Welcome to a special episode of the Ask of Cycling Coach Podcast presented by trainer Rotum,

Coach Jonathan Lee. And joining me today, we're very excited to have Andy Sparks with us.

Andy, he's been an associate professor in exercise physiology at Edge Hill University in the UK.

It is currently a visiting research fellow at Liverpool, John Moore's University, and also a research innovations manager in the Medicine and Health Medical Department of Martin for those that have heard of we've mentioned that that product for years on the the podcast and you've seen it all over the place

Kind of like pioneers in this simplified

carbohydrate intake space.

So actually, this is an interesting situation

because Andy, you reached out to me

because I covered on a podcast.

I was discussing one of the studies that you were involved with and he said hey I'd be happy to jump on and answer more questions if you have them and and hopefully possibly clarify any misrepresentations that I made or misunderstandings.

The study that we were talking about, it's a February 2024 study and I'll read off the title and

this will be linked below for people.

It's called the effects of a carbohydrate hydrogel system for the

bent for the delivery of bicarbonate mini tablets on acid-based buffering

and gastrointestinal symptoms in resting well-trained male cyclists.

So we covered this one when we were talking and people were asking if the Mar10 product,

the sodium bicarbonate product is something that they should use.

This is interesting because it seems like the first research that's looking into

like different vehicle methods for sodium bicarbonate that's proving that this seems to be beneficial rather than whether

you're just dumping a bunch of baking soda and water or if you're just you know

taking a bunch of the tablet so Andy with all that said, I'd like to ask you, first of all,

great to have you on, and then secondly, can you explain what the problems you were trying to solve

...