Sodium bicarbonate vs sodium citrate…or both? 🧐

How do the two sodium supplements stack up!

Individual and Combined Effects of Sodium Bicarbonate and Sodium Citrate Supplementation on High-Intensity Exercise Performance in Highly Trained Female CrossFit Athletes

Study Details

This new study recruited 10 trained female CrossFit athletes to complete four 6-km cycling time trials after either…

1️⃣ Sodium Bicarbonate (SB)

2️⃣ Sodium Citrate (SC)

3️⃣ A combination of both (SBC)

4️⃣ Placebo (PL)

Supplements were provided in a total dose of 0.3 g/kg using a time-to-peak ingestion strategy ⏰

Here is what they found ⬇️

Key Findings

🩸 Pre-exercise blood bicarbonate was significantly higher in SB vs SC and PL

⏱️ Performance time was significantly faster with SB vs…

SC (+11.6s)

SBC (+17.2s)

PL (+21.5s)

Blood lactate concentration was also significantly greater in the SB trial compared with the placebo (+2.4 mmol/L) 📈

😮‍💨 Pre-exercise gastrointestinal symptom scores were higher with SB when compared to PL and SC

Conclusion

Sodium bicarbonate ONLY improves extracellular buffering capacity ✅

Sodium citrate is not a direct comparator to bicarbonate, although it may be preferred by athletes due to lower GI symptoms (and potentially leveraging the placebo effect?) 🧠

Reference

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40840560/

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