• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Acidic / alkaline myth ??

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
The 'doctor' who wrote the article is completely mistaken. The entire medical community knows that the condition called 'gout' is caused by excess uric acid in the blood stream, caused primarily by eating too much protein, especially shellfish. The treatment is to avoid meat.

While it is true that the blood acidity doesn't change much from diet, what does change is the amount of buffers available, which is just as important and affect acidity indirectly.

In athletics it is well known that eating baking soda before an anaerobic race will increase the amount of buffers, so your body (muscles and blood) will become less acidic once you start producing lactic acid.

Freedivers can experience first hand the effects of diet & acidity. Try eating nothing but meat for a few days and then doing a static. Try the same after eating only fruit for a few days. The urge to breathe will come at dramatically different times, and the urge to breathe is triggered primarily by blood pH (acidity).
 
I guess both were right. As doctor was talking about Ph levels and Eric about bufferes I guess. But what is truth is that Ph level in blood does not change much (about +-0,2).

- kimmo
 
Last edited:
efattah said:
...The entire medical community knows that the condition called 'gout' is caused by excess uric acid in the blood stream, caused primarily by eating too much protein, especially shellfish. The treatment is to avoid meat..
Click to expand...
Unless you are a retired army general, in which case it is caused by drinking too much port! (Old English stereotype of somebody with gout).

How long did it take doctors to accept that bacteria cause stomach ulcers? (A very long time). A friend used to drink milk & swallow antacids like crazy - poor guy, apparently he really needed good dose of antibiotics. Odd that such a strident response to quackery contains unsubstantiated claims with no references to research:hmm.
 
I am confused... I thought the urge to breathe was triggered primarily by the partial pressure of Co2? And you Eric seem first to say that blood acidity cannot be changed with diet, and then finish your post with examples of how diet can change blood acidity.

I haven't quite understood what would be the best diet for, say, a static. Can somebody explain?
Thanks.
 
Mmmm, me too. Why do some people drink a big cup of squeezed lemons before a static then?

If i eat just meat a few days before a big static does this make the contractions come on later?

What about the lemons? What would they do?

Questions, questions!
 
Blood pH has to be in a very narrow range, +/-0.5.
Ventilation is the best way to produce acute changes in pH, but low CO2 has a harmful effect on brain perfusion. I'm not sure how diet can induce severe changes in blood pH to affect performances. In all the articles I have read about alkalinization to increase performance there is no clear conclusions because in some papers they didn't find any difference. Specially in static there is a lot of subjectivity, and that affects the results.
If you believe in one or another theory you will perform better with the one you believe the most (placebo effect)
Posted via Mobile Device
 
Last edited:
Reactions: azapa
Many athletes drink fresh lemons, or even pure citric acid, before static. This has a strong effect if you do it about 3 hours before, and you need a LOT (15g citric acid at least).

However, baking soda is much more powerful (sodium bicarbonate). Or also potassium bicarbonate. But, these both have a tendency to produce diarrhea. If you take 20g of baking soda 1h before a static, you will delay the contractions dramatically. I also recall reading a study that tested baking soda on freedivers with measurable effects. But the problem is the side effects. This is why people use lemons/citric acid instead, not as powerful, but no side effects.
 
Why not just hyperventilate if you want to prevent pH from getting low on a breathhold? Surely drinking lemon juice still negates the Bohr effect, and if you hyperventilate at least you get more O2 to make up for that.
 
I used to have lemons before my statics and gave them up a while ago but last night i have a few lemons one hour before and hit a new P.B of 6mins 20secs!

Placebo effect? Maybe? happy? Yes!
 
efattah said:
Many athletes drink fresh lemons, or even pure citric acid, ...
However, baking soda is much more powerful (sodium bicarbonate). ... This is why people use lemons/citric acid instead, not as powerful, but no side effects.
Click to expand...
It does not make any sense to me. Citric acid is, as the name tells, an acid, and hence lowers the pH. While baking soda is alkaline, and rises the pH. So how can an acid be used as a replacement for alkalic substance, and achieving the same effect on the blood pH?
 
Last edited:
I've been drinking a glass of triple-berry juice (blueberry, raspberry, blackberry) about an hour before statics, and it seems to make a difference. I set a p.b. of 6:49 last week, and will try to top that tomorrow. I generally do two warmup holds of 5min (15sec purges/2packs) and 6min (30sec purges/10packs), then target (1min purges/18 packs), and my contractions start around 5:30 in the last hold. It's an outside shot, but the US national record is "only" 7:28 -- I'll have a go at it at in Cayman in three weeks!
 
Answers to questions:

1. Citric acid is acidic, but makes your body more alkaline. This is true of almost every fruit you can eat. Your stomach neutralizes the citric acid and it becomes citrate. Citrate is a precursor to bicarbonate. Similarly, instead of eating lemons or citric acid, you can take sodium citrate or potassium citrate, which I have also tried. It has the same effect except is more gentle on your teeth.

2. Answering Mullins' question, hyperventilating has very different effect from increasing buffers through diet. The concept took me years to figure out, but the main idea is that if two people have the same pH during a breath-hold, the one with more CO2 will win. So, you are better off with more buffers and more CO2, rather than less buffers and less CO2. This is because CO2 does more than just change the pH and bohr effect. It also is a trigger in the dive response and also causes cerebral vasodilation and peripheral vasoconstriction. In Vancouver in 2002 my friends and I did extensive experiments, testing the so called 'acidic system of diving.' In that system, you eat an acid forming diet, and keep your buffers to a minimum. Then, you can hyperventilate excessively before the dive without compromising your bohr effect. You start the dive with a little more O2 due to the hyperventilation. But you lose in the end. We found that the diver with more buffers and no breathe-up would always beat the diver on the acid diet with long breathe up.
 
Reactions: trux
Thanks, Eric, for the details. As for the acidic/alkaline problem, it makes some sense what you tell, but I still wonder if alkaline substances would not have opposite effects than acid ones. If citric acid makes the body alkaline, because the organism attempts to neutralize it by increasing the alkaloids production, will the body not react in opposite way when trying to neutralize alkaline substance?

Also, if body gets alkaline when neutralizing the citric acid, doesn't it actually use the buffers instead of building them up, meaning so it has less buffers available during apnea to cope with blood acidosis caused by CO2?

On one hand it all sounds illogical, but on the other hand I realize that the body is quite complex and the processes are often quite paradoxical.
 
Last edited:
So increasing your acidic intake should extend your static...

How many lemons are required to increase your levels in any appreciable manner? How big is the glass of triple berry juice? How much increase in static are we talking about?
 
The neutralizing of acids happens in the stomach & intestines. These reactions are separate from what happens in the blood.

There is no need to neutralize something like citrate. It is already near neutral. However if you ate something extremely 'basic' like sodium hydroxide, I'm not sure what your stomach would do -- probably throw up !
 
Well, woke up today with a head cold, drank a glass of the berry juice (8oz, not a huge amount), and went for statics anyway... 5min, 6min, 6:15, 2:45 FRC, 6:00. I felt like I could have pushed much further if I had been feeling better; the first minute of contractions were pretty easy. I don't really have enough data to show how much of an actual difference the juice makes, or if there's something better I should be drinking instead. (Besides having a slight cold, the steak + dessert + half-bottle of wine the night before was not helpful, I'm sure I'll try again Sun.
 
Tried statics again yesterday, feeling better but not perfect; managed 6:43 with a light samba. Crossing my fingers for a clean 7 minutes one of these days!
 
Well just for infomation regarding the baking soda, had 20g of the stuff last night before training (god i thought i was going to be sick) spent the next hour farting like crazy before i went to the pool.

Static went o.k but no better than normal but felt really bad in the water as the stomach pains were not good....

Conclusion...dont take again!
 
bite ya said:
Well just for infomation regarding the baking soda, had 20g of the stuff last night before training
Static went o.k but no better than normal
Click to expand...

Baking soda will not make your statics any longer if you are already good in static. It might delay the contractions, but it will not extend the time to BO.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…