Ultra Running sensation and all-around performance expert, David Roche, shares his experience with Maurten's Bicarb System: the revolutionary performance hack making waves at the top of the sport.
In 2023, I began hearing whispers.
Boulder, Colorado is a great place to hear whispers. You can go to a random elementary school track (yes, those exist) and see six Olympians doing the hardest workouts you could imagine. If you innocently ask some questions, you might get some secrets whispered back.
And the hot whisper goss was all about Maurten Sodium Bicarbonate.
It felt a lot like 2016, when there were whispers about new prototype shoes that Nike athletes were wearing. The original Vaporfly 4% started as an extreme, arguably unfair advantage for a few athletes before carbon-plated shoes became ubiquitous.
That’s what bicarb felt like.
I was skeptical. We had known for decades that baking soda loading could possibly improve high-intensity performance by buffering the hydrogen ions associated with fatigue (along with other theoretical benefits that I’d need to explain with 10 pages and a pair of boxing gloves to fend off doubters). It’s even banned in horse racing! But athletes didn’t use baking soda because it created GI system disasters. Think Chernobyl, but worse.
Maurten cracked the code and created a delivery system that minimized GI distress. Basically, you slurp it without teeth. I’ll leave that right there.
Eventually, I tried it on my classic test workout: 16 x 1 minute on/1 minute float in our neighborhood. I got 250 meters farther than I have had before. In 32 minutes, I became a believer. And I shouted the whispers I had been hearing from the rooftops.
First, I told athletes we coach (including pro marathon and ultramarathon runners) and talked about it on our podcast. Later, I talked about it on the Rich Roll podcast. The jump from our little running podcast to sitting across from Rich Roll in the studio had a lot to do with taking bicarb before the Leadville 100 Miler.
Thus far, studies have found performance benefits for events up to around 1 hour (40k bike time trial study). I know for a fact that many of the best ultra performances you have seen involve pre-race bicarb, though that is hotly debated and very few athletes are open about it.
Remember: we always see the coolest things in the real world before studies catch up 5-10 years later.
It’s not just whispers. This year at the Olympic Trials, I even heard some bicarb screams. “Bicarb! Bicarb!” a sprinting coach was yelling across the practice track. Apparently, some 100m sprinters were taking it to recover from the heats. The same goes for cycling, skiing, rowing, and every other endurance sport.
I’m not going to tell you how I dose it because I don’t want to make anyone angry (you can check out our podcast for that hot goss). Maurten Bicarb is the gold standard. Like the supershoe revolution, bicarb doesn’t just improve performance on race day, since athletes adapt to improved workouts and recovery. If you invest in taking Maurten Bicarb before some of your harder workouts, fitness compounds.
I know there are people out there who will disagree with how much I espouse the potential benefits of Maurten Bicarb. Good. I had a small coaching head start with high-carbohydrate fueling, as skeptics huffed and puffed about GI distress and fat oxidation. I think we have an even greater head start with the performance benefits of Maurten Bicarb across nearly every event.
My simple suggestions: take it 90-120 minutes before your workout or race, follow it up with 8 ounces of fluid, and you may be able to consider smaller doses (though don’t tell anyone I said that).
Trust me. I’m not good at whispering.
