compressed time, anything that helps the muscle adapt faster to a given load is worth testing. The "trained athletes respond more" finding applies here — once you're a few weeks back into training, the response to the supplement should be meaningful.
Across a winter base block where you're trying to bank adaptations. Less obvious but defensible. The base block builds mitochondrial density at zone 2 intensity. Nrf2 activation supports mitochondrial biogenesis. Layering them might amplify the base adaptation. The study didn't test this directly, so it's an inference, but a reasonable one.
Three scenarios where it doesn't make sense.
Race day acute boost. Wrong tool. Use beetroot or caffeine if you want acute performance.
Across the entire year. Pharmacological saturation aside, supplement tolerance is a real thing and continuous use of the same intervention reduces its effect. Periodise it.
As a substitute for fixing the training week. If the FTP isn't moving because the week is grey-zone, the recovery is broken, or the fuelling is under-resourced, no supplement will fix it. We laid out the five fixable causes of an FTP plateau — supplements aren't on that list because they don't address any of the five.
Final positioning
Nomio is one of the more interesting cycling supplements in the market right now because it has a clear mechanism, a published study with biopsy-level confirmation, and a defined use case that doesn't overstate the claim. The marketing has stayed reasonably honest because the underlying science is reasonably honest. That alone makes it stand out in a category dominated by aggressive claims and thin evidence.
Don't expect transformation. Expect a measurable amplification of how well your body adapts to a hard training block, with the magnitude depending on how serious your training already is.
If you're doing the work — properly programmed intensity, real recovery, fuelled rides — and you want to squeeze a bit more out of a peak block, this is a defensible thing to try. If you're not doing the work, fix the work first. The supplement won't carry a broken plan. The riders inside our coaching system who get the most from any supplement are always the ones whose training, fuelling and recovery are already in order — that's the prerequisite, not the optional part.
Comparison to other compound classes
A short orientation for cyclists trying to fit Nomio in alongside the other supplements with credible evidence.
Nitrate (beetroot juice). Acute performance compound. Lowers oxygen cost of submaximal exercise for several hours after consumption. Use case: race day or hard session day, ingested 2-3 hours before. Different mechanism from Nomio (vasodilation and oxygen efficiency, not Nrf2 activation). Both could plausibly be used in different contexts of a season.
Caffeine. Stimulant. Acute performance compound. Use case: race day or hard session day, ingested 30-60 minutes before. Reliable evidence base. Different mechanism. Stacks with nitrate for many riders.
Creatine. Adaptation compound used over weeks. Increases phosphocreatine availability for short maximal efforts. Use case: trained on across a 4-12 week loading and maintenance protocol. We covered the cycling-specific protocol in the creatine for cyclists 30-day breakdown. Mechanism differs from Nomio but the time-scale is similar (weeks of consistent dosing rather than acute use).
Polyphenols (tart cherry, montmorency). Anti-inflammatory and recovery-aid compounds. Used post-session to dampen inflammatory response. Different from Nomio in that they suppress the inflammatory signal rather than amplify the adaptation signal. Some debate in the literature about whether suppressing inflammation post-session reduces training adaptation.
Nomio (isothiocyanates). Adaptation amplifier. Used during heavy training blocks to enhance the body's response to a given training load. Time scale is days-to-weeks, not acute. Closest comparator is creatine in terms of how it fits a programme — pre-loaded across a block rather than taken on performance day.
For amateurs who want to use one or two supplements with the strongest evidence and clearest mechanism, the practical priority order looks like: caffeine first (reliable acute), creatine second (broad adaptation across power-related qualities), nitrate third (specific acute performance lift), Nomio fourth (specific to heavy training blocks). The order isn't fixed — riders with specific use cases might invert it. Whatever you choose, get the in-ride fuelling right first — the Fuelling Calculator will tell you how many grams of carbohydrate per hour your sessions actually need, and no supplement compensates for being under-fuelled.
The point underneath: don't add Nomio if you haven't dialled the basics. Sleep, fuelling, structured training, recovery. The supplement market is full of products that cost more and do less than getting those four right. Nomio is one of the more interesting ones and worth a serious test if your basics are already in place.
We'll keep tracking the independent replication studies as they publish. Follow the conversation on the Roadman Cycling Podcast — when the data lands, we'll cover it.