Endurance Breakthrough: Sodium Bicarbonate Proven Successful
(Here’s a long item, because we’ve reached a new breakthrough point.)
If you asked the world’s best sports scientists for a list of proven and legal endurance-boosters, you’d get back a very short list. In fact, it might contain only two substances: caffeine and sodium bicarbonate.
Caffeine is used by almost all endurance athletes. But sodium bicarb has two big negatives that have limited its acceptance. First it has been shown effective only in events that last 10 minutes or less. Second, it tends to produce bloating, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
But we live in a new world now--one with super shoes, super carb-loading, and new gel formulations. A new hydrogel product from Maurten, the Swedish sports supplement company, seems to eliminate sodium bicarb’s horrid gastrointestinal issues. Other companies are quickly developing similar hydrogels.
However, that still leaves the endurance question. Does NaHCO3 improve performance in events lasting longer than 10 minutes? The answer is “Yes,” according to a just-published randomized, controlled trial.
The new paper evaluated 14 trained cyclists over a 40km time trial. The subjects had an average age of 43 and an average vo2 max of about 52.0. This would give them an expected half-marathon time of about 1:29:00 if they were running. However, in the 40 km bike trial, they cycled only about 40 minutes.
All subjects completed the 40km bike trial once while consuming a Maurten hydrogel with sodium bicarbonate, and once with the same hydrogel without sodium bicarb. They did not know which gel they were getting.
They rode almost a minute faster while taking the sodium bicarb. This worked out to an improvement of about 1.42%, according to the research team. Twelve of 14 subjects were faster with sodium bicarb.
Same measures remained the same in both trials: heart rate, cycling cadence, and relative perceived exertion. Importantly, there was no difference in gastrointestinal distress.
Researchers reported: “The performance enhancement in 40 km TT cycling performance following NaHCO3 ingestion is likely due to an increased blood buffering capacity, with reduced relative oxygen cost suggesting improved gross efficiency.”
They concluded: “Athletes, sports nutritionists, and practitioners should therefore consider the potential for this method of NaHCO3 ingestion to be ergogenic for prolonged high-intensity exercise.”
More at European J of Applied Physiology with free full text.
A few additional notes: Since the cycling time trial only lasted about 40 minutes, it was more equivalent to a 10K running race than a half marathon or marathon. This won’t prevent runners from trying sodium bicarbonate in longer races.
If you add the potential benefits of super shoes and sodium bicarbonate, you get roughly 4 percent in total (2.5% from the shoes, and 1.5% from the sodium bicarbonate.) This would make a 4-minute miler from 10 years ago a 3:50.5 miler today. It would turn a 2:10 marathon runner into a 2:04:50 runner.
There’s no doubt we’re living in a new world with many endurance athletes performing at levels that were unattainable a decade ago. The big jumps in performance are not a result of human evolution, and are unlikely from better training methods (though some will argue about this). Rather, the equipment and supplements have changed.
Tracks change, too. At each Olympics, the tracks get faster, too. Here’s an article about the “audacious” purple track we’ll soon be seeing in Paris. The track’s manufacturer claims it is 2% faster than the track used at the Tokyo Olympics. Now that 3:50.5 miler can run 3:47.5.
Roger Bannister might be rolling over in his grave, but I think he’s got a knowing smile on his face. Bannister, a neuroscientist, understood better than most that there’s no limit to human ingenuity and quest. “The human spirit is indomitable,” he wrote. “No one can ever say you must not run faster than this or jump higher than that.”
One Leg At A Time: The Key To Runner Strength
Two new articles emphasize one of the most important aspects of running form: We run with one leg at a time. Therefore, the best, most-specific exercises for building leg strength and stability are those we perform on one-leg.
Top coach Greg McMillan proposes 5 exercises that he believes all runners should use as part of a “pre-hab” routine. He notes that these exercises won’t necessarily make you faster, but will help you withstand the inevitable pounding that comes with run training. Therefore, he tells his athletes: “This is the training that allows you to do the training.” That makes a lot of sense.
Over at Canadian Running, they believe much the same, and provide links to YouTube videos that demonstrate 4 great, one-leg exercises. The point: “Adding single-leg strength training to your routine can lead to more powerful strides, better endurance, and fewer overuse injuries.”
There’s some similarity and/or duplication of recommended one-leg moves. That’s a good sign that both have picked top exercises. More at Canadian Running.
Who’s Going To Win The 2024 Paris Olympic Marathons?
The men’s and women’s Olympic Marathons take place in a little more than a week, on August 10th and 11th. As always, they will be among the most anticipated events of the entire Olympics.
In the men’s race, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge takes aim at an historic third-straight Olympic Marathon victory. No one has done that before. Two have won back to back: Abebe Bikila (1960 & 1964) and Waldemar Cierpinski (1976 & 1980), with Cierpinski no doubt assisted by the East Germany doping system.
Bikila won barefoot in Rome 1960 and wearing Puma shoes in Tokyo 1964. He also started in Mexico City 1968, but with injuries that forced him to drop out. Before doing so, he instructed teammate Mamo Wolde to go for the gold, which Wolde did successfully. That made Ethiopia the only country to have 3 successive winners.
Kipchoge has the best competitive marathon record of all time. However, he’s 39 now, and has run subpar in 2 of his last 3 marathons in the last 16 months. His odds went up last week when the top Ethiopian marathoner, Sisay Lemma, dropped out with an injury.
Jon Gault from LetsRun.com has written all you need to know about the men’s marathon at the below link, including an exhaustive analysis of how tough the course is. As in really tough. Some observers say they have never seen anything like it. Between 10 and 20 miles it offers hills and especially downhills that make the Boston Marathon course look almost flat by comparison.
Normally, the men’s marathon is the last event of the Olympics, harking back to its pivotal role in Greek and Olympic history. This year the women’s marathon will be last. It also has a handful of Ethiopian and Kenyan runners who are expected to sweep the top positions, including world record holder Tigist Assefa, Ethiopia, who ran 2:11:53 last September in Berlin.
U.S. marathon runners would do well to finish in the second-5, but tough courses have always helped Americans. This was especially true in Athens 2004 where Deena Kastor (bronze) and Meb Keflezighi (silver) both won medals. More at Let's Run.
SHORT STUFF You Don’t Want To Miss
HERE’S WHAT ELSE YOU WOULD HAVE RECEIVED this week if you were a subscriber to the complete, full-text edition of “Run Long, Run Healthy.” SUBSCRIBE HERE
# Find your mental “flow” state for almost-effortless performance
# This simple workout delivers a big bang for your buck
# Have you got perfect running form?
# How to add more (productive) miles to your marathon-training plan
# Breakfasts of Olympians: Some begin the day with simple breakfast foods like Pop Tarts. Others go to an extreme with foods like Cordyceps fungus
# Super shoes explained: The curved carbon plates improve ankle efficiency
# What Steve Prefontaine understood about personal achievement.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. See you again next week. Amby