Did you know that you can improve performance with baking soda and beetroot juice? Is this claim true?
Did you know that you can improve performance with baking soda and beetroot juice? Is this claim true?
Get-Fit Guy is hosted by Kevin Don. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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This is Kevin Don, the Get-Fit Guy. Welcome back regular listeners and welcome to new listeners. Every week, I read different claims about fitness and look into them. Some are new inventions and others are more ‘time honored’. But we have to treat all claims the same way, by looking at the evidence and putting it into a hierarchy. We can then decide what is true. Whilst we can still make errors, if we assess the validity of claims, we can reduce the incidence of error. And these fitness mistakes happen all the time. I received some feedback a while ago that I was spending my time dispelling myths that everyone already knew about. My question would be: if everyone already knows these things are fitness myths, why are millions of people following the charlatans that peddle them? So, I will keep doing what I do and if you do not enjoy the content, never let it be said that I force you to listen. What I will say is that if you enjoy the show and feel compelled to do so, leave a review for me on the podcast platform you follow. As you can imagine, sometimes I get people who get their panties in a bunch because they don’t agree with me and drop a negative comment. I do find it curious that people who have negative things to say post more frequently than those with positive things to say. I should look into the psychology of negative Nancy’s one day.
Anyway, this week, I want to take a look at a couple of easy to access, ‘natural’ ways you can increase performance and why they may work for you. The first one is something many of us have rattling about their cupboard and it is sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda. When we train hard, our muscles produce by products, some of which are acidic. You may know of two of them, lactic acid and lesser known is carbonic acid. I also want to clarify that what most people call lactic acid is actually lactate. These by-products increase the acidity in the tissues that are working during exercise. Things like mitochondria in our cells (the powerhouses) are very sensitive to these changes and performance is affected negatively.
Sodium bicarbonate delays this fatigue onset (which is called intracellular acidosis) because it assists the body in maintaining normal pH levels during exertion. In a study (Matson et al. 1993), the results were that not only does sodium bicarbonate supplementation enhance athletic performance, but it does so by a significant amount of 27% lower mean time to exhaustion.
So, the science backs up the position that baking soda aids athletic performance, so how should we be taking it? If I had a choice, my favoured way to take baking soda would be by necking down some cakes, but alas, we should be dosing differently. First of all, make sure your baking soda does not contain cornstarch, which many do. Secondly, dissolve it in some water and ingest over 20 minutes. It's not very tasty, but no reason one cannot mix it into some fruit juice. You will be taking 0.25g per kg of bodyweight, which is about 0.125g per lb of bodyweight. So a 200lb athlete would be taking 25g dissolved in water. This should be consumed in 0.5liters of water around 3 hours at most to a minimum of 1 hour before exercise.
It should be noted that some people may have gastrointestinal distress from consuming bicarbonate of soda. There are some companies out there making a topical gel which claims to have the same efficacy, whilst avoiding said distress. There are no relevant studies on the topical application, so if you find that you can't tolerate it by mouth, give it a go on a gel and let me know how you got on.
Next up on ‘natural’ performance enhancers is beetroot juice. Which is my fave! Trader Joe’s if you are lucky enough to live in a state with one, has a very delicious beetroot juice! Beets are incredibly dense in nitrates. These metabolize in the body into nitric oxide. This can lower blood pressure, as well as dilate blood vessels. This can aid in oxygen delivery, because the blood vessels can deliver more blood. On the aesthetic side, maybe you are also like me and quite enjoy when your veins look like garden hose pipe.
So, again, as usual, let's check out da science.
A 2010 study (Lansley et al. 2010), found on a treadmill run to exhaustion, subjects that consumed 17 oz of beet juice lasted 15% longer. This was down to lower oxygen demands.
Cermak et al. (2012) found that after consuming beet juice for 6 days, trained cyclists improved power output by 1% over a 10km time trial.
However, another study found that beet juice consumption had no effect when compared to a tomato juice placebo in well-trained kayakers on a time trial.
That being said, most studies did find a positive performance effect in athletes, especially those whom were recreational athletes. It is speculated that those at the high end of performance already have a physiological adaptation that stimulates the same effects as beet juice does.
If you do decide to try beet juice, then just be aware that the next morning when you go for a pee, don’t panic, you are unlikely to be peeing blood. A common source of post beet juice consumption anxiety!
Finally, let's tackle a listener email.
This one comes ins from Lydia, who hails from ‘parts unknown’.
Hello Kevin,
I would love your thoughts on this question:
What are the pros and cons to resistance training with timed intervals (ex. 40 second on, 20 second rest) vs. counting reps.
Thank you so much!
Hi Lydia,
The pros and cons to resistance training with timed intervals for what purpose? Of course, if we are asking if there are pros to 40s on and 20s off for strength training, the pro is none and the con is you won’t get stronger. By the way, for the person who emailed in to say I’m ‘abrasive’, I’m definitely not. I’m matter of fact and I am also British. It is a well known fact that many Americans can’t understand British humour because it is so dry. Anyway, let'slets assume that you mean for getting stronger, since that is usually the reason people perform resistance training.
The most important thing with getting stronger is lifting loads heavier than you can right now and continuing to increase the load across time. This is called progressive overload. When we contract our muscles, there is a cost. The cost is that it uses up fuel we have stored up. In order to do more reps, at some point you need to rest to replenish the fuel in the muscle. The problem with interval training and strength is that after the first round, you have depleted a significant store of fuel. So lets say round one we have 100% fuel available, we may use an arbitrary number of 30% of the fuel. So in round two we are trying to lift the same load with 70% of the capacity we had in round one. Very quickly you either run out of reps or need to decrease load to keep the reps going. Don’t get confused between strength and strength endurance. The most important thing with strength is doing heavy reps, doing them as fast as possible with as little rest as possible is not relevant. Rest, recover fuel stores and do the heaviest reps you possibly can.
If you mean resistance training in a different way, then please shoot me another email and I will do my best to help you!
Any questions, email me at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com
Get-Fit Guy is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to the team at Quick and Dirty Tips Morgan Christianson, Holly Hutchings, the director of podcasts Brannan Goetschius and Davina Tomlin. I’m your host, Kevin Don. If you have a question for me, leave me a voicemail at 510-353-3104 or send me an email at getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com.
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