UKC

Flicking through a cycling magazine today I saw reference in an article to cyclists taking sodium bicarbonate before a race in order to 'buffer' against lactic acid build up. 

Having done a quick Google search I found a couple of articles at random:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/boost-your-performance-using-simple-baki...

https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/soda-for-sprints-sodium-bicarb-as-a-supple...

Has anybody tried it? 

1-3% means nothing to me, but the mental/coordination improvements could be handy...

Thoughts?

Hi Steve a long time ago I questioned various clinicians and having read it somewhere (Eric Horst?), the response that it would be nigh on impossible to ingest enough bicarbonate without vomiting. 

I would also doubt any efficacy unless someone is going to publish a robust double blinded randomised controlled clinical trial with a decent power calculation for the number of participants.

Disclaimer: I am not a biologist and while I have developed dozens of nutritional products I can't honestly recommend any of them...

I doubt ingesting alkaline foods will impact muscle lactic acid levels. Your blood is naturally buffered to a given pH and changing it is likely to involve intravenous infusion and possibly deadness.

And I think you are right.  

By coincidence I was discussing with an A&E medic (I happened to be sitting next to on the plane) the now discontinued practice of administering iv bicarbonate following cardiac arrest and his experience was that didn't reverse deadness either.

Sounds like nonsence. The acid in your stomach would neutralise it far quicker than you could absorb it into you blood stream.

The same thing as taking rennies except they are calcium carbonate as opposed to sodium bicarb.

I think the concensus from people who’ve actually tried it is that it gives you gastric discomfort and not much else. 

The other aspect is that by having a large amount of sodium you'll temporarily be increasing your blood pressure - which will probably hinder your performance!

Tried it a few times back when I was a racing cyclist.  Mostly for hillclimbs but I'd have to say if it did anything I was unaware of the benefits.  As mentioned it did give a feeling of mild discomfort!

on a similar note beetroot loading for fell races hasn't had any dazzling performance gains for me...in fact my best performances have all been without!

only performance enhancer I've tried for climbing is chalk...it has on occasion helped me climb harder!

If it gets absorbed, it may alkalinise your urine: the kidneys are very efficient at keeping the blood pH where it should be. In animals we use pH diets with a tendency to bladder stones which form at a particular pH. 

Don't think you will be able to change your blood pH though. 

Well it's a laxative so you probably lost weight

Mix sodium bicarb with hydrochloric acid and you'll get sodium chloride, water and carbon dioxide. Not sure how salty burps are going to be of much use, but maybe all the gas may make you lighter?

Seriously though, when Kilian Jornet set the Denali record he just took 1L of water and 300ml of energy gels. I did hear some rumours that he had put baking powder in his water before he went up.

(not really)

Coincidentally half watching TV this morning. I believe there was a bit on preventing necessity of Caesarean sections by taking a bicarbonate to lower blood acidity (small UK and Swedish trials so far).  Like you I would have doubted it could work, but maybe.... 

I seem to remember something about Seb Coe and the other middle distance runners experimenting with this, but I don't know if it works, I think the chemistry is sound.

Though doctors prescribe it to people with kidney disease orally to do exactly the thing you say it doesn’t do!  

When I googled this I found some pretty old info... https://www.nhs.uk/news/medication/baking-soda-for-kidney-patients/

Based on that,  I would say the patients described are ones whose kidneys are no longer doing of job of balancing blood pH, so stand by my argument that normal healthy mammals should just pee out the bicarb. 

The point I was making was that it can be orally ingested and does have an effect on blood after passing through the stomach.  I have no idea of its efficacy in healthy people in terms of sports performance.

There is an extremely large volume of peer reviewed work looking at the efficacy of sodium bicarbonate on different aspects sports performance. Generally, ingestion of this ergogenic aid does seem to enhance blood buffering capacity, though the results from a number of systematic reviews/meta analyses do highlight confounding problems in differing methodologies/poor sample sizes etc. Gastric distress is commonly reported. A nice open access review is here. https://sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40798-016-00...

We give this occasionally to people on ITU. 

I'd be pretty dubious about it's use as a performance enhancer and lactate may be a useful muscle substrate in times of stress. 

This is quite good and written by someone who knows a lot about exercise physiology: 

https://www.si.com/edge/2016/07/21/debunking-myths-lactic-acid-truth-fatigu...