One of the most enduring memes from Baki comes from the very first chapter of Grappler Baki. We meet our hero mid-meal: he wolfs down bananas and rice porridge, then chugs a bottle of flat, de-fizzed cola (็ญ้ ธๆใใณใผใฉ) straight down.
The crowd around him laughs โ "that guy's gonna die" โ but one quiet, bespectacled man notices and murmurs the now-legendary line: "Ohโฆ flat cola, is it? Impressive." (ใใปใใ็ญ้ ธๆใใณใผใฉใงใใโฆใใใใใใฎใงใใญใ). Baki is doing this right before the final of the Shinshinkai karate tournament, treating it as a high-performance fuel.
The internet has had decades of fun with this scene. But here's the question worth asking: is flat cola actually a smart thing for an athlete to drink โ or is it just manga nonsense?
The answer is surprising.
Real athletes really do this
Flat cola isn't a Keisuke Itagaki invention. It's a genuine, long-standing trick in endurance sports. Frank Shorter drank de-fizzed Coke during the 1972 Olympic Marathon โ which he won. To this day, you'll find flat cola handed out at ultramarathon aid stations, where exhausted runners reach for it in the final, brutal miles of a race.
So the manga's instinct was correct: a serious athlete reaching for flat cola is not a joke. It's a strategy.
Why it works: sugar + caffeine
Two things make cola useful late in an endurance effort:
- Fast simple sugars. Cola is essentially rapidly-absorbed carbohydrate in liquid form. When muscle glycogen is running low, that quick hit of sugar can be the difference between pushing on and bonking.
- Caffeine. This is the big one. Caffeine is one of the few performance aids with solid scientific backing as an ergogenic โ it genuinely helps endurance performance and reduces perceived effort. Cola delivers a modest dose right when the body wants to quit.
Together, sugar and caffeine give tired muscles fuel and the nervous system a nudge โ exactly what you want when you're staring down the finish.
Why "flat" specifically?
This is the clever part the meme actually nails. Carbonation is great for a refreshing drink at rest, but during hard exertion those bubbles cause bloating, gas, and stomach cramps โ the last thing you want mid-effort. Removing the fizz makes the cola far easier to gulp down quickly and keep down. The "de-fizzed" detail isn't random; it's the whole point.
The caveats (where Baki takes liberties)
Before you start chugging flat cola, the honest fine print:
- It's concentrated. Regular cola is around 10% carbohydrate, higher than the ~6โ8% that's ideal for absorbing fluid efficiently. Experienced runners usually dilute it with water, rather than drinking it straight from the bottle like Baki.
- It's endurance fuel, not a magic potion. The science supports it for prolonged efforts (marathons, ultras), not necessarily as a pre-fight power-up for explosive combat. That part is dramatic license.
- For non-athletes, it's just sugary soda. Outside of an endurance context, you're mostly getting sugar and caffeine with the usual downsides.
The verdict
The "flat cola" meme is funny because it sounds absurd โ but Itagaki clearly did his homework. The underlying idea is real sports nutrition: rapid carbohydrate plus caffeine, with the carbonation stripped out so your stomach can handle it under stress. Olympic marathon champions have done exactly this.
So next time someone laughs at the flat-cola scene, you can do your best impression of the man in the glasses: "Impressive."
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Sources: Flat cola for runners โ RunningState, Coca-Cola and endurance athletes โ PrisChew, De-fizzed soda in trail running โ Trail Runner Magazine, ็ญ้ ธๆใใณใผใฉ โ Pixiv Encyclopedia