When Grant Fisher got off the Boston University track on February 14th, it was not entirely shocking that an American distance runner broke the 5,000-meter indoor world record.
For one thing, he was in great condition. Just six days ago, 27-year-old Fisher had finished his breakout season, winning two silver medals at the Parisio Games, but broke the world record in the 3,000 metres in New York City. I was also playing bigger trends. He was running on one of the fastest tracks in the world. The Nike Spikes are wearing Nike Spikes, which helped to return energy on any stride.
But in Boston, when asked about the factors that led to the pairing of world records, he admitted it was astoundingly simple as it was probably in your kitchen.
He recently started wearing baking soda.
“I think it will have an impact. If that impact is 1%, it will be a big thing,” Fisher told reporters. “It’s probably like 0.1%, and if it’s just mental, I’ll take it too.”
Fisher is one of many professional runners in recent years and has embraced baking soda. This is known within sports by the Scientific name, sodium bicarbonate, or simply “bicarb” as a legal means of running faster than ever. The use of the bicarbonate “system” sold by Swedish company Maurten has become very widespread, with two-thirds of all 800-10,000 metres using it at the 2023 Athletics World Championships. At last summer’s Olympics, over two-thirds of running medalists used it. “In some cases, all the finalists used it,” the company told NBC News.
The eight-day span in February destroyed seven world records for sports in races ranging from 1,500 meters to half marathon roads. Rapidfire rewrites for professional running record books can be tracked for many reasons, from faster shoes and tracks, high-tech advancements that lead to faster recovery and better coaching.
This combination is sure to make it seem unthinkable to Mississippi State head track coach Chris Woods not only “many world records are at risk here in the very near future,” but also to include a 4:07 record for women’s miles.
“In my life, in your life, we’ll see a woman break for four minutes,” Woods said.
But runners like Canada’s 800 metre 2023 world champion Marco Arop, as well as Woods’ coaches, are also turning their eyes to “bikarb” for edge.
A period of intense exercise leads to acidity that creates accumulation of hydrogen ions in the muscles, increasing fatigue and creating a “burning” sensation felt during hard exercise. As a base, sodium bicarbonate acts as a “buffer” to counter acidity. Taking sodium bicarbonate does not violate the rules of the global doping organization. In fact, even the world’s athletics, and even the global governing bodies of athletics, describe it as “established performance supplements.”
The benefits of “BICARB” have been known for decades, says Steve Magnes, a coach and former elite runner who wrote multiple books on performance. However, athletes have been wary of it for just as long as they often have uncomfortable reasons. The probability of performance boost had to be compared with the risk of racially lost gastrointestinal distress.
“It didn’t work very well because it just tears your stomach and there’s a high percentage of people who couldn’t even line up for races or time trials,” Magnes said.
Fisher had been waiting until this winter after a very important Olympic cycle, using nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea bicarbonate until he tested the “bikab” mixture in training. His stomach handled it well, he said. And this may be because the bikarb has reached a turning point in recent years.
Maurten, a Swedish company, has found a way to wrap small tablets of bicarbonate in soup-like hydrogels that lead through the stomach and into the intestines. Side effects of taking sodium include water retention and weight gain, and increasing sodium intake regularly can lead to increased blood pressure, the company says.
Maurten’s reliability was boosted when renowned marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge set multiple world records using its products. Other Maurten users include 800 metre Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson.
But beyond hydrogels, Bicarb may have recently become more attractive to elite runners for other reasons. When the Paris Olympics began, research in the European Journal of Applied Physiology reversed the long-standing belief that sodium bicarbonate is the most effective buffer for short competitions and lasts for up to 10 minutes.
When researchers at Edge Hill University in the UK gave male cyclists Morten bicarbonate products during a 40-kilometer time trial, almost the length of the marathon, they measured a 1.4% boost in cyclists’ performance, minimizing stomach problems. In reality, cyclists using bicarbonate meant they were nearly a minute faster after about an hour of riding, said PhD Eli Spencer Shannon. A candidate who led the study.
“We’d classify it as small and meaningful,” Shannon said.
Shannon said the findings should spark more research. Bicarb doesn’t “one size fits all,” he said. Because each person’s stomach pain can change, and the effectiveness of baking soda as a buffer depends on how hard the athlete can push. Harder exercise produces more hydrogen ions in the muscles where the bicarbonate can remove it.
Still, Shannon was surprised by some of his research findings, as he was able to change his heart rate and also speed up the maximum amount of oxygen that can be used during exercise, known as voir.
“What it says is that you can work hard, but you have fewer cardiovascular strains and have better performance improvements compared to placebo,” Shannon said. “This suggests an increase in (muscular) contractility that was not seen at this period and at this intensity.”
Not all recent world record holders of tracks incorporate baking soda as a new tool for training. American Jared Nuguse, who broke the indoor miles record on February 8th, says that Norwegian rival Jakob Ingebrigzen will not use bicarbonate for its taste only to reset it five days later. But there are also some of the fastest people in the world.
Two days before the 800-meter Olympic semi-finals last summer, former basketball player Alop, who became the world champion in the 800-meter 800-meter 8-meter 8-0-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-00-meter 8-0 He tried the bikarb. The 800m is in the middle of one of the fastest years in the history of the sport, and Arlop knew that some of his competitors had used it successfully.
“This is the pinnacle of our sport and I don’t think he wants to leave anything by chance,” Woods said. “And if there was a way to give you a 1% advantage, that’s what he was trying to do. That’s what he believed. And the result we were pretty pleased.”
Woods didn’t know much about Bikab until Alop raised the topic in France, but he said he now believes there are scientific advantages.
“Are there any mental elements to that? I’m sure I’ll say it,” he said. “But I don’t think this is a placebo.”
Alop won the silver medal in the fourth-fastest time in 800 metre history, and was framed from gold for just a hundredth of a second by Kenya’s Emmanuel Waninini. The 800-meter world record set in 2012 could go down next, with Wanyonyi just two-half behind. After the race, Allop said he believes that the last minute addition of sodium bicarbonate “definitely played a factor” in his personal time.
“Everyone else uses it and it works incredible,” Arlop said in August.
Not everyone uses it. Bicarbonate is just one of many factors that sparked what Woods called the “golden age of track and field” when the talent of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, a boom that likened the NBA in the 1980s, coupled with better technology and rules changes, increased its popularity.
As Magness said, “Shoe Wars” broke out in a race to develop shoes that use bulky but light foam and carbon fiber plates to produce the most energy-returning shoes. Under the feet of athletes, indoor track physics also fuels faster times. In particular, Boston University’s indoor tracks became their destinations as wide and banked corners help the runners rotate, and the ground frame, made of wood and plywood, can return more energy like a mini trampoline than an outdoor track.
When Magnes was running 20 years ago, the information gap made him wonder how East African competitors were training. Social media and the internet have started access to other training methods and better coaching that have not burned young runners and created a larger pool of powerful runners, Magness said. Those young athletes watch their peers run faster than ever and believe they can do it with confidence.
They are driving the cutting edge advancements that Roger Bannister could have dreamed of as he chased the first four minutes of miles, along with basic household items.
“What the past few years have done is that that mindset is kind of a shift, just like we can do here and the past,” Magnes said. “But now the game has changed.”
