A Legal Competitive Edge

Written by James Witts, content writer for Nopinz.

Experienced endurance athletes are likely aware of sodium bicarbonate and its paradoxical reputation: that it has the potential to improve performance during short-duration, high-intensity events like a time trial or track-running event, but it often comes at the cost of gastro distress. It’s the Russian Roulette of ergogenic aids. Or it was, for a growing body of research suggests that sodium bicarbonate is ready to shed its nauseous reputation. There’s also compelling evidence that its benefits are no longer restricted to those in the Nopinz community who focus solely on shorter races. Welcome to the rebirth of one of sport’s oldest ergogenic aids…

Buffering the acidic ions

Dr Andy Sparks is Research Innovations Manager at Maurten. In a former life, he lectured in exercise physiology at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, England, where he became a world-leading authority on sodium bicarbonate and sporting performance, which is one of the reasons the progressive Swedish nutrition brand snapped him up early in 2024. He’s also an honorary visiting research fellow at the sporting academic mecca that is Liverpool John Moores University. In short, there are few people in the world qualified to unlock bicarbonate’s performance potential.

“Sodium bicarbonate has huge potential to improve performance,” he says. “An increasing number of athletes are realising that, albeit we’ve known for nearly 100 years that sodium bicarbonate increases blood-buffering capacity, which can improve exercise tolerance.”

How exactly? When we train or race hard, our carbohydrate metabolism cranks up in an effort to energise the working muscles. Lactate is a byproduct of creating that energy, of which we now know is beneficial as it’s broken down, fed back into the fuelling system and used again for energy. The problem is that as the duration or intensity of your session or race keeps rising, the body can’t break down and reuse lactate fast enough, which leads to a rise in hydrogen ions.

“Those hydrogen ions impact contractility of the muscle, which can reduce power output and lead to fatigue,” says Sparks. “This is where sodium bicarbonate comes in. Since that first study all those years ago, we’ve known that the ‘acid’ produced during very intense exercise can be neutralised by increasing blood bicarbonate levels.” In other words, raising the pH of the blood before you begin hard exercise means you have a greater bandwidth to dig deep before you begin to fatigue.

That means improved performance with a 2021 meta-analysis undertaken by lead author Jozo Grgic showing typical performance benefits of 2-3% for shorter events like a 1500m run or 10 km time-trial with the best responders enjoying an 8% boost. So, all good? Not quite.

“The problem is that when bicarbonate reacts with acid, it produces carbon dioxide and, for some, creates a bloating sensation,” says Sparks. These symptoms range from burping to nausea and diarrhoea. “It’s compounded in a sport like cycling where you’re hunched over. Or it was. We now know that the method of sodium bicarbonate delivery, its dose and timing are vital to enjoying the significant benefits.”

The perfect delivery

Arguably, delivery is the most important factor behind the sodium-bicarbonate renaissance. Before Maurten snapped him up, Sparks and his PhD students played around with different types of pharmaceutical-grade coatings to encase the bicarb. The results proved promising but didn’t see the commercial light of day.

“In the meantime, Maurten had been working on their Bicarb System,” he says. “If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, it uses a carbohydrate hydrogel mix combined with mini tablets, which allows bicarbonate to avoid interacting with the stomach so you enjoy optimum delivery.”

To hammer home how important the delivery system’s been to the upsurge in athletes taking sodium bicarbonate, Sparks refers to a 2023 study he undertook where he recruited individuals that’d previously been to his laboratory and suffered really bad gastro-distress.“I’m not quite sure how we managed to get them to come back again,” he says! “But we showed that with the new coating, those symptoms disappeared; in fact, those who historically struggled the most benefited the most.”

One of Sparks’ PhD students showed that even those who’d had past issues with sodium bicarbonate bettered their 16.1km time-trial time by an average of 2.3% thanks to the improved delivery vessel. That’s significant, as seen by applying those results to a real-world situation, in this case stage five of this year’s Tour de France. Tadej Pogacar finished second over the 33km time-trial out-and-back from Caen in 36:58mins. That was 16secs behind winner Remco Evenepoel (36:42mins). Now, if Pogacar had enjoyed a 2.3% ergogenic advantage, his overall time would have dropped to 36:12mins, seeing him slip past the Belgian for victory.

Of course, results in the lab don’t always transfer seamlessly to the dynamic world of racing. Whether you’d secure that 2.3% boost remains to be seen but it seems pretty clear that sodium bicarbonate can improve your performance. Which begs the question: how much do you need for a significant effect?

Well, Maurten’s Bicarb System is designed to deliver the equivalent of around 0.3g/kg body mass, so around 21g sodium bicarbonate for a 70kg athlete, but much of Sparks’ work has shown that individualisation is key. That requires playing around with doses in training. Start with the 0.3g/kg unless you’re much lighter (under 60kg) or much heavier (over 80kg). Then, you might consider adjusting those quantities up and down slightly.

As for when you should consume the bicarbonate, again Sparks’ studies show that the time taken for bicarbonate to peak in the blood is very much an individual thing. But around three hours before your key training session or race is recommended, but this could drop to two-and-a-half hours or rise to three-and-a-half hours. Play around, reflect on its gut and performance effect, and move on from there. And that advice is aimed at all endurance athletes, not just the fast-twitchers…

Higher, faster, longer

Historically, and as we’ve seen, sodium-bicarbonate ingestion would have focused on delivering a buffering boost for shorter, high-intensity efforts. But those of you who follow professional cycling might be aware that it’s increasingly being used at WorldTour road races, whether it’s a stage of the Tour de France or a one-day classic like Paris-Roubaix. In fact, the eagle-eyed amongst you might have spotted Canadian Mike Woods scooping out the Maurten mix at last year’s World Championship road race. “It’s just some Maurten bicarb,” Woods said afterwards. “It’s impressive.”

Last year’s men’s road race in Zurich was the longest edition in a generation, measuring 273.9km. Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar won (who else) in a time of six hours, 27 minutes and 30 seconds, with Woods finishing 12 minutes back.

“Up until fairly recently, many papers were saying that it wasn’t worth taking sodium bicarbonate if you were exercising any longer than 15 minutes. That was based on a pretty simplistic model of energy pathways but meant the majority of research in this area focused on shorter distances,” says Sparks. “However, that oversimplifies what endurance exercise is; it’s fixed-intensity, long-duration exercise to exhaustion, presuming that over a long ride or run you stick at a certain percentage of maximum capacity for prolonged periods. But that’s not how things work, certainly not in a race. Take a road race where intensities fluctuate throughout. There are gradient and directional changes, race tactics… all of this means that you often exercise intensely with periods of recovery in between.”

To that end, Sparks and his team had a team of club-level riders mimic race conditions by undertaking two 4km time-trials with 45 minutes of active recovery in between after consuming the bicarbonate solution. “We found that the blood bicarbonate and pH improved with the Maurten Bicarb System, the riders recovered faster between efforts. That’s potentially really useful if you’re in a breakaway, for instance.”

“But what was really interesting was that though the riders enjoyed a performance improvement, their physiological metrics and perceived exertion [RPE] remained the same,” Sparks continues. “We’ve shown the same at altitude. It got us thinking that bicarbonate’s benefits don’t solely derive from the buffering effect. It’s more multi-dimensional.”

Many strings to its bow

“One of the potential mechanisms of riders having good legs is down to acid-sensing pain receptors,” Sparks adds. “If we can rid the blood and muscle of some hydrogen ions, then pain sensation is lower, which has a direct impact on ratings of exertion. Sodium bicarbonate is used in a clinical setting in anaesthesia to diminish pain. It also accelerates how quickly anaesthetic drugs work, so it makes sense.”

Sparks also suggests that bicarbonate improves gross efficiency, so you can maintain a higher pace for longer, and there’s evidence that it can alter your ventilatory rate, which feeds back into your perceived exertion, so again you can dig deeper and race faster.

But only for a time. Like all supplements and real food itself, the effects do wear off. When Woods scooped up his mixture, he was into his race, not at the start. Should you, the recreational athlete, do the same? “There is research that shows the sprint finish at the end of a three-hour-plus race was improved via an in-race micro-dosing ingestion strategy by taking 0.1g/kg once exercising after loading up before,” says Sparks. “We know WorldTour teams do that and there is scope for it to work but play it safe: you definitely don’t want to be ingesting a 0.3g/kg dose when working hard because that might cause stomach issues.”

And practical issues. Scooping up from the Bicarb System tub is no easy feat when running or riding, let alone how you would store it. A more practical option is Mnstry’s sodium-bicarbonate gels, which purportedly feature their own stomach-friendly casing. If you try Mnstry’s products, they suggest measuring out 0.2g to 0.3g per kilogram of their bicarb powder product, so between 14g to 21g for a 70kg rider, and then consume 60% of it three hours before your effort. Then take the other 40% around 75 minutes before the start. During a long race, you can top up with their gel after three hours and then another a couple of hours later.

Is it worth it? The evidence is certainly strong that you’ll enjoy a performance boost, though as ever, ensure you tick off the maximal wins first of consistent, progressive training and a healthy, energising diet. Then it’s up to you and your interest in saving time. If you do, prepare to spend around £60 for the Maurten Bicarb System. That’s for 15 servings, so around £4 a hit. As ever – and especially with a nutritional supplement that has a long history of leading to an explosive outcome – ensure you try in training before unleashing in the racing amphitheatre.

 

–  This post was written by James Witts.

James Witts is a writer who specialises in endurance sport and sports science. He has three books on his palmares including The Science of the Tour de France and Riding with the Rocketmen. He also writes for a broad range of consumer publications including Rouleur, Cyclist, The Observer and 220 Triathlon.