The reason your muscles start to lose it’s function is because of high acidity levels in your muscle.  When the blood and other surrounding fluids become too acidic, your muscle starts to quickly loses it’s ability to function optimally. In order to combat the negative effects of high acidity, athletes have been experimenting with many different types of ergogenic supplements that buffer and lower acidity levels, thereby enhancing their performances.

One such common and well studied substance is sodium bicarbonate or better known as baking soda.  Yep, that’s right, good ole’ baking soda.  Sodium bicarbonate is an alkalizing agent and acts as a buffering agent in your blood to lower the acidity levels in your muscles.  Lowering acidity levels have been shown to help reduce the onset of muscle fatigue and in turn increase muscular performance.  Athletes have been dabbling and experimenting with it since the 1940’s.  In fact, here’s a link to a review of some of the more significant studies done on the effectiveness of sodium bicarbonate.

Although it has shown to have beneficial effects, there some negatives that need to be weighed out before trying it out.  For one, even though the International Olympic Committee doesn’t explicitly ban the use of sodium bicarbonate and other buffering agents, their use may be considered a violation of the IOC Doping Rule, which states that athletes shall not use any physiological substances in an attempt to artificially enhance performance.  Also, there are side effects to taking sodium bicarbonate as well - most common being gastrointestinal discomfort such as upset stomach, cramping, bloating, diarrhea and vomiting.  And frequent use may lead to cardiac arrhythmia, irritability and muscle spasms.

If you’re a serious athlete and performance is of the upmost importance and you’re curious about the affects of this buffering agent, I would suggest that you try it out during your training sessions to see how effective it is and how well your body tolerates it.  However, for the rest of us that do participate in higher intense workouts like the MAX Workouts program for other non-competitive health and fitness reasons, there are other ergogenic alternatives that acts as buffers to help lower acidity levels.

One particular substance of interest is carnosine.  Carnosine is a dipeptide composed of two amino acids, Histidine and Beta-Alanine and naturally occurs in many areas of your body including your brain, heart, kidney, stomach and most prominently in your skeletal muscles.

Carnosine has many beneficial effects including anti-oxidative properties that help slow down the aging process, but it’s also shown to act as a potentially effective buffering agent, much like what sodium bicarbonate does for your muscle.  Studies have shown that people with more carosine have a greater ability to keep their acidity levels in their muscles lower during high intense activities such as interval training and hence help boost their performance.

Although, it may not be as potent or as dramatic an ergogenic substance, the one great thing about carnosine is that is can be naturally enhanced without taking any supplements.  Studies have indicated that by performing highly intense activities such as sprints, intervals and weight lifting (ie. MAX Workouts) your body adapts to higher stress by producing more carnosine.  Increased amounts of carnosine in your muscle, enables you to perform better for longer periods of time at a higher intensity and it’s also been shown to enhance muscle recovery as well.

You can also increase carnosine levels by consuming protein from animal meat.  Protein is a must when you’re performing highly intense activities, since you’re breaking down muscle fibers as a consequence.  By getting enough protein in your diet, you’ll be able to repair the damaged muscle fibers and help avoid losing any hard earned muscles.  The amount of protein required varies with each individual and their activity levels, but as a general rule of thumb, you should be consuming about 0.7 - 1.0 g of protein per pound of lean body mass per day.

Lastly, there are carnosine supplements available on the market as well, along with beta-alanine and histidine supplements, which are the two amino acids that make up carnosine.  The effectiveness of taking these supplements are not well known, and there aren’t enough studies to prove or disprove otherwise.

As for now, your best bet to keep your muscles working at it’s optimal level is by including high intensity training as part of your fitness regimen to help keep your acidity levels low and make sure to eat a healthy well balanced diet.  Your diet should include plenty of proteins (preferably from animal sources) to help repair and build lean muscle, unrefined carbs from fresh fruits and vegetables to provide quick energy, as well as essential nutrients and antioxidants and lastly a healthy dose of good fats to provide long term energy for essential metabolic processes, and to help fight off inflammation.

Have you ever experience the quick onset of muscle fatigue when performing a highly intense activity?

If you have an effective way to avoid or prevent getting muscle fatigue, please let us know.

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