A rise in power output

As you ride harder, you rely more on glycogen (glucose stores) for fuel than fats. In turn, you generate lots of lactic acid, which can lead to the burn and a drop in power output. That’s where sodium bicarbonate comes in – aka baking powder. Because it’s an alkaline, it raises the pH of your blood, so that when lactic acid from your working muscles hits your bloodstream, you’ve essentially got a wider acidic bandwidth before pH levels drop to a level that fatigues muscles. One study showed that consuming sodium bicarbonate increased time-trial power output by a staggering 23%!

So all good? Not quite. “The problem is that this alkaline rise often results in gastro-distress,” said Dr Andy Sparks, reader in exercise physiology at Edge Hill University, Lancashire. Namely, the trots. “However, our research has shown that individualising dose and timing of sodium bicarbonate can improve performance without making the gut too lively.”

Experienced roadies might have played around with the standard protocol of 0.3g of sodium bicarbonate per kg of bodyweight taken 60mins before intense exercise. “But our studies showed this is too generic,” Sparks says.

To measure your optimum dose and timing requires a stopwatch and either a lactate-measuring device or the time and inclination to play around with timings and doses. Start at 0.3g, by mixing baking powder with water, and 60min ingestion time. See how your stomach reacts. If it’s okay, do the same followed by a 10min time-trial effort on your turbo. Repeat with different doses and timings over the following weeks and see how it affects you and your performance.

Sparks showed in his experiments an average performance improvement of 2.2% in a time-trial, so it could be worth the effort.

“One study showed that consuming sodium bicarbonate increased time-trial power output by a staggering 23%!”

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