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Nutrition

Baking Soda Cut 32 Seconds Off Women's 10Ks—Here's the Catch

Dr. Gymbro · · 4 min read
#ergogenic aids #sports nutrition #endurance performance #sodium bicarbonate #baking soda #10k running #female runners

The 32-Second Finding Hiding in a Cheap Compound

Sodium bicarbonate, the compound in baking soda, has a reputation among endurance athletes: it may help, but it can wreck your stomach. A new study in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism (Aktitiz et al., DOI: 10.1123/ijsnem.2026-0041) tested it in a group that rarely gets studied, recreational women runners. It did so outdoors, on a real track.

The result: a faster 10K with no measurable increase in gut symptoms.

What the Researchers Actually Did

Twenty-one healthy women (average age 33.6 years, VO2max about 48.6 ml·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹) completed two 10-km outdoor track time trials. The design was randomized, double-blind and crossover, so every runner served as her own control.

  • Supplement condition: sodium bicarbonate (SB) at 0.3 g/kg body mass
  • Placebo condition: 0.03 g/kg table salt
  • Meal: a standardized carbohydrate-rich meal at 1.5 g/kg body mass, eaten with both SB and placebo
  • Timing: ingestion 90 minutes before exercise
  • Cycle control: both trials took place in the same phase of the menstrual cycle

That last detail matters. Matching the cycle phase removes one source of noise that many studies in women ignore.

The Numbers

After SB, the women finished the 10K in 3,046.1 ± 208.7 seconds, versus 3,078.4 ± 206.8 seconds on placebo (p = .011). That is about 32 seconds faster, or roughly 1% over a race lasting around 51 minutes.

The blood chemistry changed as expected:

  • Resting blood pH: 7.47 with SB vs. 7.42 with placebo (p < .001)
  • Resting bicarbonate: 27.7 vs. 22.2 mmol/L (p < .001)
  • Both stayed higher after the run at every measured time point (1, 3, 5 and 7 minutes post-exercise; p < .05)

In plain terms, the supplement made the blood more alkaline before the run started, and that advantage persisted afterward.

The Stomach Problem That Didn't Show Up

The usual complaint about bicarbonate is gastrointestinal distress, which can include bloating, nausea and urgent bathroom trips. The researchers tracked symptoms at 30, 60 and 90 minutes after ingestion. They found no significant differences between SB and placebo (p > .05 for all).

The authors describe the strategy as "practical and well-tolerated." The study design points to the carbohydrate-rich meal as the likely helper, but this study did not test SB without food. So it can't prove the meal is what prevented symptoms. It shows that this combination was tolerated in this group.

The Practical Playbook

Dose: 0.3 g of sodium bicarbonate per kg of body weight. A 60 kg runner would take 18 g. A 70 kg runner would take 21 g.

Carbs: 1.5 g per kg of body weight in the meal, so about 90 g of carbohydrate for a 60 kg runner.

Timing: take both together, 90 minutes before the run.

Practice first: the study doesn't say a first-timer will tolerate it, so rehearse it before a training session, not race morning. This is common-sense advice, not a finding from the paper.

Who It's For

The evidence applies most directly to healthy, recreational women runners in their 30s with a similar fitness level to the participants, racing around 10K distance. If that's you and you're chasing a time, this is a low-cost option worth discussing with a qualified sports dietitian or coach.

Who Should Skip It (or Ask First)

The paper doesn't test these groups, so this is general caution rather than study findings:

  • Anyone with high blood pressure, kidney disease, or a medical reason to limit sodium should talk to a doctor first. Bicarbonate is a sodium load.
  • Anyone who has had GI trouble with bicarbonate before should be careful, since this study can't predict individual reactions.
  • Runners training for much longer or much shorter events shouldn't assume the same benefit. Only a 10K was tested.
  • Anyone pregnant or managing a health condition should get medical advice.

Reality Check: Limits of the Study

The sample was 21 women, so this is a promising result, not a final verdict. The runners were recreational, not elite. Only one race distance on one track was tested. The abstract also doesn't report whether individual runners responded differently, so some may benefit more than others. And the improvement was about 1%, meaningful for a PR chaser but not a miracle.

It's also worth noting that the study used a specified sodium bicarbonate dose. Eyeballing a spoonful of kitchen baking soda isn't the same as measuring grams by body weight.

Bottom Line

For recreational women runners, a carefully measured dose of sodium bicarbonate with a carb-heavy meal 90 minutes before a 10K improved performance by about 32 seconds. It also raised blood pH and bicarbonate without a measurable rise in stomach symptoms. It's a cheap, targeted experiment worth testing in training, with medical advice where relevant.

Source: Aktitiz et al., "Acute Sodium Bicarbonate Supplementation Enhances 10-km Outdoor Track Running Performance in Recreational Female Runners," International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. PubMed: 42926128.

Original study

Read the original research on pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov →

This article summarizes published research for general information. It is not medical advice.

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Dr. Gymbro writes for Dr. Gymbro: science-backed fitness, nutrition & performance.

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