The below is a guest post from the team at Xendurance.
When it comes to performance, most athletes will go to great lengths to gain small performance advantages. Better athletes will go even further to explore what might shave a few seconds here or there to achieve their goals. HYROX athletes are no different!
For years the conventional thinking amongst fitness experts, coaches and even scientists, has been to demonise lactic acid, or lactate, as the culprit for acute muscle soreness during stressful exercise.
Entire training protocols have revolved around maximising the body’s ability to decrease lactate build-up or clear it more efficiently. Whilst it is true that lactate accumulation is associated with exercise induced stress, it possesses no mechanism to cause the infamous “burning” sensation one feels in muscle tissue during extreme exertion.
What causes the burn?
The burn, or muscle soreness, is a neural signal in response to localised damage of the muscle fibres. This is your body’s way of telling you that this level of effort is not sustainable and to be careful how you approach the next few moments. An increase in localised inflammation can act as a protective mechanism to prevent serious damage. This may be painful and disappointing to your performance, but it also probably helps keep you alive in extreme situations.
What’s all that lactate doing?
Lactate, on the other hand, is the substrate most readily available to provide energy during these bouts of extreme exertion. It can quickly fuel stressed and fatigued muscles that are nearing complete depletion. It is only when lactate’s ability to fuel this rigorous effort becomes exhausted that soreness becomes overwhelming and the body screams to a halt.
Balancing Body Alkalinity in Athletes
But before we go much further, let’s do a bit of a basic chemistry refresh, as there is a lot of new age misdirection surrounding pH balance. The effects of a chronically acidic diet are pervasive and aren’t entirely within the scope of current scientific understanding. We are, however, aware that an acidic environment can curtail sustained athletic performance, and maintaining a “balanced” pH is conducive to superior results.
What is pH balance? Why should I care?
pH stands for Potential of Hydrogen and determines the acidity or alkalinity of a substance. pH is measured on scale of 0 to 14, with acids comprising the 0 to 7 mark and bases filling out the scale from 7 to 14. Generally, every liquid that isn’t water we ingest is somewhat acidic. Even milk, which is very close to neutral, has a pH balance of 6.6.
Acids are substances that can donate hydrogen molecules to another substance as needed, whereas bases will accept hydrogen molecules from substances. This mechanism is important when we discuss athletic performance shortly.
Pure water is the only substance we ingest that has a truly “balanced” pH of 7, being neither alkaline nor acidic. Most water we actually drink daily can range from slightly acidic to slightly alkaline, but hovering close to this mark of 7 on the pH scale.
It should come as no surprise that the human body, largely composed of water, maintains a pH level between 7.35 to 7.45. Disturbing this equilibrium is something the body will not tolerate, and it will deploy any number of self-protection mechanisms to maintain it, such as “the burn” during exercise induced stress. Acidosis is the condition of lower pH value than optimal and can be brought on by any number of diet, exertion, and stress related factors.
How do I maintain a pH balance?
Your body does a pretty wonderful job of keeping pH balance to ensure its own survival. However daily diet and routine determine whether or not your body has the necessary tools to maintain its homeostasis. Unfortunately, a lot of the food and beverages ingested in western culture tend to be more acidic and lacking the balance necessary to help the body stay healthy. Most meats, dairy products, grains, and protein supplements are acidic by nature. This does not make them bad foods, it is simply their chemical composition. Add beverages like coffee, tea, sports drinks, juice, or virtually everything but pure water, and nearly all the things ingested on a daily basis are at least somewhat acidic. When thrust into a constant state of acidosis, the human body has a difficult time maintaining homeostasis, and over time may lead to degenerative diseases in the bones, kidneys, and other areas.
Chronic acidosis can be prevented by eating base or alkaline substances rich with the salts magnesium, calcium, and potassium. What magical source can we possibly find these bases you ask? In fruits and vegetables. Turns out the conventional wisdom of eating more vegetables was right for a reason. Common alkaline minerals like calcium carbonate or magnesium hydroxide have pH values ranging between 9 and 11. With proliferation of processed foods and increased protein ingestion, our bodies need more fruits and vegetables than ever before. These minerals found within act as the buffers towards acidic substances and support the body’s optimal state of being.
Ok, but what about athletes?
Those who train vigorously and regularly expend a great deal more calories than the average population. Greater caloric demands mean a larger volume of food necessary to recover and continue fuelling training and increased demands on your body’s ability to maintain homeostasis. While most successful athletes will include a robust amount of fruits and vegetables in their diet, the stress of exertion during training may outweigh what they can logistically replenish.
Athletes are especially sensitive to acidosis during stressful exercise because of the hydrogen ion mechanism we spoke about earlier. In anaerobic training, large amounts of lactic acid, or lactate and a hydrogen ion, are produced. Lactate itself is not responsible for the painful “burning” soreness sensation, and is actually the substance providing the body with fuel to sustain a prolonged difficult exertion. However, an environment with an excess of hydrogen ions will turn acidic and lead to the “burning” response most feel. This is a self-protection mechanism, the body’s way of informing you that this level of effort may compromise your pH balance and homeostasis, thus it cannot be sustained.
Enter the Xendurance Lactic Acid Buffer
Alkaline substances, like the calcium, magnesium, and potassium found in Xendurance’s Lactic Acid Buffer – can act as a buffer against this acidic environment, delaying or preventing the body’s attempts to shut down intense training. Our Lactic Acid Buffer buffers the hydrogen ions (H+) delaying the onset of complete fatigue and reduces muscle damage. It is not one ingredient that targets the H+ but it is the combination of ingredients and the delivery system that makes this so effective in buffering and also repairing microscopic muscle tears to quicken recovery and reduce muscle soreness and this has been clinically proven to work in numerous studies.
Supplementing with our Lactic Acid Buffer ensures the body has the tools it needs to support an optimal pH balance in the face of a typically acidic diet and exercise induced lactic acidosis. This means shorter recovery times, prolonged ability to train, and better results.
But what about Beta-alanine?
Beta-alanine, found in numerous sports nutrition products, has been the “go to” ingredient for many athletes for years. The belief is it buffers lactic acid. It does not. Beta-alanine, in itself, is not a buffer. It is a non-essential amino acid. It first must be synthesised to carnosie. Carnosie is the dipeptide that functions as a buffer, not beta-alanine. We call beta-alanine the “snail’s pace” to buffering acid. It is old technology and it can take up to 4-10 weeks to get in your system, plus it does have side effects.
Our Lactic Acid Buffer buffers the hydrogen ions (H+) within 48-72 hours. It has no side effects and you do not have to worry about getting a tingling sensation.
Use code “ROXLYFE” at checkout on xendurance.eu for a 20% saving on your order.
