Is sodium bicarbonate ergogenic for males only? 🧐

The skinny on bicarb.

Negligible benefit of oral single-dose sodium bicarbonate on continuous running performance: systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials

Study Details

This new meta-analysis compiled data from 11 studies (126 participants) which all used crossover designs to investigate the effects of single doses of sodium bicarbonate on running performance 🔍

Here is what they found ⬇️

Key Findings

👫 84% of participants were male

💊 The typical dose of SB was 0.3 g/kg

⏰ Performance tests ranged from 1 - 30 mins

💨 GI symptoms occurred more frequently with SB (29.5%) vs placebo (2.6%)

Across the whole population, single doses of SB provided negligible and non-significant effects on performance ❌

However, further analysis showed that…

🧍‍♂️ Male sex

⚖️ Higher body mass

…were associated with greater SB performance benefits 📈

Interestingly, in 8 studies that only used male participants the effect of single doses of SB were statistically significant ✅

Conclusion

Using sodium bicarbonate as an ergogenic aid may be beneficial for male athletes but potentially not female athletes 🙋‍♂️🙅‍♀️

Always worth trying as an n = 1, bearing in mind tolerance and potential GI issues and employing from there ✅

Reference

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41416636/

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