On the subject of ketone esters, I’ve only tried them once, during a 90mi road race (I know…not the best time to try something new). My experience was similar to @Jonathan, where I felt extremely dehydrated very shortly after, even though I’d been taking on plenty of fluid. I also experienced some of the worst cramps I’ve ever had in a ride or race. Training-wise, my typical Saturday ride is a little longer than that race was, with similar, if not more intensity. My nutrition and hydration during the race were identical to my training rides, and the weather was pretty mild. The only change was the ketone ester. I know it’s not enough evidence for me to write it off completely, but I’m very reluctant to try again even though I have two bottles left.
Hydration, Sweat and Cramping with Precision Hydration's Andy Blow – Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast 221
Great episode! I’ve checked the SiS tablets I use and whilst it states potassium, magnesium and calcium content it doesn’t specifically state sodium. Interesting. Only that it’s got 0.9g of salt. Very informative! Googled it and it reckons 300mg electrolytes, probably inclusive of the aforementioned. So these are on the very low end of sodium content.
Thoughts anyone?
Hi bdboggan and thanks to @onemanpeloton for providing the link to the relevant article on our website, much appreciated.
Let me know if you need any help accessing or using the spreadsheet, and we’d definitely be interested to hear about your sweat rate!
Many thanks,
Chris
Hi c-h-a-d,
Our Advanced Sweat Test reports include your sweat sodium concentration score (the milligrams of sodium you lose per litre of sweat), and so it’s perfectly possible to take that information and compare that with the strength of any electrolyte drink.
Our hydration plans also include lots of actionable advice that is product agnostic, such as guidelines on the volume range in which you might want to start experimenting with how much to drink, sports/duration-specific advice on when to drink and the best format of electrolyte supplement (e.g. swallowable capsules, carrying bottles etc) in different scenarios.
We also include links to lots of blogs that we’ve written on topics, including the different causes of cramp (not just sodium depletion but other non hydration-related causes, such as neuromuscular issues), to help give athletes that have been tested as full a picture of the science of hydration as possible.
Of course, we do mention products that are relevant to you based on how you sweat within our hydration plans. We introduced the multi-strength product range to make it easy to implement your new hydration strategy by having electrolyte drinks that match how you sweat.
Initially, for the first few years of sweat testing we would try to recommend existing products on the market, but found that there weren’t many products that catered for the saltier sweaters amongst us.
I’ve included a ‘dummy’ Sweat Test report so you can take a look for yourself:
Hopefully you agree that there’s plenty of interesting and useful information in there that could help you dial in your approach to hydration, whether you choose to use our electrolytes or not? I hope this helps and good luck as you try to hone in on a plan that works for you.
Many thanks,
Chris
Hey Rob,
Thanks for the Five Stars!
There’s a lot of work going on in the wearable sweat sensor space at the moment, but from what we’ve seen there’s still more to be done before there are reliable devices that could help you understand your losses in real time.
The problem with solutions like patch testing and DIY sweat testing kits is that if they’re not carried out a controlled, laboratory environment, there can be a lot of room for error, through things like evaporation of the sample during the collection process and in transit, as well as contamination. We’ve seen some spurious data from these sorts of tests, even to the extent of athletes being told that they have hypertonic sweat (higher concentration than their blood) which is the case for a horse, but certainly not for humans!
When it comes to trying to work out how much you need to drink, we generally advise that you try to ensure that you have plenty of the right concentration of fluids available to enable you to respond to your body, based on the conditions and how you’re feeling at a given time, and to drink accordingly, rather than necessarily aiming to replace a certain percentage of your losses.
It’s certainly not necessary to replace 100% of your losses all of the time - this blog on How precise your hydration strategy needs to be is worth a read on this topic.
With that said, it can be useful to get a ballpark idea of the total volume of your sweat losses in different scenarios by measuring your sweat rate in those conditions. Another blog that might be worth a look is one Andy wrote on how to do just that - How to measure your sweat rate.
Many thanks,
Chris
I’m curious how often you test people and the results are entirely different than expected. I knew I was a high volume sweater, but figured I was high salt as well based on constant cramping, salt stains on my kit, etc. I took the PH test about a year ago and was only 500mg/L. Subsequent sweat rate tests are in the vicinity of 1.5L/hr. I’m starting to figure out that more like 1200mg/hr seems better for me. Is that within the range of ” start here and experiment" that you’d expect?
Thank you!
Hey Peter,
We do generally recommend decoupling fuelling and hydration, but the science behind why is not a closed book and sometimes different strategies end up working out ok for different people. Or even for the same people in different conditions!
It’s important to start by saying that the aim is finding a strategy that works FOR YOU so that should be the focus.
What works for you as an individual is not something that can be figured out entirely theoretically so this will always ultimately require a decent amount of good old-fashioned trial and error to sort out. Be prepared to try some stuff and to make a few mistakes in order to get to the bottom of it in your individual case.
That said, the reason we typically suggest getting most of your calories from more solid foods/chews/bars is that, based on a hell of a lot of experience, this approach results in less overall GI distress for most athletes and is especially true in the heat or during very long events.
We think this is largely because when you eat more solid food and drink your water and electrolytes your stomach is able to better control the rate that calories move from there into your gut (small intestine) where they are ultimately absorbed into the bloodstream. This is the case because the food comes together as a ‘bolus’ in the stomach enabling slower digestion and absorption than happens with liquids only. It also enables you to adjust the amount of liquid hydration you take on (highly variable and based primarily on sweat output) separately to the amount of calories you ingest (much more ‘fixed’ based on your size, pace and the upper limit of what you can absorb).
The main issue, if you just take in everything in liquid form is that it can potentially rush into the gut too fast and overwhelm the capacity of the intestines to absorb what you are throwing at it, leading to discomfort, bloating and even sickness or diarrhoea in some cases.
This is especially true in hot conditions when blood flow to the gut is compromised as you sweat a lot (reducing blood volume) and more blood has to go to the skin to help to cool you down. (It might be less of an issue in cold conditions when there is less overall competition for blood flow so digestion and absorption happens a little more easily).
We also think that it is highly relevant that your body naturally tends to craves fluid when you eat food in an attempt to aid digestion (how often do you sit down and eat a normal meal without taking a drink?). Therefore, when you do take most of your calories via something quite solid you normally get a craving for fluids with it, which is your body’s way of trying to balance out the consistency of what you’ve just ingested in your stomach.
This instinct helps you to drink appropriately based on what your body needs to aid digestion as well as to maintain hydration status. The end result of this is a more optimal mix in the stomach and a happier gut overall when compared to drinking a super-concentrated mix in a single bottle.
Apologies for the essay here and at the risk of overwhelming you with more information, I’ve included a link to Andy’s article on how PH fits in with your wider nutrition plan. This helps to provide a basis for understanding what fuel you might need during endurance events of varying lengths, but obviously feel free to fire over any questions that might crop up.
Many thanks,
Chris
Thanks guys - that’s super helpful! And I think I’m finally starting to get what Andy raised in the podcast - that separating hydration from calories means you can tweak either one as required dependent on conditions. Thanks for taking the time to clarify in such a detailed and helpful way. I’ll check that article out for sure!
Hi,
Just took the free online test but have some doubts on the salt stains. I live in the tropics, with extreme humidity and by the time I get home my kit is drenched in sweat so no way to see any salt stains. The few times I’ve done races in drier regions, like Texas, I have seen salt stains. Should I just take those examples? O should I hang my sweaty kit to dry and see if there is salt on it?
Thanks,
Hi Jcourts,
Thanks for your message and it sounds like you’ve got a good handle on your own body to be honest. You’re doing everything right by trying to ensure you’re properly hydrated and I wouldn’t have any major concerns that you’re more likely to struggle in a sports setting than someone else, particularly if you haven’t noticed a massive impairment of your performances.
As you say, I wouldn’t expect you to be different from other heavy/salty sweaters and it should be a case of ensuring you’re properly hydrated in the same way we’d recommend to any other athletes.
The big takeaway from us would be ‘don’t worry!’.
Let us know if you have any further questions though.
Many thanks,
Chris
Hi Bioteknik,
Thanks very much for taking the time to message and keeping your drink hypotonic is really important (which is why PH drinks are all hypotonic), particularly as you step up in distance.
It sounds like you’ve found a ‘concotion’ that works for you through some good old fashioned trial and error. If you did find that GI issues did become a problem during longer events, then we’d recommend keeping your fuel and hydration separate, but it sounds like what you’re doing is working for you.
If you wanted to delve a bit deeper into the different types of sports drinks and when to use them, Andy has written this blog which you might find useful.
Thanks!
Chris
Hi Cub8556,
Thanks for getting in touch and for your kind words about the podcast.
It’s a good question that you ask and rehydrating properly to help aid recovery after exercise is dependent on your level of dehydration after you finish your activity + how soon afterwards you need/want to be 100% to perform again.
So, for example, during a multi-day ride it’s important to rehydrate properly at the end of each day to ensure you’re ready to perform on the next day (which is why we generally recommend drinking a bottle of PH1500 with ~500ml (16oz) of water a few hours after exercise in this situation).
If your salt/sweat losses weren’t particularly high during a ride and/or you’re not looking to be performing at your very best during a ride the next day, then simply eating and drinking as you normally would is enough to replenish the fluids and electrolytes you’ve lost.
I realise I’m in danger of overloading this forum with blogs but I’ll just add a piece on ‘How to rehydrate quickly’ as this delves a bit deeper into the topic of rehydration and recovery.
I hope this helps!
Many thanks,
Chris
HI
I do (Very) hot hilly IM races and I’m looking to separate out my needs: Hydration, Fuel, and Salts.
So Water, Gels, and Salt-tabs
Is this a sensible approach?
Hi Wyku,
Great to hear you’ve been using PH1500 and they’ve been helping you with those leg cramps.
Our natural drink mix powders do contain a small amount of carbohydrates (16-17g), which enables faster absorption of the drink into the blood stream via a process called sodium-glucose co-transport through the gut wall. It provides some quickly available energy to help your performance when you’re out there working hard and sweating (without trying to entirely fuel your efforts), while our low-calorie effervescent tablets and SweatSalt capsules contain virtually no carbohydrates/sugars at all (less than 1g per serving).
The reason for this is that we generally recommend keeping your fluids for hydration and getting the bulk of your calories from solid and semi-solid sources. This gives you greater control and flexibility over your intake and reduces the likelihood of GI issues caused by creating an isotonic or even hypertonic ‘milkshake’ containing lots of calories.
This article on how PH fits in with your wider nutrition plan is useful further reading if you were interested as it provides advice on what your hydration + energy requirements might be during short (~90 minutes), medium (~90mins to 4 hours) and long (4 hours+) activities.
Many thanks,
Chris
Hi Shred,
No problem at all and sorry to hear about the cramps, although great to hear you’ve been getting on top of the issue!
It sounds like you’ve got a good handle on your own requirements in different conditions and the big thing is to listen to your own sense of taste and thirst. There won’t be a ‘one size fits all’ or rigid plan when it comes to fuelling and hydration, and it will be a case of testing different products out in different conditions during training to see what works best for you.
We generally aim to take on ~60g of carbs per hour (across all of your foods and drinks), with enough fluid to stop you getting thirsty and a sufficient amount of sodium to offset what you’re losing in your sweat. It will be a case of testing out different products to see what suits you’re own taste and needs.
Andy came up with a few examples of the types of things he’s tried eating during various races in different conditions…
- Boiled new potatoes with butter and salt (DW Canoe race) = ~5g carb per potato.
- Mini croissant with cheese and ham (NZ Coast to Coast race) = ~ 15g carb each.
- Pizza slices (TransAlpine trail run) = ~35g carb per slice.
- Marzipan balls (DW Canoe race) = ~10g per ball.
- Flat Coke (Most long races, in the later stages!) = ~ 52g carb per 500ml/16oz.
- Malt loaf with butter (Many long bike training sessions) = ~15g carb per slice.
Thanks again for your question and feel free to get in touch if you need any further info.
Cheers!
Chris
Hi WildWill,
Thanks for taking the time to message and great to hear you’re looking at refining your strategy after your issues at IM Vichy.
I’ve previously included a link in this forum about how PH fits in with your wider nutrition plan, which covers the areas of fuelling and hydration, so that could be worth a look if you get a minute.
Additionally, our free Online Sweat Test will help give a few pointers about your own hydration requirements, but obviously feel free to fire over any questions or get in touch with our team at hello@precisionhydration.com.
Thanks again and please do let us know how you get on with your strategy for next year.
Cheers,
Chris
Thanks for the reply, Chris. I saw another earlier reply you made with regards to keeping hydration and fueling separate and found it interesting and definitely worth consideration–it’s basically what I have done with gels as my fuel source and typically just water on board to wash everything down and for thirst quenching without a sweet flavour (plus with my TorHans Aero 30 bottle on the front it makes much less of a mess of my bike without sticky endurance drinks spashing everywhere! 
The PH1500 mix is pretty good in that regard if I throw it in too though 
).
What types of food/drinks do you recommend to “salt load” with the night and morning before a race?
@PrecisionHydration
Long time reader but only signed up because of this thread. Thanks a lot for answering all these questions!
I have two questions as well.
- Are you guys at Kona or do you know if your products are sold somewhere there? I’d definitely like to give it a try.
- So far I always used a highly concentrated bottle during the bike with all my carbs (and 5-10g of salt) in it. I wondered if it’s also reasonable to have a 2nd bottle with concentrated electrolytes, as in enough PH500 for 4-5hrs in another 500ml bottle? Obviously I would also always drink some plain water with it from bottles you get at the aidstations.
Hi Rondal,
Thanks for your questions. You could just add sea salt or equivalent to water and try adding lemon or lime juice, although it might not taste all that great - everyone’s different though so it may be something you get on with.
One thing to note is that table salt has been shown to be more distressing to the GI system as it is considerably more acidic due to the relatively large proportion of chloride in sodium chloride (composed of 40% sodium and 60% chloride). In contrast, the primary source of sodium we use in our PH products is sodium citrate which is alkaline and as a result is much more gentle on the gut when consumed in greater volumes.
We generally recommend keeping hydration and fuel separate by leaving your fluids for hydration and getting your fuel through solid and semi-solid foods (like bars and gels). , Some people mix PH with energy-focused drink mixes but that can create a ‘milkshake’, as the mixture can create a consistency that’s hard to digest and absorb, often leading to GI issues and slow rehydration.
See what works for you though and please do let us know if you have any further questions or need any additional information.
Thanks!
Chris