Sodium Bicarbonate

SteveR_100Milers

I have read that ingesting before racing can help by buffering the acid production during intense effort. I'm intrigued as to whether it actually works or not...? I presume its added to a drink an hour or so before a race.

oldwelshman

I have used it for heart burn and it works but do not think it is wise to take it that often !

chrisw12

Where did you see that Steve?

I remember a few years back that I think Ric Stern had done some research into something similar. I wonder if he or Alex will respond. (I may of course be completely wrong as it was a few years ago.)

Slow1972

I've heard of this being used before but I understood that the "buffering" effect was for a realtively short period of time (i.e a couple of minutes or less) so was omething that was tried by track pursuiters etc but not by anyone doing any longer distances.

I know someone who used to ride pursuit at international level in the early 90's and I recall him telling me the team experimented with this

Alex_Simmons/RST

chrisw12 wrote:

Where did you see that Steve?

I remember a few years back that I think Ric Stern had done some research into something similar. I wonder if he or Alex will respond. (I may of course be completely wrong as it was a few years ago.)

Ric did research on tribasic sodium phosphate. Can search pubmed for the summary.

Some info on bicarb can be found here:
http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition ... icarbonate

Usually for shorter duration events, can cause GI distress and probably not much point for high volume athletes such as endurance cyclists.

andrewgturnbull

Hi there.

I was a guniea pig for a study on this a couple of years ago. The results did show a short-term buffering effect, but you have to take a lot...

...and by GI distress you can read sh*t your pants...

Cheers, Andy

ride_whenever

Yeah, the SiS area rep has mentioned it in his sports nutrition talk he gave to my rowers...

Basically it can work pretty well, but it is incredibly salty, most professional athletes cannot stomach it, and due to the high sodium content it really isn't very good for you.

IIRC beta-alanine is also a lactate buffer but is easier to stomach...

SteveR_100Milers

I googled a few papers on the topic last night and most concluded no significant difference between placebo and test group amongst 800m runners and some rowers. One study said their might be a benefit to cyclists and long distance runners but needed more research. Sounds to me like the potential mess isn't worth the small potential.