At the warm-up track for the recent European Athletics Championships in Rome, the bins invariably contained one particularly eye-catching white packet and tub.
And, all around, athletes were quite openly spooning out and consuming an unusual – and entirely approved – gel-like substance packed with white ‘mini-tablets’. A similar scene has been evident inside team buses at the start of major cycling races, at Diamond League athletics and now, increasingly, even in regional and national athletics competitions.
“Absolute gold dust,” says one leading coach.
“It’s game-changing,” added an Olympian in athletics, who estimates that more than 80 per cent – and rising – of elite international runners at distances from 800 metres and above are now using what is known as the ‘Bicarb System’.
Telegraph Sport has also been told that several leading Premier League football clubs are actively trialling the product that, while largely unheard of outside elite sport, will be used at Paris 2024 across just about every endurance event.
What is the ‘Bicarb System’?
Designed by the Swedish sports nutrition company Maurten, it is essentially a new answer to an old problem. Research suggesting the performance-enhancing properties of sodium bicarbonate – a household substance better known for its cake-making uses by the name of baking soda – first emerged almost a century ago.
The big problem was that, in trying to digest any significant quantity before intense exercise, a very large number of athletes found themselves requiring multiple emergency visits to the toilet.
Maurten had already designed a hydrogel for bypassing the gut while ingesting carbohydrates and, sensing an opportunity, began working with experts like the British sports physiologist and nutritionist Dr Andy Sparks to see if something similar could be developed for sodium bicarbonate.
How does it work?
Dr Sparks, a research fellow at Liverpool John Moores University, had been studying different methods of delivering bicarbonate long before working with Maurten on developing what he calls their “late release capsules”.
Once any negative reaction with stomach acids has been averted, sodium bicarbonate is believed to be beneficial during strenuous exercise of more than about a minute because of the body’s production of hydrogen ions and lactate salt.
Hydrogen ions make muscles and blood more acidic – thus decreasing efficiency – but the working theory is that the sodium bicarbonate helps to “flush” those hydrogen ions out more quickly. There is also a belief that the lactate itself is moved more rapidly and can thus be used as a fuel.
On top of the positive anecdotal feedback, early studies – such as on 40km cycling efforts – suggest tangible performance gains. Precisely quantifying the improvements, says Sparks, is impossible but the flood of personal bests and national records this summer has certainly not gone unnoticed. “I think we have opened a very interesting door,” says Sparks, who also highlighted improved shoe technology and advances in the delivery of carbohydrates.