That said, while Cairns agrees that the reduced perception of pain from bicarb may have some performance-enhancing effects, he thinks it probably has to do with “the nervous system’s ability to control pacing.”
Does bicarb enhance performance for all sports?
Cairns, Lindinger, and Gonzalez-Lomas all said that taking sodium bicarbonate can indeed enhance exercise performance. But Cairns and Lindinger are skeptical that it might provide gains for endurance athletes like long-distance runners. Acidosis builds up when a person alternates between high- and low-intensity exercise. A sport like soccer fits that exercise profile perfectly, as do basketball and hockey—so athletes in those sports would find bicarb’s neutralizing effect especially beneficial. In the realm of running, Lindinger says, “Where it’s going to be helpful is distances less than a mile, and especially distances like 50 meters, 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters—that’s where you’re getting acidosis.”
But for endurance events like marathons, severe acidosis is less likely to interfere with an athlete’s performance. “I suspect that sodium bicarb for marathons will not be a huge advantage,” Cairns says, though he says it might help a little during surges, uphills, or the finishing sprint. (A 2021 study found that taking bicarb for cycling endurance events can improve performance in all-out sprints at the end.) Lindinger is more direct: “If there’s an association between taking this product and a really good marathon time, it’s just an association. There’s zero cause and effect.”
Yet Maurten, which has a clear financial incentive and sponsors endurance athletes, argues that GI distress has made it difficult to determine bicarb’s potential benefits for longer-duration exercise. “Lots of the literature on the simplistic delivery mechanisms are noisy because you’ve got people with GI upset who aren’t feeling 100%, so your ability to detect differences is adversely affected,” Sparks says.
Who benefits from bicarb?
Maurten’s Bicarb System—which costs $70 for four servings—was launched in March 2023. Since then, bicarb has become increasingly popular among endurance athletes. But should regular people use it?
Maurten’s Reuterswärd says that their Bicarb System was developed for professional athletes and that’s who will likely see the most benefits. Lindinger tells me that “the evidence indicates that trained athletes benefit most.” A systematic review of bicarb and sports performance conducted last year found that it “can significantly improve high-intensity endurance cycling performance in well-trained athletes, suggesting that individuals with higher fitness levels may respond more favorably to supplementation” because they have “superior metabolic efficiency.”
But Cairns is skeptical that pro athletes gain much from using bicarb. “It would be beneficial for many people, but probably not with elite performers because they’re so well endowed—the adaptations inside their muscle, their ability to remove the acid is so well developed, it probably won’t help them. But potentially for other people who are moderately trained, if you use it during training, potentially you could work harder.”
Both Cairns and Lindinger emphasize that proper training and nutrition will offer more physiological benefits than bicarb for most people, and should be their focus. In other words, whether bicarb will help recreational athletes reach their 5K PRs or become the top scorer in their adult soccer league is an open question. At the very least, bicarb is unlikely to cause any embarrassing bathroom emergencies. Still, try it at least once before race or game day, just in case.
