I knew about this technique for a long time but never messed with it because I’m an ultra kinda guy and NAHCO3 used improperly can end your race. But after hearing the Huub Wattbike guys talk about using it & revisiting the research…yikes…after caffeine this might be the most effective legal ergogenic aid there is. Thoroughly researched, thoroughly effective.
Maybe not as an in competition aid but definitely on those hard VO2max workout days. I’m willing to roll the dice on the occasional gastrointestinal problem for a 1.5 hour VO2max workout on a trainer that’s 6 steps from a bathroom.
Yeah. I would say VO2max type efforts. 1 minute, 2 minute, 5 minute efforts. That type of thing. Based on my experience, not just performance during the effort but recovery after the workout.
There are all sorts of dosing schedules. Some more tolerable than others. The typical acute dosage is 0.3-0.4 g/kg…but chronic dosing is just as effective but better tolerated. Anyhow, don’t take my word for it. There are gazillions of papers out there.
Gotta be intravenous, tho. I don’t think anybody could hold down equivalent 3/4s cup long enough to die from it. Nasty. I’m getting nauseous just thinking about it! Still, something to think about. I doubt very many ppl hold a box of NaHCO3 and think, ‘This could kill me.’
Sir Chris Hoy “I was violently sick the first time I took massive scoops of sodium bicarbonate alkaline with my food before a race. It was to help neutralise the lactic acid my body would produce around the 20-25-second mark. What alkaline does is delay, for a second, the onset of a very painful sting from the acid. As I won my first championship gold medal by just 1/1,000th of a second – 15mm – in Copenhagen in 2002, it was quite a factor.”
Superhuman dedication, focus but slightly unhinged reasoning IMHO but then I’m not a six times Olympic Gold medal winner or eleven times world champion.
Putting half a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate in your drinking bottle to reduce lactic acid build up has been knowledge to me for 50 years. How many mg that is I haven’t a clue. Half a teaspoon never gave me any stomach upsets, but as the impact is so fleeting it hard to say if there was a placebo effect. I mean how long do you stay in real lactic burn condition, very short if you have half a brain.