This post will continue the fight sport theme so far this week by giving an overview of a piece from this month’s Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research that covers the use of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) as an ergogenic aid during boxing performance (full reference below). As an introduction, the reasoning for using NaHCO₃ is to improve blood buffering capacity through an increase in the electrochemical intra/extra cellular gradient facilitating the removal of protons that are thought to inhibit the mechanisms of muscle contraction. In essence, it is thought that supplementing NaHCO₃ will allow performance of high intensity exercise for longer.

In this reviewed piece by Siegler & Hirscher, participants consisted of 10 national standard boxers that were all in pre-competition training for upcoming bouts.  They were randomly paired and sparred twice separated by the space of a week and completed their usual pre-fight routines. Participants arrived in their pairs 1.5 hours prior to their bouts and were tested for pre-exercise blood acid-base balance and ingested either 0.3g.kg^-3 bodyweight of NaHCO₃ or 0.045g.kg^-3 bodyweight of a sodium chloride placebo. Sparring consisted of 4 3minute rounds each separated by 1 minute seated recovery.

As expected, an elevated blood buffering capacity was seen prior to the bout as a result of NaHCO₃ ingestion and this was maintained throughout the four rounds of boxing. The main point of interest flagged was the significantly greater punch efficacy seen in the NaHCO₃ group. The conclusion is made that the use of NaHCO₃ as an ergogenic aid may improve boxing performance over 4 rounds and that future research into use over longer bouts may have wider implications on boxing perfomance.

Siegler, J.C. & Hirscher, K. (2010). Sodium bicarbonate ingestion and boxing performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 24(1) pp. 103-108.

A lot of combat athletes still use road work and other long slow distance (LSD) methods to condition themselves for upcoming fights. If you look at this logically what energy systems predominate these events?

MMA fights are 3, 5 minute rounds or 15 minutes of work, clearly the aerobic system is dominant therefore you can argue for the inclusion of this type of conditioning work. However if you look at the training of these athletes they usually have well developed aerobic systems in place due to the sport specific technical training that they go through.

You can split combat sports training into the following blocks, forgetting the strength and conditioning elements temporarily:

Technical Work- Informative elements such as learning and developing techniques

Isolated sparring- not full intensity

Light Open Sparring- again not full intensity

Heavy Open Sparring- Full intensity

Of the above elements when you put a heart rate monitor on people in these sessions all of them except short and heavy sparring are fuelled in high proportions by the aerobic system. Therefore my feeling is that this is more than covered in the everyday training routines of these fighters. It is the anaerobic systems that need the most development and you tend to see the most improvement in a pre fight cycle.

The anaerobic systems are best developed through strength and power training, power endurance circuits as well as more extended circuits when the time is right. The main argument for roadwork and LSD is for weight loss when high intensity sessions are an overtraining risk. Even then I can think of better ways to lose weight than LSD training. If you are an MMA or combat athlete make sure your training is not based around steady state aerobic work as this will not have as big an impact on your performance as working at higher intensities for shorter amounts of time and manipulating recovery times to provide you with the adaptations your looking for. Plus its so much less boring as well which is a big deal if you have an attention span like mine!!