Sodium citrate in zip lock baggies in your jersey pocket?
Salt tablets can be a good way to increase sodium intake, and are easy to carry.
There are various sport specific ones that have other electrolytes as well, however just plain salt tablets also get you the sodium you need.
I have some SaltStick Capsules, so I can get the sodium up, but I’m curious if anyone knows if it’s important to replenish both sodium and fluid during the effort? I could put 2,400mg sodium in a bottle, but is replenishing just sodium sufficient? Also, how much dehydration is too much dehydration. 
Good question:) You probably shouldn’t drink seawater to get your salt back 
Yes, you need to replenish both, and my understanding is at least somewhat in proportion.
At the extremes, just taking salt tablets without any water when you are dehydrated is likely bad, and drinking just plain water in excess can be deadly (hyponutremia.) Drinking seawater won’t help your dehydration either.
All that said, I don’t have any good sources for what the limits are. I think in the 1-1.5 grams sodium/liter of water is reasonable. (Precision hydration sells 1500mg sodium/32 fluid ounces tablets.) I suspect that 1.5g is about the upper useful limit, but I don’t have hard data or specific physiological reasons to back that up.
I don’t have references handy, but I think 2-3% dehydration (%body weight lost) is generally safe, but can lead to performance loss.
My take on your situation:
- target about 1000mg sodium/liter of drink
- take 2 oversize bottles, or take a 3rd in a jersey pocket.
Not knowing how much you weigh it’s hard to now what % being down 3L is, but that to me is a significant deficit. That would put me at about 4% dehydration, which would be more than I would be comfortable targeting.
You can lose 3-5% body weight before seeing any endurance performance decrement.
Current recommendations do not indicate that measuring sodium loss, being a “salty sweater,” or anything else is useful for preventing dehydration or hyponatremia. Drink to thirst and remember that most fluids you’re putting in your mouth are hypotobic. Get your lytes through solids.
1 Like
Some can. Some can’t. The majority of folks are in the “can’t” category.
This is reactionary advice from a certain camp (Noakes, Hoffman, and more) to the over-drinking advice which came from Gatorade in the 1990’s and early 2000’s… which was reactionary to the good ol boys football water makes you weak dogma of the 1960’s.
Drinking slightly beyond thirst and targeting high sodium intake rates may be optimal in many high sweat rate scenarios.
4 Likes
If I drank to thirst on long hot rides I would likely end up hospitalized. I can understand that recommendation for the vast majority of exercise than non-competitive athletes do, but for me in hot weather I think that would be dangerous advice to follow. I am rarely thirsty on rides, even when I come back fairly dehydrated on hot days.
Are you saying you’d end up hospitalized with hyponatremia or dehydration? That your thirst mechanism would compel overconsumption or underconsumption?
on hot days i would likely end up severely dehydrated, which i think would increase my chances of heat exhaustion or heat stroke. even when i am drinking abobe my thirst i can come back dehydrated enough to not urinate much if any for 2 or 3 hours even though i drink a lot after the ride.
So you’re saying that for you to not end up severely dehydrated, you have to encourage drinking well in advance of thirst, to prevent excessive body water loss, because you won’t get all that thirsty until you’re wildly dehydrated?
Just making sure I’m understanding!
If yes, then…
You know, I’m not sure, but I think I may be somewhat similar here. My problem is that I’ve had my head in the scientific literature and in thinking about how I’ll algorithmize fluid consumption and fuel intakes for so long that I can no longer differentiate what is actual thirst-compelled consumption and what is me just knowing how much I need to drink to perform well (or not die of dehydration) and being on autopilot with it. Weird mental quirk I’d not explored before! Thanks for that!
Btw, you may be able to encourage your own thirst, and enjoy the process of fluid consumption more, if you consume salt at a higher rate during those sessions where you know you could get behind on fluid consumption. (as long as you’re not already exceeding like 1500mg/L)
1 Like
Yup, you got it. I will have to experiment with higher salt content to see if that increases thirst. It could also be that I am typically deliberately drinking slightly ahead of my thirst, so it’s possible that drinking to thirst wouldn’t be too far off from what I drink now.
After long hot rides I have to very consciously drink water (with electrolytes) otherwise I will often get a headache 4-8 hours after the ride. I don’t get these headaches after long/hard efforts in conditions where I can drink enough.
Now that it is hot again in my garage I need to do another sweat rate test to see how that compares with previous years.
1 Like
Interesting observations on heat and thirst. I’m exactly the opposite. I have to force myself to NOT drink when it’s hot or I end up having to pee every 45 minutes. I usually have 60-100g carbs in a bottle, so I always assumed this was just my sweet tooth. Since reading some of the comments on the forum and looking at @Dr_Alex_Harrison’s advice, I’ve been upping my salt intake this summer (through Performance
Hydration and SIS tabs) and have found that I urinate less and also have a less constant desire to drink.
Excellent. I suspect that’s wise. When I hear “hot and sweating a lot and peeing often” my knee-jerk response is: sodium intake better be high or you’re just wasting water and washing out blood sodium.
1 Like
It was a little over 110 degrees yesterday, so I decided to do a sweat rate test in my 95 degree/30% humidity garage. (Roseville, CA)
2 hours at 70% FTP (175 watts), with 13 minutes additional warm-up/cool-down
I weighed myself (dry, naked) before/after. I had been working outside for some the day, but my pre-workout weight was only 0.4 lbs less than my morning weight, so I think I started out in a reasonably hydrated state.
During the 2 hours, I consumed 2.6 liters of fluid, and weighed 1kg less after. This works out to about 1.6 liters/hour sweat rate. I was probably partially drinking to thirst here - I wasn’t forcing myself to drink on a schedule, but was also aware that I needed to be drinking frequently.
I did this test in the later afternoon/early evening, so after that I ate some dinner and drank some water, then went to bed. Since the 1kg loss seemed like very moderate dehydration, I didn’t force myself to drink lots of water/electrolytes after the workout.
During the night I got a headache, which I get after hot rides where I “don’t drink enough”. What I find interesting here is that I didn’t think being 1.3% dehydrated (1kg loss/77kg weight) would be enough to cause a headache later.
I think that either:
- I am more sensitive to dehydration than I thought
- The headaches are more related to salt deficiency than water loss. On this ride I had some electrolytes, but was on the low side of what I would typically do.
I also collected some sweat samples to try to quantify my salt loss due to sweat, but haven’t run the numbers on that yet. (more on that later.)
1 Like
Yes. Based on what you wrote, those would be my targets for action.
Just reviving this thread as I purchased the Gatorade sweat patch and tried it out yesterday.
Seems they changed the app. Now it gives 2 pieces of info. I guess it helps inform me that I’m a salty sweater. I find it interesting that they don’t provide any actual recommendations based on results.
Wheres the best /cheapest place to purchase these? I saw they are half off on gatoraids site, but thats for a single. Wondering if theres a better price somewhere if you purchase multiple patches.
1 Like
That’s where I found the cheapest price. On the Gatorade site. I bought 3 and figured that would be enough to figure out if they were useful