Do the legal performance aids actually work

Beyond caffeine, which legal supplements are actually worth your money? Three keep coming up: sodium bicarbonate, beta-alanine and nitrate from beetroot. The good news is all three have genuine evidence behind them; they sit on the International Olympic Committee's short list of supplements with strong support. The catch is that each one helps a specific type of effort, and none of them is the broad endurance booster the marketing implies.

Let me go through them honestly, because the gap between "has evidence" and "will help you" is wide.

Sodium bicarbonate

This is baking soda, and the science is real. During hard efforts your muscles produce hydrogen ions that make them more acidic, which contributes to fatigue. Bicarbonate raises your blood's buffering capacity, so it can mop up some of that acid and let you sustain high intensity a little longer.

Who it helps: athletes doing repeated or sustained high-intensity efforts, roughly one to ten minutes. Think a hard 1500m swim, a 4km track pursuit, a punchy hilly criterium, repeated surges in a race. For a steady long endurance effort it does little.

The dose: around 0.2-0.3g per kg of body weight, taken one to two hours before.

The catch: GI distress, and it can be brutal. Bloating, cramping and sudden urgent need for a toilet are common at the standard dose. This one absolutely must be trialled in training, never first on race day. Newer enteric-coated and split-dose protocols reduce the gut trouble, but the risk is the main reason a lot of athletes who could benefit don't bother.

Beta-alanine

Beta-alanine is an amino acid that raises muscle carnosine, another intramuscular buffer. Same general idea as bicarbonate, acting from inside the muscle rather than the blood.

Who it helps: sustained high-intensity efforts in the one-to-four-minute range, and it can help with repeated hard intervals. Again, this is a high-intensity tool, not a long-endurance one. A road race finish, a hard middle-distance run, repeated efforts in a fast group ride are where it earns its keep.

The dose: around 3-6g a day, but here's the important part: it works by accumulating in muscle over weeks. You load it daily for four to six weeks or more. There is no point taking it on race day and expecting anything.

The catch: the harmless but odd tingling sensation, paraesthesia, on the skin at higher single doses, which you can avoid by splitting the dose. The bigger catch is that it does nothing for steady endurance, so most pure endurance athletes get limited value from it.

Nitrate and beetroot juice

Dietary nitrate, the kind you get concentrated in beetroot juice, gets converted in the body to nitric oxide, which can lower the oxygen cost of submaximal exercise. In plain terms, it can make a given pace feel slightly easier and improve running and cycling economy.

Who it helps: the evidence is strongest in less-trained and moderately-trained people. Here's the honest bit that beetroot brands skate over: in highly-trained endurance athletes the effect is smaller and more inconsistent. The fitter you are, the less reliable the benefit.

The dose: roughly 5-9 mmol of nitrate, which is about 70ml of concentrated beetroot shot, taken two to three hours before, sometimes with a few days of loading.

The catch: beeturia, harmless pink urine, and occasional GI niggles. It's also not cheap if you use it regularly. And avoid antibacterial mouthwash around the time you take it, because the conversion of nitrate to nitrite relies on bacteria in your mouth, and mouthwash kills them.

The summary table

AidHelpsEffort typeWhen to takeMain catchSodium bicarbonateBufferingHard, 1-10 min1-2 hr beforeGI distressBeta-alanineBufferingHard, 1-4 minDaily for weeksUseless for steady enduranceNitrate/beetrootOxygen economySubmaximal2-3 hr beforeWeaker in trained athletes

The honest verdict

Notice the pattern. Two of these three are buffers for high-intensity work, not endurance enhancers. If you're a steady long-distance athlete, bicarbonate and beta-alanine mostly help the sharp end, the surges, the finish, the hard repeated efforts within a race. Beetroot is the one most associated with endurance economy, but it's also the one most likely to disappoint you if you're already fit.

None of these comes close to the impact of just fuelling properly. An athlete taking 90g of carbs an hour they trained their gut to handle will beat the same athlete who skipped fuelling but took a beetroot shot, every time. Supplements are the last 1-2%, and only worth touching once the fundamentals, fuel, fluid, training, sleep, are nailed.

FAQ

Can I combine them? You can, but the combined evidence is underwhelming. Stacking supplements doesn't reliably stack the benefits, and it multiplies the GI risk. Get one working first.

Are they banned or risky? All three are legal and on the IOC's evidence-supported list. As always with supplements, third-party batch testing matters if you compete under anti-doping rules, because contamination, not the ingredient, is the real risk.

Which would you try first? If you do hard, punchy efforts, bicarbonate, tested carefully in training. If you're a pure long-distance steady athlete, honestly, spend the money and energy on gut training and fuelling first.

In MOVE we keep the focus on the fundamentals that move the needle most: carbs, fluid and timing matched to your sport and session. The legal aids are a fine-tuning layer on top, real but marginal. Build the base before you chase the percent.