It was a very fast Olympics. Half of the distance running events—six of the 12 men's and women's races between 800 meters and the marathon—saw new Olympic records. The newest supershoes had something to do with it, and the fancy new track probably did too. There's also a new, more aggressive approach to racing that seems to be spreading. But there's something else, too, according to Canada's Marco Arop, whose silver medal performance in the 800 meters, a mere hundredth of a second behind Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya, made him the fourth fastest man in history.

Just a week before the Olympics, Arop decided to try something new—something that he'd never tried before but that, according to an anonymous Olympic runner quoted in the Telegraph, at least 80 percent of elite runners are now using: sodium bicarbonate, better known as baking soda. "I figured if everybody else is using it…" Arop said in his post-race interview. "And it's been working wonders."

Of course, athlete anecdotes only go so far. Shaquille O'Neal swore that PowerBand bracelets made him a better basketball player. Last year, I wrote about the much-hyped launch of a new baking soda formulation from the Swedish company Maurten. Even before the launch, the company had already lined up an impressive roster of athlete believers: cyclist Primož Rogli?, speedskater Nils van der Poel, mountain running legend Kilian Jornet, track stars Joshua Cheptegei and Keely Hodgkinson, and many more. But there was a notable lack of scientific evidence that Maurten's pricey ($70 for four servings) formulation works any better than the regular boxes of Arm & Hammer you get at the grocery store.