Dose-Response of Sodium Bicarbonate Ingestion Highlights Individuality in Time Course of Blood Analyte Responses

Abstract

19To defend against hydrogen cation accumulation and muscle fatigue during exercise, sodium 20 bicarbonate (NaHCO3) ingestion is commonplace. The individualised dose-response relationship 21 between NaHCO3 ingestion and blood biochemistry is unclear. The present study investigated the 22 bicarbonate, pH, base excess and sodium responses to NaHCO3 ingestion. Sixteen healthy males (23±2 23 years; 78.6±15.1 kg) attended three randomised order-balanced, non-blinded sessions, ingesting a single 24

Ingestion of Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3) Following a Fatiguing Bout of Exercise Accelerates Postexercise Acid-Base Balance Recovery and Improves Subsequent High-Intensity Cycling Time to Exhaustion

“…A reason for such variation might be the ingestion strategy adopted in this study, with recent work highlighting an ingestion strategy based upon each individual's alkalotic peak (i.e. pH or HCO3 -) might be more appropriate due to a high inter-individual variation to achieve peak alkalosis (Miller et al, 2016;Jones et al, 2016;Deb et al, 2017;Gough et al, 2017). This might explain why three participants failed to elicit ergogenic effects from NaHCO3 supplementation administered at a set time frame (60 min), corroborating with previous research (McNaughton, 1992;Vanhalato et al, 2010;Higgins et al, 2013).…”

“…Exercise cycling time to exhaustion improved however in TLIM2 following NaHCO3 ingestion upon pH peaking at 60 min recovery for two participants, despite these individuals not exercising at peak alkalosis. Equally, in the aforementioned studies (Miller et al, 2016;Jones et al, 2016;Deb et al, 2017;Gough et al, 2017) NaHCO3 ingestion was administered pre-exercise and in resting conditions and not in the post exercise fatigue state of the present study.…”

“…However, this strategy would typically relate to a later time to peak alkalosis compared to liquid ingestion (Jones et al, 2016;Gough et al, 2017). Therefore, athletes and coaches should consider the GI response and the time available to heighten acidbase balance following NaHCO3 in a training setting before selecting the ingestion method for use in a competitive scenario (Saunders et al, 2014;McNaughton et al, 2016;Gough et al, 2017).…”

Caffeine and Bicarbonate for Speed. A Meta-Analysis of Legal Supplements Potential for Improving Intense Endurance Exercise Performance

“…For example, bicarbonate supplementation caused gastro intestinal problems in 4 out of 21 subjects prior to a time to exhaustion test and exclusion of these four participants resulted in a significant increased exercise time during intense cycling exercise (Saunders et al, 2014). Additionally, there appear to be marked individual differences in bicarbonate uptake kinetics (Jones et al, 2016) and high level athletes may benefit from an individualized protocol (Miller et al, 2016) but this also needs to be addressed in future studies.…”

Supplements and Nutritional Interventions to Augment High-Intensity Interval Training Physiological and Performance Adaptations—A Narrative Review

“…Carr et al [99] proposed a minimum rise of +5 mmol/L in circulating bicarbonate to elicit an ergogenic effect of sodium bicarbonate supplementation. Jones et al [100] utilized a dose of 0.1 g/kg and failed to increase any participant's circulating bicarbonate levels, the requisite 5 mmol/L. In a recent review by Heibel and colleagues [75], only two of the 19 studies that achieved an increase of ≥5 mmol/L failed to see an increase in performance.…”