He does relent on exercise over 4 hours, but how wrong is this, at least for us?
If youâre exerting yourself and sweating (exercise or physically demanding job), you should probably have electrolytes in your drink. My beef with companies like LMNT are when they market their product as an âevery dayâ supplement. Kathy in accounting doesnât need 1g of sodium in every bottle of water she drinks at her desk while working, but if Kathy is doing VO2 intervals after work and sweating buckets, then she probably does. Itâs not THAT complicated, is it?
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Completely agree with this. Iâm super active, super heavy sweater and salty. I feel so much better when I take in heavy electrolytes before, during and after. Iâve had to dial in what seems to be about right for me depending on intensity and time of year.
My wife is not nearly as active and doesnât need the same level of sodium as I do. She still needs some with her hydration, but usually 2-300mg does the trick, 4-500 on an active day for her.
Some rides during the summer Iâm taking in close to 3G with pre, during and post. I do think carbohydrate plays a bigger role on fueling for exercise than salt. But they are both part of the equation in fueling and staying hydrated.
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That was how I took the video too, hard exercise prob needs salts/minerals but I donât need them sitting at the desk. Prob good for my wallet considering the price of Precison Fuels or Styrkr tabs!
Definetely need to include them in the summer, less so outside in the winter and less inside since itâs not as long. For most thing I use homemade with salt and bicarb, this works enough and is cheap, leaving mixes for refils or if I know itâs a hot and//or hard day.
In the states, LiquidIV is a ~20g carb âhydration mixâ that iâve seen so many sedentary people consume in the name of hydratingâŚ
My take? It is helping you hydrate, purely because it has to get mixed into water which youâre then drinking. Some people are constantly dehydrated because they only drink coffee and beer/wine/booze and struggle to drink an 8oz glass of water.
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Getting my âsalt testâ from Performance Nutrition (or whatever they are called), and I sweat out about 1100mg of sodium per litre of sweat. Adding that to my drink mix did make a huge difference. But, as noted above, thatâs only during a hard workout.
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Except Kathy doing VO2max may or may not need it. For some reason everyone keeps upping the salt because thatâs the cool thing right now.
Do they tell you how long it takes to sweat out a liter?
Personally, Iâve never noticed any performance improvement whatsoever from taking electrolytes. Now, Iâm not a heavy sweater like some of you who rust away your stationary bikes.
The other half of the scam is that you can buy a 26oz bottle of Mortonâs salt for $1.67 (or $0.67 for the generic) and just put it in water or your bottle.
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Thatâs why I said âprobablyâ needs it, all of this varies so much from person to person. I know I need electrolytes when Iâm exercising because I was getting cramps and then awful headaches later in the day after hard workouts when I sweat a lot. Also tested low on magnesium levels thanks to a GERD medication that partially blocks absorption of magnesium, calcium, and a few others. This is my N=1 observation, obviously.
100%, I buy individual electrolytes in bulk and mix my bottle or packs myself depending on a bunch of different variables. I do carry some pre-packaged stuff during long races in case I need to refill a bottle, but theyâre too expensive to use every time I work out.
What they suggested was to weigh yourself before an hour ride and then after. A liter is 2.2 lbs. do that a few times and youâll get a reasonable avg. Iâm about 900ml per hour on a normal day outside. On the trainer, with three fans, Iâm closer to 1.1.
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I canât do actual salt in my drinks. I find it, unsurprisingly, too salty and it makes me feel ill. I use sodium citrate, or sour salt. I can barely taste it and Iâve read itâs easier on your stomach.
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Same, I bought a bag of sodium citrate a few years ago on a recommendation from someone on this board. Iâm still on my original bag.
Even for a VO2max workout (4x5min or whatever) I donât sweat that much. For me to sweat a lot, it takes a 2-3 hour group ride in the heat of the day. Extra points if itâs humid.
Also, I donât think the electrolytes help much in the moment. I gather that it would be fine to just sodium load after the workout. At least for me, Iâve never noticed any improvement with or without electrolytes.
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I donât watch these videos because they take too long to get to the point compared to text (60sec vs 10min. I got Gemini to summarize it, so I can comment on that summary (though this assumes thatâs accurate).
>Smith notes that while athletes believe they must replace salt lost in sweat, the average person already exceeds the recommended daily intake of sodium [02:34]. Furthermore, when we sweat, our blood sodium concentration actually increases because sweat is less salty than blood (hypotonic) [06:37].
If you are sweating a lot every day, you need significantly more sodium than the default RDI. RDI for sodium assumes basically no significant sweat losses. You donât get major changes in blood sodium concentration during normal exercise under normal conditions. The problem remains that total body sodium can be depleted.
>Scientific literature suggests that sodium supplementation does not directly improve exercise performance, race times, or time to exhaustion [03:33].
Accurate, with the limitation that studies arenât looking at extreme situations (ex: 8+hour rides at >35C where youâre sweating 2L/h).
>Drawing from research by Adam McDonald, Smith highlights that electrolyte supplementation is generally only necessary for extreme cases:
⢠Exercise lasting over four hours [09:12].
⢠High sweat rates (losing over 1,800ml per hour) [09:35].
⢠Specific medical conditions like hyponatremia [06:20].
Pretty reasonable. (Edit: thinking about this more I would caution against anchoring too much on that 4h number. If you are less conditioned and riding in the heat, you can absolutely start to overwhelm your ability to mobilize sodium stores within less than 2 hours even, and end up with symptoms of hypovolemia)
Your body has sodium reserves. Significant amounts in the skin actually based on recent research. The amount stored and your ability to mobilize it likely improves with training. As long as you donât overwhelm your mobilizable stores during your exercise, you donât really need to replace during the ride itself. You can just eat more salt with your normal meals. Conversely if itâs more convenient to you to take it in on the bike, go for it.
>He recommends swapping electrolyte habits for flavored creatine,
Creatine isnât super useful in improving cycling performance, outside of short sprints maybe.
I will also add that a small amount of sodium in your drink does improve sugar absorption. Though I doubt this would have a significant performance impact in most cases.
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In the summer I usually spend a few weeks in a hot area (daily highs usually over 35 celsius), and I live somewhere that pretty far North. If I donât salt my bottles significantly, I get massive cravings for cheezies after my rides.
Yeah. Only thing I think about is Na, and then mainly to flavor my drinks. Depending on what I have in my bottle, often dilute fruit juice or iced tea, Iâll add 1/8 tsp of salt or so.