Taking bicarb for the sodium is the epitome of putting the cart before the horse.
If you want to take bicarb for performance figure out the optimal amount and dosing schedule and consume that. Then subtract out how much sodium you’ve taken from whatever your estimated sodium need is. Doing it the other way around is like deciding how much aspirin you should take based on how much sodium you need.
Why train at all? Just ask people on the internet for tips and buy kit upgrades. Ten watts here and another ten there, maybe they‘ll halve your bike split if you add them all up. And make you feel super fulfilled becoming faster because of hacks from strangers, clever chemistry and a bit of extra cash. I do not get it….
lol. I agree, but I think the amount is actually complimentary both ways. The amount of bicarb if taken all day along with the sodium needed is just under the FDA safe amount. So the horse is in the cart, not behind or ahead of it.
Sure, except the acute effects of a little too much bicarb have direct consequences and the acute effects of a little too much sodium are minimal. Add that you’re presumably taking bicarb for performance benefit and therefore sweating a non zero amount.
You can do it however you’d like, experiment and see if it works.
I’ve tried it twice during long workouts. A little less than 1 teaspoon in each water bottle. Both times i had a lower hr but felt very flat. I don’t know if my body needs some lactate to have that punch, but i didn’t care for the way it made me feel.
Obviously, it could’ve been a number of things that affected those days.
I would try it again if i need to buffer lactate because lactate was the limiting factor, but it is not my limiting factor.
Calm down. It’s stuff I literally have sitting around the house for cleaning carpet stains. Nobody here is going on some financially draining “life hack” to take your totally awesomely deserved KQ spot away while you are probably chugging ketones at $50 an ounce and I’m not. I use cheap table sugar for my fuel and 15 year old cycling shoes my dog chewed up on my 10yo bike if it makes you feel better. It’s basic hey this cheap sh*t has sodium and bicarb in it, has anybody tried NOT superdosing it before like all the lifehackers try and just take it as the sodium with the added benefit of bicarb. 2+2 = anybody tried this? This is just cheap and obvious and you pearl clutch that I’m asking you to take EPO enemas.
THANK YOU. Very curious. Any pooping emergencies? Or just felt normal?
Totally normal.
Yeah, interesting that if you aren’t pushing lactate, it may be of zero use whatsoever. I like the taste of sodium citrate just fine. Did the bicarb make your water taste like crap or could you even tell?
No taste to me. I have a resealable bag of Arm & Hammer Pure Baking Soda. But i also drink water with a scoop of creatine, lol, so I’m pretty use to chalky water.
You know you got me thinking. You can sell anything to triathletes. We need Ari Klau and Sam Long to start talking about Ketone enemas before race day.
I have tried it as an experiment (because I too am cheap) and the one thing I didn’t like was how much liquid ended up all over me both in the run (hand held bottle) and the ride, BTA bottle because it does tend to produce a bit of fizz…
Citric acid is a little easier to manage…apart from the taste.
I heard a rumor that Rudy von Berg’s dad started heard a rumor that the Norwegians are doing sodium bicarbonate enemas. /pink
Yeah, I had it explode a little bit when I added a flavor packet with some citric acid in it. Water + bicarbonate, no problem. Add sugar? A tiny bit of fizz. Add malto? A tiny bit of fizz. Blood orange flavor packet with some caffeine? Pow! Blew the lid off the bottle. Acid unbinds the CO2 like a rocket. Made me laugh as I was wiping it up.
I am just starting to get interested in the topic of sodium intake.
I don’t know if it’s best to add sodium in your drink via salt (NaCl), Sodium Citrate (Na3C6H5O7) or Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3). No idea. I just know I need Na. I have the same question as the OP.
For what it’s worth, I checked the ingredients lists on the PH1000 tabs from precision hydration, and the sodium source in this ingredients list is Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate - which is, if I’m not mistaken, sodium bicarbonate. So I would guess that the main ingredient of these tabs is actually sodium bicarbonate. But I’m no chemist, so I could be wrong.
I’ve gotten violently ill using a product called Race Day Boost which contains sodium bicarbonate. It starts with nausea and builds until you’re violently ill for days and it feels like an intense case of food poisoning. I wouldn’t recommend ingesting baking soda to anyone, personally.
Since I’ve been trying to forget my organic chemistry reaction charts since AP chem in high school, I’ll just stick to the firsthand experience.
I’ve put a fairly small amount in bottles over long rides and races and reduced the preload to not take as much at the start. Still had sodium citrate in bottles too, just a little less and something like 1/4 teaspoon/bottle of bicarb.
No negative effects, no Taylor Knibb issues knock on wood. It seems like it’s really helped for long sweetspot-tempo intervals to keep the power down. Something like a 4x30’ or 6x20’ long ride workout during IM prep. I’ve generally had really good bike performances in races using bicarb- pushed just under 260NP in Lake Placid, top 5 amateur split dosing bicarb, caffeine, and salt in a hydration bottle I changed out halfway. Hard to say if it had any impact, I kept concentration low because I didn’t want to have to suddenly shit on the bike! Haven’t really used it while running because of possible GI issues and less ability to carry shit, so I’m usually just taking plain water and concentrated flask of syrup and electrolytes.
For shorter and high intensity events, a preload should have you covered. Something like a 40k TT, half marathon, sprint tri, probably up to Olympic. For longer than that, basically when you would want to carry carbs and fuel, it can’t hurt. Just try it on a long ride or especially a long tempo/SS workout and make sure you have no issues.
Coming back to this as I’ve wanted to test it for awhile.
Finally got around to it. Obviously it’s not an rct, it’s just a single data point, etc.
2 Tablespoons baking soda + 1tsp sodium citrate in a cup of water 75 minutes before a ride.
That was crazy terrible… I was able to drink about 2/3 of it. The rest of it, I added water and a couple Tablespoons of maple syrup to make it a full bottle and saved it for my ride and sipped while riding the trainer
Ride was just a standard endurance ride I’ve been doing the last few weeks. I’ve alternated between 60 to 95 minutes at 65% FTP. I’ve been increasing my run volume the last 3 weeks and also integrating some weights into my weekly schedule so I’ve been a little tired about 30 minutes into every ride on the trainer. Tonight I did 75min and it was the first ride I felt great the entire time.
Who knows with this stuff. No major stomach issues, no burping. I did use the toilet about 25 minutes after drinking it, but nothing panicked or explosive hah. My stomach probably felt a little full feeling while I was drinking it 75 minutes before hand. Definitely didn’t have the feeling of stomach acid/baking soda grade school volcano eruption I was a little worried about.
Anyway, YMMV, I’m going to try again before my next track session and see how that feels.
Just a general thing I was thinking about with this and my own experiments with it.
Sodium Bicarbonate is an acid buffer. It maintains a more stable ph with the addition of an acid, to a point. Gatorade/sports drinks are quite acidic. Mixing them in cup would begin to use up the bicarb’s buffering capacity. It stands to reason this should happen in your stomach as well. I do not know if this would also happen in your bloodstream.
So my question is how separate do the intakes of bicarb and sports drink need to be to reap the benefits?