Sodium Phosphate

[RoadRaven]

Well... I don't think I'll bother again... it didn't seem to make a huge difference. I think a caffiene drink half and hour before the start of the race has more impact on my system... it was an interesting experiment.

I think it made the race easier to get through but I don't think it increased my performance in terms of time. I did a PB, but I was expecting to anyways...

It was interesting to be your guineapig, ladies... but my money is better spent elsewhere than these tabs.

[RoadRaven]

Just going to resurrect this...

I have increased my performance after a long plateau.
I was given a bunch of vitimins etc from a family friend who was clearing out her cupboard and having tossed about half of them due to being past use-by date or just not looking "fresh" so moisture must have got in...

However, several bottles/jars of bits and pieces - one of which a complete unopened jar (80tabs) of Sodium Phosphate.

So I figure - why not? I have a good idea of where I am at, will be time-trialling a course this coming Thursday that I raced only 4 weeks previously.

As I have said earlier in this thread, it is legal, these are naturally occuring minerals in the body - caffiene isn't and yet it is also legal...

Although this student research was highlighted in another forum
http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmhpl/research.html#KM

... and states "Repeated measures analysis of variance (P< 0.05) indicated no significant effects of sodium phosphate supplementation in contrast to the placebo treatment for VO2max or blood lactate. In conclusion, our data suggest that NaPO4 is an ineffective supplement when used to enhance endurance performance."
... I am still going to give this a go.

So, the race is Thursday, this means I take some low doses on Sunday and Monday, and then load Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and race Thursday evening...

I am interested to know if anyone else here has tried this out yet. Even a PM if you don't want to disclose in this thread...

And I am still interested in your opinions about this - either way - whether you are interested/enthusiastic or whether you think this borders on/is cheating...

Everything welcome, I will not take offence

[RoadRaven]

In addition to my above post...

This was posted at RoadBikeReview by Zoikz in 2006...

One of the central limitations of sports medicine research is generally these studies are done on very small samples. Because of this they have very little power, ie. their conclusions are really not statistically significant. When you look at any given topic there are multiple small studies with differing conclusions. Sodium phosphate is typical, there are studies on either side; benefit, no benefit.
To be fair these studies are generally poorly funded and technically difficult to perform. It would be very, very difficult to conduct the large placebo based randomized trials everyone in medicine loves.
One word of warning though, look at who funds these different projects. Often these research studies are conducted by researchers or labs with a vested intereest in the product they are assessing. Accelerade is certainly a good example of bad science conducted by biased researchers.
My take on phosphate is it probably won't hurt so give it a shot if you want. Doubt it does much of anything though.