Sodium bicarbonate

 
 Let’s play a hypothetical situation for a moment. You’re a graduate student teaching an undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory session.  Your favorite color is yellow, so naturally you wear your yellow Vans to lab. As students begin to trickle in, you give instruction on what they need to do first. No matter the experience (or lack thereof) the students have in the lab, you give them explicit instructions about the chemicals they’ll be using today. The primary chemical is a concentrated acid called sulfuric acid. At its current concentration, it has the ability to eat/dissolve a poor college student’s homework, the pen that was used to complete it, and the three-ring binder where it was stored.
            Things seem to be going smoothly now. The students are heating their acid in round-bottom flasks when one of the students asks for help. You tell the student to follow instructions in the lab manual and use tongs to carry the flask from the sand heater to its new home. What happens next is the slow motion of the flask succumbing to gravitational forces, crashing to the ground and the boiling acid splashing all over the industrial tiles. 

What do you do next?! Obviously, you run to the chemical storage room, grab the bucket of sodium bicarbonate and spread it everywhere the acid touched. You hear the gentle fizz (carbon dioxide) of the reaction and witness the faces of the students who might as well said, “That was cooler than anything else we’ll do today.” No one is hurt in this hypothetical, but your beloved Vans now have holes in them from the droplets of acid eating away at the canvas. The sacrifice of graduate school. The question is this: What did the sodium bicarbonate do to the acid and how is this a supplement?? Read on to find out. 
 
In every chemistry textbook, there is always a chapter on acids and bases (buffers). Our bodies are experts at this, even if our brains didn’t pass the test in college. During muscle contraction, lactic acid is produced as a byproduct of metabolism when oxygen isn’t present. Just as you read in the situation above, if acid isn’t neutralized (buffered), then it can do a lot of damage like create holes in my—I mean, your Vans. If the body can’t sufficiently buffer the acid produced by your working muscles, it leads to muscle soreness, aching and a burning sensation during intense activity. Similar to the last four performance supplements you’ve read about, excess of this one leads to an increase in performance—just don’t take too much. 

Over the years, sodium bicarbonate has found its way into a plethora of applications. Heard of baking soda, whitening toothpaste, and fire extinguishers? All of these include a degree of sodium bicarb. For years there have been studies on the use of this buffering agent in sport. By now, the studies showing positive outcomes outweigh the studies showing no impact on performance. No matter the research result, every study cautions against individuals ingesting too much of the supplement. Let’s begin with the benefits. Taken orally or topically, athletes have felt the benefit. 
Sodium bicarb primarily aids anaerobic exercise, meaning very intense efforts lasting from sixty seconds to eight minutes. Expect gains in performance to be around 2-3%. “Not much”, you say? It’s better than zero. Much past eight minutes, we don’t see significant gains. This means that if you are an endurance athlete whose events don’t require anaerobic efforts, this is likely not the supplement for you. Because sodium bicarb is slightly toxic and can cause major gastric distress, there certainly is a loading protocol!
Taking a single dose? 

• 0.2g and 0.4g per kilogram of body weight
  •  This means for a 165-pound person, a single (high) dosage would be nearly 30g of the supplement and the low dosage would be 15g
• Consume 1-2 hours before training or racing

Spreading out the doses? 

• Take the same amount prescribed for a full dose
  • Split into several smaller doses
• Consume the split doses up to 3 hours ahead of time or in as little as 30 minutes

Serial loading? 

• Three to four small doses over a four-day period prior to the event

The above protocol is for the oral ingestion of the supplement. That’s right! This means you have a choice! Topical applications have been produced in recent years. Some athletes swear by it while others criticize. AMP Human Performance (formerly known as “Topical Edge”), for instance is the topical version of the supplement. Apply the spread (consistency is similar to that of honey) to your working muscles and let the fizz begin! Just kidding, you don’t actually get to witness a reaction. Whether the topical treatment works—you be the judge. Studies have seen positive outcomes. No loading protocol here. In fact, the directions on the back of the tube of “lotion” tell you to apply generously. Better than hoping for no GI distress? I think so. 
 
Let it fizz!