0.3g/kg Bicarbonate Will Make Trained Cyclists Last 4.5 Min Longer (+9%) During Std. High Intensity Cycling Tests

Don't forget that cyclists are not the only group of athletes who can benefit from bicarbonate supplementation. Strength trainees who spend hours in the gym and train at high intensities will also benefit!

I know that most of you are into resistance not endurance training. So, before I even get into the discussion of the experimental procedures and the results of the latest study from the Institute of Sports and Preventive Medicine at the Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany, I would like to point you to an older SuppVersity article which indicates that bicarbonate supplementation is able to Up Your Squat (+27%) & Bench Press (+6%) Within 60 Min" (read more).

Now that you've hopefully put away your prejudices against "that endurance supplement", let's get to the previously mentioned study by Florian Egger, Tim Meyer, Ulf Such, and Anne Hecksteden (thanks to Conrad P. Earnest for bringing this to my attention).

You can learn more about bicarbonate and pH-buffers at the SuppVersity

The Hazards of Acidosis

Build Bigger Legs W/ Bicarbonate

HIIT it Hard W/ NaCHO3

HIIT + Bicarb = Perfect Match

Bicarb Buffers Creatine

Beta Alanine Fails to HIIT Back

To investigate the effects of BICA supplementation on performance during prolonged, high-intensity cycling to exhaustion in well-trained athletes, the scientists from the Saarland University recruited 6 male and 5 female "well-trained" cyclists (mean ± SD: age 24±8 y, BMI 21.3±1.7, VO2peak 67.3±9.8 ml/kg/min - the VO2peak value tells you that they were fit ;-).

In a double-blind, randomized cross-over design, the subjects underwent two stepwise incremental exercise tests and two constant load tests (with two phases) on an electrically braked cycle ergometer (Excalibur Sport, Lode, Groningen, The Netherlands).

Figure 1: Schematic representation of the general design.Time interval between tests is specified in days (d). Data are presented as means ± standard deviation respectively, with minimum (min) and maximum (max) values (Egger. 2014).

As the overview of the study design in Figure 1 tells you, each test type was completed twice. Once after the ingestion of 0.3 g/kg sodium bicarbonate (yes, that's roughly 24g for someone who weighs 80g and should not be consumed too fast, because otherwise it may trigger diarrhea) or a placebo supplement in form of 4 g sodium chloride that was chosen to make sure that any benefits that were observed were due to the natrium, not the bicarbonate content of sodium bicarbonate.

There is relatively little sodium in NaHCO3: Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda or NaHCO3, as a chemist would say is a molecule that contains natrium (or sodium as the Americans say) and bicarbonate. It has a total molar mass of 84.007 g/mol. This means that ~73% of the sodium bicarbonate powder you ingest are actually bicarbonate and only ~27% are sodium. The whopping dose of 20-30g of bicarbonate that is usually used in studies will thus deliver "only" 5.4g-8.1g of sodium. That's still plenty, but as you know for a trained athlete who's sweating like a pig during his workouts and may be losing up to 30g of sodium in his sweat, it's not a problem and can in fact be a performance enhancing blessing (see previous article on the dangers of low sodium diets in athletes).

Both the plain salt and the sodium bicarbonate were solved in 0.7 l water. The outcome measures were simple: Only if the subjects were able to pedal significantly longer until they were exhausted in the standardized constant load test, sodium bicarbonate could be considered to have practically relevant performance enhancing effects (maximum performance in the stepwise incremental exercise test, i.e. maximal workload and VO2peak were used as secondary outcomes).

Figure 2: Blood lactate (BLa) concentrations after ingestion (post drink) and during constant load tests (mean ± SD) for the BICA and placebo trials (Egger. 2014)

The other parameters the scientists measured, i.e. the blood lactate [BLa], pH, and bicarbonate concentration, were merely used determine the mechanisms for the potential improvements in exercise performance.

Speaking of auxiliary measures, if you take a look at Figure 2 you will see that the blood pH dropped significantly right after the ingestion of the bicarbonate supplement and remained "low" throughout the trial and afterwards. An observation that does not come unexpected. Previous trials have after all shown that it's the ability of bicarbonate to blunt the high-intensity exercise related perturbations in both blood and muscle acid-base that keeps the maximal work rate up and leads to performance increases compared to placebo supplements.

Bicarbonate Serial Loading! Don't forget that you can reduce the side effects by repeatedly using smaller quantities of sodium bicarbonate aka "serial loading" (read more). Personally, I would expect that this procotol turns the acute performance enhancer into a permanent ergogenic you can use on both on and off days. Unfortunately, a corresponding study that would prove my hypothesis has not yet been conducted.

These performance decrements are caused by the accumulation of hydrogen ions (H+) in the myoplasm and their detrimental effects on myofilament interaction, glycolytic flux and sarcoplasmatic reticulum function. As Egger et al. point out

"[t]he ability of the body to prevent or delay these force limiting processes is determined by the capacity of its intrinsic buffering systems, which counteract the accumulation of H+ both inside and outside the cell," (Egger. 2014)

which explains why the benefits of both beta alanine (which increases the intra-cellular buffering capacity) and bicarbonate are most pronounced in athletes competing in high intensity sports.

Figure 3: Time to exhaustion and maximal workload (total) and maximal workload at the individual anaerobic threshold (IAT) during the bicarbonate and placebo trials (Egger. 2014).

Apropos ergogenic effects: I already gave it away in the headline. The consumption of the bicarbonate supplement lead to immediate increases in the time to exhaustion with 49.5 ±11.5 min being the maximum in the bicarbonate and 45.0±9.5 min being the maximum in the placebo condition.

The maximal workload in the stepwise incremental tests (BICA: 341±66 W; placebo: 339±67 W) and workload at IAT (BICA: 234±5.5 W; placebo 233±5.7 W), on the other hand, did not differ significantly.

Bottom line: In the end, the study at hand confirms what we already knew. Sodium bicarbonate is one of the few supplements with instant ergogenic effects. In that, these benefits are particularly pronounced, when it comes to high volume + high intensity exercises (in this case high volume means cycling for a comparatively long time).

Don't forget that serial loading, i.e. taking smaller amounts of NaHCO3 spread repeatedly, can reduce the side effects without compromising the benefits of sodium bicarbonate supplementation | learn more

Both of these qualities distinguish sodium bicarbonate from beta alanine which acts as an intra-cellular buffer, only, has to be taken for at least two, better four weeks and provides significant performance benefits of 2.85% on average only on exercises that last for 60-240s (Hobson. 2012).

Thus, in spite of the fact that you can obviously use both (see "Beta Alanine and Baking Soda (NaHCO3), a Synergistic Duo for 4-min All-Out Sprints Even in Highly Trained Athletes?" | read more), I personally think that sodium bicarbonate is the more powerful acid buffer for athletes... but as you know, I am willing to accept if you have a different opinion - as long as it is substantiated | Make yourselves heard on Facebook!

References:

• Egger F, Meyer T, Such U, Hecksteden A. "Effects of Sodium Bicarbonate on High-Intensity Endurance Performance in Cyclists: A Double-Blind, Randomized Cross-Over Trial". PLoS ONE 9.12 (2014): e114729.
• Hobson, Ruth M., et al. "Effects of β-alanine supplementation on exercise performance: a meta-analysis." Amino acids 43.1 (2012): 25-37.

Baking Soda For Stressed White Blood Cells: 0.3g/kg NaCO3 90min Before an Anaerobic Workout Protect Your Immune Cells From "Stress" and Oxidative Damage

Image 1: Pure baking soda is not (yet?) a staple of the supplemental arsenal of many athletes. The scientific evidence with regard to its immediate ergogenic effects is ambigious and the mere presence of the word "sodium" in "sodium bicarbonate" scares the hack out of those athletes (bodybuilders and figure competitors) who may benefit most from a few grams of this potent alkalizer.

"Sodium"! This word alone is usually enough to scare bodybuilders and fitness athletes to death. "Sodium!? Isn't that the stuff that makes me look bloated?" The answer is easy: No! While sodium will help you retain enough water in your body to perform in the gym, the amount of sodium you ingest usually has little impact on the amount of water you will be holding, only when you start modulating your sodium intake, your body will react with changes in the renin-andiotensin-aldosterone system and you will be fluctuating "nicely" back and forth from super-bloated to weak and dehydrated... this is yet commonly ignored within the fitness community and thus it is no wonder that most supplement producers are anxious not to include any ingredients in their products that would show up on the label as "sodium" - after all, there are still costumers out there who have not enrolled at the SuppVersity and will thusly run away screaming as soon as they take a closer look on the label of a product they were just about to buy.

It is thusly no wonder that (at least to my knowledge) KreAlkalyn, where NACO3 is the working ingredient of the highly advertised buffering system, is the only product using sodium bicarbonate, or soda ash, as it is also called, as one of its main constituents (more on this topic in the SuppVersity Creatine Special). In medical settings NACO3 was and, in parts, still is still the "drug" of choice to combat acute acidosis. It is thus no wonder that Daniel J. Peart and his colleagues from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, as well as the Bond University in Queensland, Australia are not the first scientists who speculated that athletes, especially those competing in (primarily) anaerobic sports, could benefit from the alkalizing effects of their grandmothers' secret weapon in the war against fungi and bacteria on her kitchen furnishings (Peart. 2011).

Image 2: "Cholesterol is the devil and sodium is his little brother!" Everyone who still believes everything the medical orthodoxy says, please raise your hands!

A note on the dangers of "salt": Firstly, baking soda is "only" ~28% sodium, which means that for every 4 grams you ingest you get roughly 1 g of sodium. Secondly, it is arguable how much of the sodium is effectively taken up and will be floating around in your blood. As T. Lakhanisky points out in his dossier for the Belgian government: "The uptake of sodium, via exposure to sodium carbonate, is much less than the uptake of sodium via food. Therefore, sodium carbonate is not expected to be systemically available in the body." (Lakhanisky. 2002) And thirdly, there is more and more evidence that suggests that the chloride rather than the sodium content of common table salt (NaCl = NatriumChloride) is the root cause of "sodium induced hypertension" in "sodium sensitive" individuals / animal models. Only recently, a study by Schmidlin et al. showed that chloride loading induced hypertension in the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat despite profound sodium depletion (Schmidlin. 2010). So, if you asked me, rather than pointing at salt as the #2 on the list of greatest evils (obviously cholesterol is still #1, here) the medical orthodoxy would be better advised to address the imbalances between sodium and potassium, which are so characteristic of the western diet, instead of painting yet another black and white picture where sodium is the bad guy and potassium the dangerous mineral that cannot be sold OTC in dosages >80mg.... but hey, this would be the topic for a whole new blogpost and as gross as it may sound, the chance that you get diarrhea from the baking soda is probably 1000x higher than the remote possibility of increases in blood pressure. A 1990 study by Luft et al. even found that the blood pressure of 10 mildly hypertensive and normal subjects decreased by 5mmHg after 7 days in the course of which they drank 3 liters of sodium bicarbonate containing water per day (Luft. 1990)

In their study, Peart et al. had a group of seven recreationally active men (age 22.3 ± 2.9 years,
height 181.6 ± 4.5 cm, body mass 78.1 ± 8.1 kg, and physical activity 4.2 ± 0.6 h/week) "with no history of supplementing their diet with ergogenic agents" perform a 4-min bout of all-out exercise on an air-brake cycle ergometer on three different occasions (spaced exactly 1 week apart). While the first was an acclimatization session the second and third bout were performed after the ingestion of either 0.3g/kg sodium bicarbonate (trial 2) or plain table salt (trial 3) in "low-energy flavored water" 90 minutes prior to exercise.

Figure 1: Blood ph levels after ingestion of placebo or 0.3g/kg sodium bicarbonate (data adapted from Peart. 2011)

As you can see in figure 1, the ingestion of ~23.4g of baking soda produced a rather slight but significant shift towards a more alkaline blood ph level (compared to placebo), which became much more pronounced after the exercise bout (p<0.003). Interestingly, there was yet no significant difference (p>0.26) in exercise performance as measured by average and peak power (means ± SD; average power 292 ± 43 W vs. 291 ± 50 W; peak power 770 ± 218 W vs. 775 ± 211 W; work completed 71 ± 10 kJ vs. 68 ± 10 kJ) between the groups.

Baking soda: A non-ergogenic ergogenic?

The latter observation, i.e. no or statistically non-significant increases in acute exercise performance upon sodium bicarbonate ingestion, stands in line with ~75% of the previous findings, a recent meta-analysis by Carr et al. summarizes as follows:

The remaining 38 studies and 137 estimates for sodium bicarbonate produced a possibly moderate performance enhancement of 1.7% (90% CL ± 2.0%) with a typical dose of 3.5 mmoL/kg/BM (∼0.3 g/kg/BM) in a single 1-minute sprint, following blinded consumption by male athletes. In the 16 studies and 45 estimates for sodium citrate, a typical dose of 1.5 mmoL/kg/BM (∼0.5 g/kg/BM) had an unclear effect on performance of 0.0% (±1.3%), [...] Study and subject characteristics had the following modifying small effects on the enhancement of performance with sodium bicarbonate: an increase of 0.5% (±0.6%) with a 1 mmoL/kg/BM increase in dose; an increase of 0.6% (±0.4%) with five extra sprint bouts; a reduction of 0.6% (±0.9%) for each 10-fold increase in test duration (e.g. 1-10 minutes); reductions of 1.1% (±1.1%) with nonathletes and 0.7% (±1.4%) with females. Unexplained variation in effects between research settings was typically ±1.2%.

Despite these rather mediocre immediate effects of bicarbonate pre-loading, the main finding of the study at hand hints at hitherto overlooked long(er)-term immune benefits the consumption of sodium bicarbonate might have.

Figure 2: HSP-72 expression in mono- and lymphocytes in response to anaerobic exercise after ingestion of placebo or 0.3g/kg sodium bicarbonate (data adapted from Peart. 2011)

As you can see in figure 2 the stress-induced HSP-72 expression in white blood cells (lymphocytes and monocytes) in response to the HIT exercise was almost completely abolished. Along with the nullification of the already low amount of oxidative stress (cf. T-BARs in figure 3), these results suggest that bicarbonate supplementation has a stress-protective effect on immune cells during anaerobic exercise.

Figure 3: Oxidative stress due to anaerobic exercise as measured by TBAR expression after ingestion of placebo or 0.3g/kg sodium bicarbonate (data adapted from Peart. 2011)

It is yet important to note that the scientists point out that it "is unclear at this stage whether the attenuation was due to a reduced state of acidosis, reduced oxidative stress or a combination of both." Moreover, it is difficult to say which consequences this would have on future bouts of exercise and whether and to which degree athletes would actually benefit - or, if we think of the hormesis hypothesis and the ongoing debate concerning the effects of antioxidants on exercise induced adaptations - maybe even compromise their performance, would yet need further investigations.

We may yet assume that, just as it is the case with antioxidants, the dosage will have to be matched to the individual workload to see optimal results. With people exercising just enough to see any adaptations seeing no and people who do crossfit 2x a day seeing the most beneficial results from (partially) blocking the exercise induced oxidative stress.

Bicarbonate For Strength Athletes: 25g of Baking Soda Up Your Squat (+27%) & Bench Press (+6%) Within 60 Min

NaHCO3 probably won't make the burn go away, but it will help you push though it.... and no(!), you don't have to be afraid to retain water - sodium bicarbonate is actually going to lower aldosterone and is thus - if anything - going to have a diuretic effect (Musabayane. 1991). Calcium loss etc. is nothing you have to be afraid of either (Luft. 1990).

After yesterday's astonishingly popular excursion into dating sciences, we are back to "normal" or as others would call it "extraordinary", here at the SuppVersity today ;-) And to make really sure you know that you're right here we're going to get back into the ergogenic groove with one of my personal favorites: Sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO3 or as your granny calls it, baking soda!

In the unfortunate case you have no idea, what I am taking about, I'd suggest you briefly go through the previous SuppVersity articles and Facebook posts (e.g. +13% increase the sprinting capacity; sorry for the → typo) about the ergogenic effects of baking soda . Once you've done that it should not really come as a surprise that scientists from the real Human Performance Laboratory  at the Coventry University in the UK found that NaHCO3 will not just for cyclists, runners and rowers, but also for "bench pressers" and "squatters" ;-)

One thing after the other, though!

If you know your SuppVersity articles by heart, you are probably thinking about the Kerr study from September 2012, now - right? For the average gymrat, this was probably the most exciting paper on the ergogenic effects of sodium bicarbonate supplementation I've written about (see "22g Baking Soda 60min Before a Old-School 4 x 12RM Leg Workout Allow for a 22 Rep Volume Increase on Hypertrophy Oriented Squat + Leg Press + Leg Extension Quads Routine" | read more).

A note for those with gastrointestinal problems or an insurmountable gag reflex: I know that downing 25g sodium bicarbonate at once can be disgusting and sends people with weaker stomachs right to the toilette. Fortunately, a 2012 study by Dreher et al. suggests that "serial loading" with several smaller servings of baking soda works at least as well | learn more

And while the Kerr study was among the first to demonstrate significant beneficial effects of sodium bicarbonate in a strength training scenario, it is - if you come to think of it, actually not that surprising to see that the H+ (=hydrogen ions → acidity) buffering effect works just as well during a high volume leg workout, as it does, during high intensity cycling and sprinting [just a note on the H+ buffer: contrary to beta alanine, bicarbonate buffers the acidity in the blood, not within the muscle cell and will thus have greater effects on the periphery than carnosine the histidine + beta alanine dipeptide you are actually looking for, whenever you take your beta alanine supplement.

Now while it may not have been surprising that high volume + baking soda does make a perfect match, it is, as you will hopefully agree, not exactly straight forward that we would see similar benefits on the low volume performance test, the 8  men (mean age, height and body mass → 20  ±0.9 years, 1.8  ± 0.1m and 78.4  ± 15.6kg, respectively)  who had been recruited for the study at hand had to perform.

Three sets of squats and bench presses? Isn't that too little volume for NaCO3 to work?

All the participants who had at least one year of strength training experience competed  in  team  games  (rugby  union,  soccer, basketball) at the national level and were concomitantly training more than 10 hours per week as part of their regular preseason preparations (those included 3h of resistance training). During the testing conditions to which the subjects had been randomly assigned, all of the performed

Learn about the best chest exercises in the SuppVersity EMG Series.

• three sets of bench presses to failure at 80% 1RM, and 
• three sets of back squats "to failure" at 80% 1RM

With three minutes of rest between the sets and five minutes of rest between exercises, this is, as I already mentioned, not exactly the workout you would usually expect to benefit (most) from bicarbonate supplementation. Still, the data in Figure 1 tells another story:

• 0.3g/kg NaHCO3 in 5 ml/kg of artificially sweetened water (NaHCO3), instead of
• 0.045g/kg NaCL in an artificially sweetened water drink matched for taste

60 minutes before the two blinded performance tests did the trick - it did increase the mean total reps for squats (+6.7 reps; +27%) and bench preses (+1.5 reps; +6% -- note: I used the values from the table in the full text. They differ from those in the abstract according to which the performance increase would be 7%)

Figure 1: Back squat and bench press performance in three subsequent sets (Duncan. 2013)

As it was to be expected due to the low volume and long rest between sets, there was no significant change in blood lactate across time or between conditions. There were however treatment × time interactions for blood pH (p = 0.014) and blood HCO3 concentration (p = 0.001), with the increasing pH and bicarbonate (HCO3) levels in the blood of the NaHCO group being the obvious cause of the highly significant performance benefits.

Does beta alanine hamper instead of improve your sprinting performance? Learn more in a previous SV Article.

Baking soda for strength athletes: After the previously cited study by Kerr et al. this is study #2 to prove that the usefulness of baking soda, sodium bicarbonate or NaHCO3 (call it whatever you want) is by no mean, as it was long thought to be, restricted to endurance sports with intermittent sprints. With the study at hand there is enough evidence to believe that it's acute effects are going to be present whenever you're pushing yourself to your own limits and in view of the fact that pushing to the limits, in order to raise the bar is what's driving progress.

I would therefore be curious to see a long(er) term study (8-12 weeks) taking a look at the cumulative benefits of sodium bicarbonate supplementation on strength and mass gains in trained and untrained individuals. Unfortunately, I suppose that no one with the money to finance that study will share my interest. In the end, a study like this would after all entail the risk of exposing how pathetic the 2.85% performance increase we see in the average beta alanine study actually are (Hobson. 2012).

Reference: 

• Duncan MJ, Weldon A, Price MJ. The effect of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on back squat and bench press exercise to failure. J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Oct 11. [Epub ahead of print]
• Hobson RM, Saunders B, Ball G, Harris RC, Sale C. Effects of β-alanine supplementation on exercise performance: a meta-analysis. Amino Acids. 2012 Jul;43(1):25-37. 
• Luft FC, Zemel MB, Sowers JA, Fineberg NS, Weinberger MH. Sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride: effects on blood pressure and electrolyte homeostasis in normal and hypertensive man. J Hypertens. 1990 Jul;8(7):663-70.
  
• Musabayane CT, Balment RJ. Renal effects of aldosterone in the sodium bicarbonate infused rat. Ren Fail. 1991;13(2-3):71-6.

Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3) Increases PGC1-A & Speeds Up Mitochondrial Adaptation - HIIT + Bicarb = Perfect Match

Study suggests, significant increases in mitochondrial builder PGC1-a with HIIT + bicarbonate

If this is not your first visit to the SuppVersity, I am confident you've read about the ergogenic effects of sodium bicarbonate aka baking soda before. If you haven't here is the short version: Sodium bicarbonate will act as a systemic acid buffer during workouts. That's in contrast to beta-alanine which works exclusively in the muscle, but has very similar, in some studies albeit significantly more pronounced and first and foremost acute beneficial effects on exercise performance.

No loading, no waiting, no hoping. You simply wash down 20g of bicarbonate (better 0.3g/kg body weight) before the race of your life and - as long as your tummy can stomach it - see / feel the benefits during the race.

You can learn more about bicarbonate and pH-buffers at the SuppVersity

The Hazards of Acidosis

Build Bigger Legs W/ Bicarbonate

HIIT it Hard W/ NaCHO3

Creatine + BA = Perfect Match

Bicarb Buffers Creatine

Beta Alanine Fails to HIIT Back

In his thesis paper, Michael E. Percival investigated the effects of bicarbonate supplementation on the cellular adaptation process in response to high intensity interval training (HIIT).

"Acute and chronic high-intensity interval exercise is a potent stimulus to influence a number of physiological adaptations with implications for health and athletic performance. [...] Due to the intense nature of this training modality and associated disturbance to muscle pH, which has been implicated in fatigue, it has been hypothesized that augmenting the body’s natural buffering capacity through nutritional means may be a strategy to augment training adaptations. One way of doing this is through the ingestion of NaHCO 3 prior to exercise, which has shown to have ergogenic effects allowing athletes to perform more work with each training session. In addition, greater mitochondrial and performance adaptations are seen when HIIT is preceded by NaHCO3 ingestion even when work is matched (Edge. 2006; Thomas. 2007; Bishop. 2010)."

Percival's goal was now to finally establish what exactly it is that gives bicarbonate the adaptational edge, so to say. To this ends, Michael E. Percival had his subjects, nine active men (22 ± 2 y; 78 ± 13 kg, VO²peak = 48 ± 8 mL/kg/min; mean ± SD) perform the same 10 x 60 s HIIT cycling protocol on two occasions, either with

• 0.2 g/kg body weight sodium bicarbonate (BICARB) or 
• an equimolar dose of a placebo, sodium chloride (PLAC),

both ingested in two equally sized doses that were ingested 30 minutes after the breakfast - a means to minimize gastrointestinal distress | and in the study at hand it worked: There was not difference in gastrointestinal complaints between placebo and bicarbonate trial.

Figure 1: Pre vs. post PGC1a and muscular glycogen content (Percival. 2014)

The two trials were separated by 1 week, the subjects had to perform their 10 all out cycling bouts at an intensity of ~263 ± 40 W - more than enough to bring all of them up to the 90%+ heart rate zone. , interspersed by 60 s of recovery. Total work during each trial was identical for a given subject.

A brief reminder of the benefits of bicarbonate: Regulation of hydrogen ions (H + ) or pH within homeostatic concentrations is critical for proper physiological function. The factors contributing to the change in muscle pH seen during intense exercise are numerous and the role of each factor remains hotly debated. However, classically it is believed that a large contributor of H + is through the accumulation of lactate produced from glycolysis. Next to internal buffers, which are exhausted relatively quickly, the shuttling of H + and lactate across the sarcolemma is also believed to play an important role in the maintenance of pH during intense exercise. This is due to the extracellular buffering capacity HCO3 - which is believed to promote the efflux of H + from active muscles ( Hollidge-Horvat. 2000; Bishop. 2004).

Table 1: Overview of the studies Carr et al. reviewed in their meta-analysis (Carr. 2011)

One way to facilitate this process is obviously the provision of exogenous bicarbonate in form of NaHCO3. According to the most recent meta-analysis by Carr et al. (2011), even acute dosing will lead to performance enhancements of 1.7% during short high intensity activities as sprinting. As Percival points out, it does eventually not matter how "sodium bicarbonate imposes its ergogenic effects, the ability to allow athletes to work harder may enhance the exercise stimulus", anyways, and thus contribute to faster / greater size and strength gains. There is yet also accumulating evidence "that NaHCO3 supplementation can improve adaptations independent of greater work output." One of the underlying factors, i.e. the increase in the mitochondrial builder protein PGC-1a has been identified in the study at hand.

Figure 2: Bicarbonate increases mitochondrial respiration specifically during longer-duration exercise (Bishop. 2010) - the study at hand does not just confirm the results of the previous rodent study, it does also provide information about the underlying mechanism that's responsible for the accelerated mitochondrial adaptation w/ sodium bicarbonate.

The latter is important, because otherwise the significant differences in PGC1-a expression (see Figure 1), of which the study at hand indicates that they are the most probably reason for the previously cited significant adapational benefits from bicarbonate supplementation (compare Figure 2), could be a mere function of the training volume.

Based on the data from blood draws and needle biopsies from the vastus lateralis we can now conclude that it is the increase in PGC-1α mRNA, which was increased after 3 h of recovery to a greater extent in BICARB vs. PLAC (~7- vs. 5-fold, p < 0.05) that is responsible for the enhanced adaptations after chronic supplementation.

Speaking of which, as I've previously pointed out, I truly believe that the serial loading protocol, as described by Driller et al. (2012) is the most promising dosing scheme for the long(er)-term use of sodium bicarbonate supplements (read my write-up for more information). Issues with increasing blood pressure or calcium loss as they have been reported for very high sodium chloride intakes in susceptible individuals should, as I repeatedly pointed out, not be an issue (Luft. 1990). In pre- and post-menopausal women on high-protein diets, the addition of small amounts of sodium bicarbonate is in fact an effective way to increase calcium retention and thus any potential negative effects on bone health that may arise as a consequence of protein-induced hypercalciuria (Lutz. 1984).

The increase of PGC1-a is significant, because the signaling protein has previously been shown to exert "IGF-1 Promoting, Myostatin Reducing, Muscle Building Effects" | learn more

Bottom line: While I am pretty sure that many people will still be more attracted by the shiny ads for beta alanine containing supplements, there is little doubt that baking soda is the cheaper and at least acutely more effective buffering supplement.

That being said, the elevated PGC1-a levels in the study at hand add to the existing evidence that bicarb is more than a pre-/intra-workout acid buffer. And while it's still not 100% clear if it is a result of an increased use of intra-muscular glycogen or a consequnce of a reduced acid level during exercise, the increase in PGC1-a of which SuppVersity readers know that it has "IGF-1 Promoting, Myostatin Reducing, Muscle Building Effects" (learn more) make chronic sodium bicarbonate supplementation regimen even more interesting than they've been before | Comment on FB!

References:

• Bishop, David, et al. "Induced metabolic alkalosis affects muscle metabolism and repeated-sprint ability." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 36.5 (2004): 807-813.
• Bishop, David J., et al. "Sodium bicarbonate ingestion prior to training improves mitochondrial adaptations in rats." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 299.2 (2010): E225-E233. 
• Carr, Amelia J., Will G. Hopkins, and Christopher J. Gore. "Effects of acute alkalosis and acidosis on performance." Sports medicine 41.10 (2011): 801-814. 
• Driller, Matthew W., et al. "The effects of serial and acute NaHCO3 loading in well-trained cyclists." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 26.10 (2012): 2791-2797.
• Edge, Johann, David Bishop, and Carmel Goodman. "Effects of chronic NaHCO3 ingestion during interval training on changes to muscle buffer capacity, metabolism, and short-term endurance performance." Journal of applied physiology 101.3 (2006): 918-925.
• Hollidge-Horvat, M. G., et al. "Effect of induced metabolic alkalosis on human skeletal muscle metabolism during exercise." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology And Metabolism 278.2 (2000): E316-E329. 
• Luft, Friedrich C., et al. "Sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride: effects on blood pressure and electrolyte homeostasis in normal and hypertensive man." Journal of hypertension 8.7 (1990): 663-670. 
• Lutz, Josephine. "Calcium balance and acid-base status of women as affected by increased protein intake and by sodium bicarbonate ingestion." The American journal of clinical nutrition 39.2 (1984): 281-288.
• Percival, Michael E. "Sodium bicarbonate ingestion augments the increase in PGC-1α mRNA expression during recovery from intense interval exercise in human skeletal muscle." Diss. McMaster University, 2014.
• Thomas, Claire, et al. "Effects of high-intensity training on MCT1, MCT4, and NBC expressions in rat skeletal muscles: influence of chronic metabolic alkalosis." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 293.4 (2007): E916-E922.

The Latest on Sodium Bicarbonate: Serial Loading Almost as Effective as Acute Loading and Free of Gastrointestinal Side Effects. Plus: Can You Use Potassium Bicarbonate Instead?

NaHCO3 loading has been most successful in events lasting from 1 to 7 minutes (Linderman. 1994) - so either track sprints or volume training

Do you remember my last post on sodium bicarbonate and what I said about the SuppVersity being the place, where you would read about the latest studies on the wonders of baking soda, first? Well, at least I have not seen today's SuppVersity news being covered anywhere else, so I guess for the vast majority I am about to deliver on yet another promise, when I briefly summarizing the latest findings on the "effects of serial and actue NaHCO3 loading in well-trained cyclists" from University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Institute of Sport in Lanceston, Australia (Driller. 2012; study will be published in the October issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research).

Why don't we just "load" on NaHCO3 over a longer timespan?

Interestingly, Matthew W. Driller, John R. Gregory, Andrew D. Williams and James W. Fell must have asked themselves a very similar question as I did a couple of weeks ago:  

How come, that there is "limited research describing the use of serial NaHCO3 loading?"

Or put simply: Wouldn't it be likely that we would see similar, in the long haul even superior, results from the chronic ingestion / slow loading of NaHCO3 with less side effects compared to the standard practice of downing 30-50g at once?

Figure 1: The doses on day 1-3 were taken with breakfast, lunch and dinner, the 5 doses on the day of the test (day 5) within 90min before the test; placebo capsules contained microcrystalline cellulose

To answer this question Driller et al. came up with a double-blind placebo controlled, randomized design in which each cyclist underwent 3 experimental trials over a 3-week timeframe:

• AL - acute NaHCO3 loading
• SL - serial NaHCO3 loading 
• P - placebo loading condition 

You can see the "exact" protocol in figure 1 to the right. The main performance variable was a 4-minute cycling test (TT), a choice the scientists explain by referring to it as an approximation (at least duration-wise) of a "complete a 4,000-m individual pursuit in track cycling" and refer to previous research by Lindermann & Gosselink from 1994, which confirms that "NaHCO3 loading has been most successful in events lasting from 1 to 7 minutes" (Driller. 2012).

If you do the math on the figures, you'll see that the respective absolute amounts, i.e. P = 0mg, AL = 0.3mg/kg and SL = 0.9mg/kg were not identical.

You could also argue that the SL group should at least have stuck do their regular protocol on the day of the test, but (1) the higher total dosage in the serial loading trial seems reasonable - after all, your body uses the NaHCO3 also, when you don't work out so you got to build an even greater buffer, and (2) it would have been hard to distinguish the "chronic" from the acute effects if the SL protocol had involved supplementation on the day of the test.

The exercise protocol: A time trial simulates a 4k race

Can I use potassium bicarbonate instead? NO! You can combine both, but from a physiological standpoint it does not makes sense to increase your serum potassium levels before a workout, because especially strength training will leech potassium from the cells into the blood anyways. Moreover your body conserves potassium pretty well during a workout, while you lose a comparably large amount of sodium in your sweat. In other words, you risk offsetting the peculiar balance of the extra-cellular sodium ions and the intracellular potassium ions. While weakness or skeletal muscle hyperexcitability would be rather harmless, but certainly ergolytic consequences, this can - in the worst case - lead to bradycardia (=abnormally slow heartbeats), arrhythmias and even sudden cardiac arrest as it was observed in the two "salt-phobic" bodybuilders in the case report I already cited in the comments on the "Sodium Bicarbonate for High Volume Strength Training" post (cf. John. 2011; there were probably confounding factors at play, here, but still, the risk of developing hyperkalemia is nothing you can totally exclude, if you ingest tons of potassium within a couple of minutes).

If you feel that you don't get enough potassium in your diet, anyway, I'd suggest you mix them at a 3:1 ratio as you usually see it for "normal" sodium and potassium in electrolyte products.

A pros pos "day of the test", on the latter, the participants, 8 well-trained male cyclists (age = 28y; height = 181cm; mass = 73.5 +/- 8.5 kg; VO2peak =66.8 +/- 8.4ml/ kg/min), who were all cyclists currently competing at the state or national level and in their on-season, ingested the placebo or bicarbonate capsules with a tightly controlled amount of water (10 ml /kg body mass) 90 minutes before they hopped onto an air-braked cycling ergometer to perform their time-trial test.

"All the cyclists performed a standardized warm-up before the test, which was replicated before each TT. The warm-up consisted of 3 set intensities relative to the cyclists’ body mass, each lasting 4 minutes. [...] During the exercise test, each cyclist was encouraged to give a maximal effort during the TT. The investigators providing the encouragement were blinded to the trial each cyclist was undertaking. The VO2peak was taken as the highest VO2 value recorded over a 30-second period during the TT." (Driller. 2012)

After the test the cyclists were provided with a modified gastrointestinal side-effects questionnaire which allowed them to quantify the side effects on 10-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = "none" to 10 = "unbearable".

The results: Serial loading with accute effects, but less side effects

Blood samples were taken before and after the trials, the subjects performed in a rested and hydrated state after fasting for at least 2h. They also filled 3-day food and training diaries for the days before the experiment. Since the scientists don't mention those in the FT to the study, I assume there were no significant intrapersonal differences between the trials), so that the results I summarized in figure 2 are not distorted by 3-days of overtraining or 3-days of McDonalds dieting ;-)

Figure 2: Relative power (W/kg), peak blood lactate (mmol/l), HCO3 post loading and post test (mmol/l), pH post loading and post test, VO2 peak (l/min); p < 0.05 for all but the HCO3 post test value - the figures above the bars indicate the percentage of participants which did see practically relevant improvements in the respective parameter (vs. those with improvements that were trivial or even negative; based on Dreher. 2012)

As you can see both the acute, as well as the alternative serial loading protocol yielded the desired improvements in exercise performance. On average, the alkalizing effects, as well as the increases in VO2max were yet more pronounced in the acute compared to the serial loading test... but let's be honest: What's that worth if you get the runs during a race or workout? To be fair, in the study at hand no athlete developed diarrhea, but three felt bloated after the AL protocol, whereas not a single study participant experienced any side effects from the serial loading.

Why not simply stay "on" sodium bicarbonate?

In view of what I have said before about the experimental necessity of not providing any NaHCO3 to the study participants on day 4 of the SL trial, the logical next step in the "evolution of bicarbonate science" would be to probe my previous suggestion to administer the baking soda chronically and keep the study participants "on" NaHCO3 for a week or two during their regular training, without dropping the dose (alternatively even escalating it) on the day of the exercise test / training days.

Figure 3: Latent acidoses can set you up to become obese and prevent your hamper your fat loss (Berkemeyer. 2009)

I would speculate that this would also allow them to exploit the previously cited plethora metabolic benefits of being in a more or less alkaline state (see figure 3 and "How Bicarbonate Could Help You Lose Fat & Build Muscle") and would thus turn something as "profane" as an ergogenic aid into a weight loss and health supplement. This appears even more likely in view of the fact that the study at hand clearly shows that it does not matter whether you use a bicarbonate buffer before your workout, or not, when you're done with it, your HCO3 levels will be rock bottom (assuming that you have trained with maximal intensity). That being said, it appears only prudent not to restrict the use of the buffer to the pre workout window, only, but to use it to re-alkalize your body immediately post workout, as well.

And while I doubt that we will see that study being done in the near future, you know that there is no better place to check for the latest news on sodium bicarbonate, aka baking soda or NaHCO3 than right here, at the SuppVersity ;-)

Update => Dr. Andro's Bicarbonate Protein Pudding: Since Spencer asked me on Facebook how / when I use baking soda and I already betrayed my "secret protein pudding recipe" *lol* I thought I'd post it here, as well.

How it's done: You take some quark (this is a German dairy product you US guys usually know as curd cheese; depending on how hungry you are you use ~100-300g), add water maybe 100ml and stir it, you will soon notice that it does not become a smooth pudding, no matter what you do. So, next you add a scoop of casein or protein powder for the flavor you like best, e.g. chocolate, (casein works best, because it also adds to the creaminess). Mix the protein with the white "soup" and then add 1-2 teaspoons of sodium bicarbonate. You will soon realize that what happens now verifies the term "baking soda": your pudding-to-be is going to start raising like dough, keep the water and some stevia at hand and add water + stevia until the stuff has the consistency and sweetness you like best.  

Voila! Dr. Andro's Quark Based Protein Laden Alkalizing Bicarbonate Pudding is Ready! Makes an excellent last meal of the day, as well... but watch out it is really filling ;-)

References:

• Berkemeyer S. Acid-base balance and weight gain: are there crucial links via protein and organic acids in understanding obesity? Med Hypotheses. 2009 Sep;73(3):347-56. 
• Driller MW, Gregory JR, Williams AD, Fell JW. The Effects of Serial and Acute NaHCO3 Loading in Well-Trained Cyclists. J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Oct;26(10):2791-7.
• John SK, Rangan Y, Block CA, Koff MD. Life-threatening hyperkalemia from nutritional supplements: uncommon or undiagnosed? Am J Emerg Med. 2011 Nov;29(9):1237.e1-2.
• Linderman, JK,Gosselink, KL. The effects of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on exercise performance. Sports Med 18: 75, 1994.

Creatine + Sodium Bicarbonate: Two New Studies Show You Can Make the Most-Researched Ergogenic Even Better W/ a Few Grams of Baking Soda - Sign. & Non-Sign. Benefits

The benefits of bicarbonate show on the finish line, not the starting block.

As a true students of the SuppVersity you will know that you can "Supercharge Your Creatine W/ Baking Soda" (learn more) and thus build your own "buffered creatine product". What you probably didn't know yet, though, is that there is evidence to prove that the increased stability and bioavailability will actually translate to performance gains.

You don't believe a word? Well, scientists from the Sheffield Hallam University (Griffen. 2014) and the Human Performance Laboratory at the University San Luis Obispo (Barber. 2013).

You can learn more about beta alanine & bicarbonate at the SuppVersity

The Hazards of Acidosis

Build Bigger Legs W/ Bicarbonate

HIIT it Hard W/ NaCHO3

BA + Bicarb are Synergists

Bicarb Buffers Creatine

Beta Alanine Fails to HIIT Back

Griffen et al. (2014) investigated the effects of creatine and sodium bicarbonate co-ingestion on mechanical power during repeated sprints.

Their subjects, nine well-trained men (age = 21.6 ± 0.9 yr, stature = 1.82 ± 0.05 m, body mass = 80.1 ± 12.8 kg) performed six 10-s repeated Wingate tests in a double-blind, placebo controlled, counterbalanced, crossover study. Before the exercise tests, the oarticipants supplemented with either

• creatine and sodium bicarbonate contained 20 g/d of creatine monohydrate (Myprotein Inc., Northwich, UK), 0.3 g/kg of sodium bicarbonate (Buy Whole Foods Online, Canterbury, UK) and 0.5 g/kg of maltodextrin (Myprotein Inc., Northwich, UK). 
• creatine alone, i.e. of 20 g/d of creatine monohydrate and 0.5 g/kg of maltodextrin, 
• sodium bicarbonate alone, i.e. 0.3 g/kg of sodium bicarbonate and 0.5 g/kg of maltodextrin, or
•  the placebo which contained only 0.5 g/kg maltodextrin. 

for one week. On the day of the exercise tests, however, no supplement was ingested (probably do exclude acute beneficial effects of bicarbonate). As far as the specifics of the dosing regimen are concerned, the scientists point out that the maltodextrin was added to to all conditions to maintain the volume consistency and to facilitate creatine uptake (Green et al., 1996).

The split-dose strategy, on the other hand, was employed to reduce side effects from sodium bicarbonate supplementation (Burke & Pyne, 2007) - something you've read here at the SuppVersity before (Bicarbonate Serial Loading | learn more).

"Supplements were split into four equal dose to be consumed at 9 am, 12 pm, 5 pm and 9 pm. Participants were also instructed to ingest each supplement sachet with 330 ml of water diluted with 40 ml of orange cordial." (Griffen. 2014)

The degree of compliance reported was 86 ± 7% for co-ingestion of creatine and sodium bicarbonate, 89 ± 7% for creatine alone, 90 ± 7% for sodium bicarbonate alone and 93 ± 4% for the placebo. Participants were instructed to maintain their habitual diet and abstain from strenuous exercise, caffeine and alcohol 24 h prior to each trial.

Avoid gastrointestinal distress and still get all the benefits from bicarbonate supplementation by using a serial-loading protocol, as I described it in "The Latest on Sodium Bicarbonate: Serial Loading Almost as Effective as Acute Loading and Free of Gastrointestinal Side Effects. Plus: Can You Use Potassium Bicarbonate Instead?" | learn more.

The trials that were performed on a magnetically braked ergometer, began with a warm up at 50 RPM against a resistance of 0.5 kg for 5 min, with one 5 s sprint against a resistance of 7.5% of the participant’s body-mass after 2.5 min. Participants then completed six 10-s sprints using a standardised resistance equating to 7.5% body mass. One min of active recovery at 50 RPM was provided between each test. Participants were asked to cycle at a cadence of 50 RPM until the start signal to ensure the inertia of the system was not overcome by standardising the angular momentum of the flywheel (Winter & Fowler, 2009).

Figure 1: Changes in peak, mean and rel. power, total work and fatique index (W/s) relative to baseline (Griffen. 2014)

The results were somewhat disappointing, though, while both creatine (effect size (ES) = 0.37-0.83) and sodium bicarbonate (ES = 0.22-0.46) alone led to meaningful improvements on indices of mechanical power output, the co-ingestion of both provided performance increases that were not significant compared to creatine, alone (see yellow vs. gray bars in Figure 1).

A note on the dangers of "salt": Firstly, baking soda is "only" ~28% sodium, which means that for every 4 grams you ingest you get roughly 1 g of sodium. Secondly, it is arguable how much of the sodium is effectively taken up and will be floating around in your blood. As T. Lakhanisky points out in his dossier for the Belgian government: "The uptake of sodium, via exposure to sodium carbonate, is much less than the uptake of sodium via food. Therefore, sodium carbonate is not expected to be systemically available in the body." (SIDS. 2002) And thirdly, there is more and more evidence that suggests that the chloride rather than the sodium content of common table salt (NaCl = Natrium Chloride) is the root cause of "sodium induced hypertension" in "sodium sensitive" individuals / animal models.

Only recently, a study for the Schmidlin et al. showed that chloride loading induced hypertension in the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat despite profound sodium depletion (Schmidlin. 2002). So, if you asked me, rather than pointing at salt as the #2 on the list of greatest evils (obviously cholesterol is still #1, here) the medical orthodoxy would be better advised to address the imbalances between sodium and potassium, which are so characteristic of the western diet, instead of painting yet another black and white picture where sodium is the bad guy and potassium the dangerous mineral that cannot be sold OTC in dosages >80mg.... but hey, this would be the topic for a whole new blogpost and as gross as it may sound, the chance that you get diarrhea from the baking soda is probably 1000x higher than the remote possibility of increases in blood pressure. A 1990 study by Luft et al. even found that the blood pressure of 10 mildly hypertensive and normal subjects decreased by 5mmHg after 7 days in the course of which they drank 3 liters of sodium bicarbonate containing water per day (Luft. 1990)

That's in contrast to another recently published study by from the the Human Performance Laboratory at the University San Luis Obispo (Barber. 2013).

Figure 2: Unlike Griffen, Barber et al. (2013) measured significant increases in rel. peak power.

As you can see in Figure 2, Barber et al. who compared the effects of (a) Placebo (Pl; 20 g maltodextrin + 0.5 g/ kg 21 maltodextrin), (b) Creatine (Cr; 20 g + 0.5 g /kg 21 maltodextrin), and (c) Creatine plus sodium bicarbonate (Cr + Sb; 20 g + 0.5 g /kg 21 sodium bicarbonate) on the performance of thirteen healthy, trained men (21.1 years, 23.5 kg /m²) in a double-blinded, crossover fashion:

"Each condition consisted of supplementation for 2 days followed by a 3-week washout. Peak power, mean power, relative peak power, and bicarbonate concentrations were assessed during six 10-second repeated Wingate sprint tests on a cycle ergometer with a 60-second rest period between each sprint." (Barber. 2013)

In contrast to Griffen, et al. (2014), the researchers from St. Lois found a 3% greater increase in relative peak power with Cr + Sb (7%) compared to creatine alone.

What may be of even greater practical relevance is the absence of performance decreases during sprint tests 4–6, compared with that in sprint 1, in both the placebo and creatine trial, respectively their absence in the Cr + Sb trials, where the sprint performance decreased only on spring #6!
This effect is probably directly related to the blood bicarbonate pre- and post-Wingate bicarbonate concentrations which were significantly higher in Cr + Sb (10%), compared with the Pl and Cr.

22g Baking Soda 60min Before a Old-School 4 x 12RM Leg Workout Allow for Significant 22 Rep Volume Increase | learn more

So what's the meaningful difference between the studies that explains the discrepant results? The age of the subjects was identical, both were trained, lean men in their early twenties (no detailed information in the Griffin study, but the subjects in the Barber study, were really fit and performed a high level of aerobic exercise training >5h/week and were accustomed to high intensity exercise >2h / week). The exercise test, a Wingate test with with 6x10s sprints was more or less identical, and the amounts of creatine and sodium bicarbonate that were ingested in four equal doses were not different, either... well, aside from the addition of maltodextrin which was present in all supplements only in the study by Griffin et al. (no effect).

The most significant difference, however, are allegedly minute differences in the supplementation and study protocol. For one, the supplements in the Barber study were ingested for only 2 days prior to the tests - in the Griffin study, it were 7 days. In contrast to the supplementation period, the wash-out period in the Griffin study was shorter. Only 7 days compared to 21 days in the Barber study. Both of these differences could explain the different outcomes.

In that, difference #1 (duration of the supplementation period) would make the bioavailability increase due to the addition of sodium bicarbonate to creatine more important, while difference #2 (different washout periods) is nothing but a methodological shortcoming, due to which the later trials would still be influenced by residual effects from previous supplementation periods (recent studies show that this could be specifically the case for creatine) | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Barber, James J., et al. "Effects of combined creatine and sodium bicarbonate supplementation on repeated sprint performance in trained men." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 27.1 (2013): 252-258.
• Griffen, C., et al. "Effects of Creatine and Sodium Bicarbonate Co-Ingestion on Multiple Indices of Mechanical Power Output During Repeated Wingate Tests in Trained Men." International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism (2014). 
• Luft, Friedrich C., et al. "Sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride: effects on blood pressure and electrolyte homeostasis in normal and hypertensive man." Journal of hypertension 8.7 (1990): 663-670.
• Schmidlin, Olga, et al. "Selective chloride loading is pressor in the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat despite hydrochlorothiazide-induced natriuresis." Journal of hypertension 28.1 (2010): 87.
• SIDS, OECD. "Sodium Bicarbonate." (2002).

22g Baking Soda 60min Before a Old-School 4 x 12RM Leg Workout Allow for a 22 Rep Volume Increase on Hypertrophy Oriented Squat + Leg Press + Leg Extension Quads Routine

Image 1: Squats, 8 x 12, Leg Press 6 x 12, Leg Ext. 6 x 12; that's the Quads routine Serge Nubret trained twice a week in conjunction with chest – it stands out of question that this is the kind of workout that benefits most from an acid buffer like NaHCO(3)!

As a diligent student of the SuppVersity you are no stranger to the ergogenic value of sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO(3) or baking soda, and though I still believe that I have to do a lot of persuading in terms of its stand-alone benefits (click here to read more), many of you will at least have been impressed by its ability to boost the uptake and subsequent performance benefits from creatine supplements (cf. "Supercharging Creatine With Baking Soda"). And while I am not sure if the soon-to-be-published study by Carr et al. will be last straw that's finally going to break your back... ah, I mean your resistance, or I should say, unwillingness to accept that something as cheap and simple as baking soda could outperform 90% of the overpriced supplemental non-starters on the market and will not make you draw water or increase your blood pressure, although it has the bad word "sodium" in its name, I cannot tell, what I can tell you though, is that Benjamin M. Carr and his colleagues from the School of Human Performance and Recreation at the  University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg are spot on, when they say (or write) that their "findings demonstrate ergogenic efficacy for NaHCO(3) during [hypertrophy-type resistance training]" (Kerr. 2012).

The benefits of baking soda start at high intensity aerobic exercise, and end right where your willpower ends ;-)

That baking soda can be an effective ergogenic aid, especially when it comes to high volume workouts has actually long been established. Still many, if not most of the trials involved sprinters or cyclists performing HIIT-esque protocols on the track or cycle ergometer (e.g. 11.5% increase in sprint performance in Price. 2003), whereas researchers such as Portington et al. or Webster et al. totally missed the boat or, I should say, what it means to train, when they had their study participants perform laughable 5 sets of leg presses and measured nothing but a (yet significant) difference in blood pH in response to pre-supplementation (105 min before the test) with sodium bicarbonate (Webster, 1993; Portington. 1998).

Figure 1: Overview of the experimental protocol that was used in the study (based on Carr. 2012)

With four sets of three exercises at the 12RM (not yet Serge Nubret style, I know; see image 1 ;-) and the king of all leg exercises, the squat being one of them, as well as resistance trained study participants who were actually able to lift a weight that would be taxing enough to see a difference, the study design of the Carr study (see figure 1) is yet more of what I would expect to yield results with real world significance for trainees who are not at the gym to chat and show off their latest gymwear, but to train... and as the data in figure 2 goes to show, the results were what these very trainees are looking for:

Figure 2: Lactate, pH, ratio of hydrogen carbonate ions to NaHCO(3) and base excess in blood after, as well as number of total reps performed during the leg workout (data adapted from Carr. 2012)

I freely admit, an overall plus of ~22reps, in other words 1.83 reps per set does not sound like much, but if you think about how long you would have to train to achieve this improvement and/or compare it to the median effect size of weeks of beta alanine supplementation, of which you can hardly say that it was one of the aforementioned supplemental non-starters, and still offers a performance increment of only 2.87% (Hobson. 2012), the 22 +/- 13 reps or 4% increase in total volume the participants in the Carr study achieved within about 2min (by drinking their 22-32g of baking soda) are more than just a bit of alright.

"But isn't the increase in lactate a bad thing?"

"Lactate...?" I knew this would be your next question. I mean it is already hard enough to believe that anything that has the word "sodium" (by the way you Americans are the only ones who don't get that this ought to be "natrium" and not "sodium" ;-) in its name is not per se bad for you, and now the guys in the baking soda group had higher lactate levels!

Image 2: "Cholesterol is the devil and sodium is his little brother!" Everyone who still believes everything the medical orthodoxy says, please raise your hands!

A note on the dangers of "salt": Firstly, baking soda is "only" ~28% sodium, which means that for every 4 grams you ingest you get roughly 1 g of sodium. Secondly, it is arguable how much of the sodium is effectively taken up and will be floating around in your blood. As T. Lakhanisky points out in his dossier for the Belgian government: "The uptake of sodium, via exposure to sodium carbonate, is much less than the uptake of sodium via food. Therefore, sodium carbonate is not expected to be systemically available in the body." (Lakhanisky. 2002) And thirdly, there is more and more evidence that suggests that the chloride rather than the sodium content of common table salt (NaCl = Natrium + Chloride) is the root cause of "sodium induced hypertension" in "sodium sensitive" individuals / animal models. Only recently, a study by Schmidlin et al. showed that chloride loading induced hypertension in the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat despite profound sodium depletion (Schmidlin. 2010). So, if you asked me, rather than pointing at salt as the #2 on the list of greatest evils (obviously cholesterol is still #1, here) the medical orthodoxy would be better advised to address the imbalances between sodium and potassium (click here to learn more about the ratios), which are so characteristic of the western diet, instead of painting yet another black and white picture where sodium is the bad guy and potassium the dangerous mineral that cannot be sold OTC in dosages >80mg.... but hey, this would be the topic for a whole new blogpost and as gross as it may sound, the chance that you get diarrhea from the baking soda is probably 1000x higher than the remote possibility of increases in blood pressure. A 1990 study by Luft et al. even found that the blood pressure of 10 mildly hypertensive and normal subjects decreased by 5mmHg after 7 days in the course of which they drank 3 liters of sodium bicarbonate containing water per day (Luft. 1990)

Now, you would have reason to be concerned if we were talking about lactic acid, which is basically lactate + a proton (you can also say, lactate is the negative ion of lactate acid if you want to). Contrary to the latter, which increases during exercise when the acid buffer of your musculature is exhausted, lactate is however not just benign, but actually beneficial.

"So lactate is a bonus... really?"

Figure 3: Mean plasma lactate, GH, and prolactin responses to intravenous infusion of 250ml 1M sodium lactate in 7 untrained healthy volunteer; note: the respective increase in GH is more pronounced with natural = exercise induced increases in lactate.

While it's still debated whether lactate is only a beneficial co-factor in the mitochondrial energy chain, as Van Hall proposes in his Y2K review of the research (Van Hall. 2000) or rather a mitochondrial energy substrate in its own right that cannot be used only in the mitochondria of your skeletal and heart muscle but also in your brain, as Pellerin et al. suggest (Pellerin. 2007), it is indisputable that the decreased formation of lactic acid, due to the perseverance of an overall higher alkalinity in the presence of a 4% higher workout volume is a beneficial things. Not the least, by virtue of the its ability to trigger the release of growth hormone (cf. figure 3; Luger. 1992), which could - in conjunction with the increased workout capacity and the supposedly faster post-workout recovery give trainees on a hypertrophy-oriented volume training regimen an edge over the salt-o-phobic competition.

In view of the fact that Carr et al. arrive at the exact same conclusion, before they state that the "ergogenic efficacy" of sodium bicarbonate during "hypertrophy-type resistance exercise" would "warrant further investigation into chronic training applications" (Carr. 2012), we can expect to see a future trial investigating exactly that: How much more will you gain if you repeat this practice for 6-8 weeks? ... I guess, I don't have to tell you that the SuppVersity is going to be the place, where you are going to read about the results of that study, first!

References:

• Carr BM, Webster MJ, Boyd JC, Hudson GM, Scheett TP. Sodium bicarbonate supplementation improves hypertrophy-type resistance exercise performance. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 Sep 4.
• Lakhanisky T. Sodium Bicarbonate. OECD SIDS. UNEP Publications. 2002.
• Luger A, Watschinger B, Deuster P, Svoboda T, Clodi M, Chrousos GP. Plasma growth hormone and prolactin responses to graded levels of acute exercise and to a lactate infusion. Neuroendocrinology. 1992 Jul;56(1):112-7.
• Luft FC, Zemel MB, Sowers JA, Fineberg NS, Weinberger MH. Sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride: effects on blood pressure and electrolyte homeostasis in normal and hypertensive man. J Hypertens. 1990 Jul;8(7):663-70.
• Pellerin, L., Bouzier- Sore, A.-K., Aubert, A., Serres, S., Merle, M., Costalat, R. & Magistretti, P. 2007. Activity-dependent regulation of energy metabolism by astrocytes: an update. Glia 55, 1251–1262. 
• Price M, Moss P, Rance S. Effects of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on prolonged intermittent exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2003 Aug;35(8):1303-8. 
• Portington KJ, Pascoe DD, Webster MJ, Anderson LH, Rutland RR, Gladden LB. Effect of induced alkalosis on exhaustive leg press performance. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1998 Apr;30(4):523-8.
• Schmidlin O, Tanaka M, Sebastian A, Morris RC Jr. Selective chloride loading is pressor in the stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rat despite hydrochlorothiazide-induced natriuresis. J Hypertens. 2010 Jan;28(1):87-94.
• Van Hall G. Lactate as a fuel for mitochondrial respiration. Acta Physiol Scand. 2000 Apr;168(4):643-56.