Sodium bicarbonate, also known as baking soda, is a common baking ingredient you can buy in any grocery store. You can also find a version of it in every person working and shopping in those stores,
because bicarbonate is a naturally occurring substance in the human body. Normally produced by the kidneys and in a lesser degree in the intestinal tract, bicarbonate works to eliminate hydrogen ions and reduce acidity in the blood.
Given how blood acidity builds up over the course of strenuous exercise, it should be no surprise that people have looked at sodium bicarbonate as a performance supplement. Sure enough, it's an ingredient in some pre-workout and fat-burner blends, but it may also be one of the longest-lived supplements.
Competitive endurance athletes in particular have been including baking soda for decades in their own home-brewed pre-workout blends.
For this reason, it has also been studied rather extensively in the context of various sports including boxing, swimming, cycling, sprinting, and to a far more limited degree, weightlifting. Baking soda training claims have long populated forums and blogs, so if you've ever been curious, here's your introduction to the science behind the soda. Have you been considering raiding the cupboards for a pre-workout bicarbonate fix, either in the place of or alongside another lactic acid buffer such as beta-alanine? If so, read on.
QWHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TAKE BICARBONATE?
Taking some variety of bicarbonate—either sodium or potassium, the latter usually in the form of a potassium supplement—
fairly reliably increases circulating levels of bicarbonate, peaking in around 60-90 minutes. When strenuous exercise is added to the mix, blood lactate levels rise, which is indicative of lower levels of lactic acid; the bicarbonate blocks the conversion of lactate into lactic acid. Due to this buffering ability, sodium bicarbonate is sought after for the same reasons as beta-alanine—
to prolong time to exhaustion or promote more work output when the body would normally slow down due to "the burn."
Most studies agree that a dose of 200-300 mg per kg of bodyweight has the ability to enhance performance in exercises that are short in duration, but longer than a single sprint or lift. In most cases these are 2-7 minute workouts that involve repeated sprints, often on a cycle ergometer. Outside of the lab, HIIT cardio and Tabata protocol training would definitely fall under those parameters. The limited research into bicarbonate supplementation for prolonged aerobic training of 45 minutes or longer at race pace indicates the benefit can be felt there as well.
HOW BIG A BENEFIT?
The performance benefit from bicarbonate supplementation is usually measured at around 1-2 percent. That may not sound like much, but for perspective, it's approximately the same benefit seen from taking 4,800-6,400 mg of beta-alanine. However, the limited research looking at the combination of beta-alanine and bicarbonate suggests that mixing them provides no additional benefit. Consider the two highly similar in action—though definitely not in side effects—but not necessarily complementary.
Perhaps unrelated to all the above, sodium bicarbonate has been shown in some studies to promote neuromuscular function in sports requiring a high degree of coordination. For instance, it appeared to help tennis players prevent the gradual decline in swing accuracy and trained boxers to maintain or improve punch accuracy. This suggests that there might be a neural benefit, but the mechanisms underlying these observations are not currently known.
SODIUM BICARBONATE APPEARS TO HELP TENNIS PLAYERS PREVENT THE GRADUAL DECLINE IN SWING ACCURACY AND TRAINED BOXERS TO MAINTAIN OR IMPROVE PUNCH ACCURACY.
Supplemental bicarbonate has also been shown to benefit people suffering from
metabolic acidosis, either due to chronic kidney disease or as a normal part of the aging process. When the kidneys have impaired function they begin to secrete less bicarbonate into the blood, and a mild state of acidosis results. Bicarbonate could help reduce the rate of bone loss over time; during prolonged acidosis the bones are used in the place of bicarbonate to buffer excess acid.
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