Yesterday, after my sucky race, I sent Joel a text message that my legs felt like Tonya Harding had gotten at them. I’ve run 9 miles or more before, so I was very perplexed at the extreme soreness. I did all my stretching, and I foam-rolled. So, WTF, muscles? He suggested putting a tablespoon of baking soda in a glass of water and drinking it. “It alkalizes blood, restoring the pH level,” he said.

When you work out hard, your body releases lactic acid, and this affects your body’s pH level.

However, in researching this post to make sure I wasn’t giving y’all misinformation, I discovered there are a few different theories to the lactic acid threshold. Some studies say it’s a good thing for your muscles, and to work past it (they also say that muscle soreness is caused by acute muscle tears); some studies (mostly older ones) say to work to just below the threshold, that past that is dangerous for your muscles.

FYI:

What say you?