The Science Behind Baking Soda as a Performance Enhancer

If you picked up a case of ketone supplements after reading The Movement a few weeks ago, here's another ingredient you'll be excited to add to your performance cocktail.

This one only costs about a nickel, and it's likely in your pantry now. The only downside is the chance of soiling your pants.

It's known as sodium bicarbonate, but you probably call it baking soda.

It's believed that ingesting baking soda improves the body's ability to buffer acidosis (the burn) that occurs during high-intensity exercise.

It's commonly said that lactic acid is the culprit. However, we now know that lactic acid isn't a driver of fatigue. Instead, the accumulation of hydrogen ions (H⁺) during anaerobic metabolism causes a drop in pH that limits work output.

Numerous studies have explored the performance-enhancing benefits of sodium bicarbonate, particularly in high-intensity activities.

Krustrup et al. (2015): In this study, trained males who supplemented with sodium bicarbonate showed a 14% improvement during a high-intensity intermittent sprint protocol (e.g., beep test). 

Mueller et al. (2013): This study found that cyclists who supplemented with sodium bicarbonate for 5 days had a 23.5% increase in time to exhaustion on a graded cycling test.

 

Siegler et al. (2010): Found that swimmers who took a sodium bicarb solution 2.5 hours prior completed an 8x25m sprint session 4.4 seconds faster.

Still, it's cheap and easily accessible, so why not give it a shot?

The primary reason is that it has a bad reputation for causing bloating, belching, nausea, and diarrhea. The severity depends on the dosage and individual tolerance, but these are things you don't even want a slight chance of during a track or CrossFit workout.  

If you're still interested, a typical dose is .3g per kilogram of body weight (mind the decimal point!)  Or, a much more expensive approach is made by a company called Maurten.

Maurten has a patented "hydrogel" technology that helps transport things through the stomach without causing so much distress. It was initially designed to help deliver medications, but it also gets stuff like high doses of carbohydrates—and now sodium bicarb—into the digestive system easier to power intense exercise.

While tempting, it's the cost that I cannot get past. At $70 for four doses, I'll need a much bigger performance return than a few seconds at my next road race.  

And just like all the other performance enhancers I'm tempted by, I know I should lock down about a dozen other things first—like nutrition, sleep, and cutting out any alcohol— that would have a more significant impact.