This past weekend it was quite warm in Adelaide and with a gravel race a few weeks away figured would be good to seek some help on this topic. I missed last summer due to injury so haven’t dealt with heat in like three years really.
Saturday I did 2 hours of sweet spot and covered in salt stains.
Sunday I did 3 hour z2 ride. I felt like it was even worse on Sunday.
I didn’t cramp or anything but what is the current guidance for this?
My current fueling for training is bottles have 30g malto and 16g of sports drink. Bottles are .6l camelback.
I eat normal bars nothing special for training. Chewy and fruit bars. Aim for high carb low fat.
For races I will use Gels. SIS or this local brand called Winners.
Do I simply just add table salt to my bottles?
I feel like there was a podcast from TR on this topic and salt stains are a reaction from intaking salt and not necessarily a sign you’re low on salt it’s just that you have salt in your body.
Great question! First off, it’s good to hear you’re paying attention to these factors now so you can fine-tune your approach ahead of race day.
You’re correct—salt stains on your clothing and skin are not a bad sign. It doesn’t sound like you are necessarily suffering in the heat or from dehydration. However, it’s worth checking if your sodium intake matches your sweat rate and electrolyte needs.
Use a digital scale to measure your weight (preferably naked) just before starting your ride. Note this weight down.
Track Fluid Intake During the Ride:
Weigh Yourself After the Ride:
Weigh yourself again (naked and dry, if possible) immediately after finishing the ride.
Calculate Sweat Loss
Sweat Loss (liters) = Pre-ride weight (kg) – Post-ride weight (kg) + Fluid consumed (liters)
If you urinate during the ride, subtract the estimated volume from the fluid consumed.
Determine Your Sweat Rate:
Example:
Pre-ride weight: 70 kg
Post-ride weight: 69.5 kg
Fluid consumed: 0.5 L
Ride duration: 1 hour
Sweat Loss= 1 liter/hour
Increase Sodium Intake Strategically
Table salt works, but using a sports-specific electrolyte mix is often better as it provides a balance of electrolytes beyond sodium.
For hot conditions, aim for 500-1000 mg of sodium per hour, adjusting based on your sweat rate.
It has been reported that some athletes lose up to 2300mg of sodium in their sweat!
If you suspect that you are an exceptionally salty sweater, this could be useful information to know. You might wish to do a sweat test. There are a growing number of companies that offer these. It might be something that is worth exploring!
Fueling
Dehydration can also reduce your ability to absorb carbohydrates effectively, so this is another reason to dial in your hydration strategy!
Heat Adaptation
Gradual exposure to heat can improve your ability to manage temperature and reduce sweat electrolyte losses. This might naturally occur over the course of a summer, or you may wish to include some heat training in your schedule. If so, start by adding heat exposure to lower-intensity rides and build up.
We discuss Heat Training with Dr Chris Minson in this episode of the Ask a Cycling Coach podcast. You can check that out here!
Table Salt vs. Electrolyte Mixes
While table salt is an easy and cost-effective option (1/4 tsp = ~575 mg sodium), sports drink mixes are more precise and often include potassium, magnesium, and calcium, which are also lost in sweat.
However, if you are careful to ensure you are consuming enough potassium, magnesium and calcium around your training through food, table salt should be fine as you lose a lot more sodium than you do other electrolytes in your sweat.
Podcast Recommendations
Here are some podcast episodes/ TrainerRoad YouTube videos where you can find everything you need to know about hydration and preparing for hot races!
The amount of salt in sweat can vary significantly from person to person 500 mg to 1500 mg per litre of sweat is normal, but there are some outlier up to 2000 to 2500 mg per litre.
Salt stains in your kit may be a sign that you are on the saltier side of the sweat spectrum, but this is not a scientific test - it might just be a reflection of how hot/how long, and therefore how how much you have sweated, ratehr than how salty.
Sports drinks are usually on the low side in terms of added salt (this is a rational approach by manufacturers - the consumer can always add more salt, but they can’t take it out). Take a look at the ingredients label on your sports mix to see how much is there specifically, and work this out on a per hour basis.
Adding table salt is probably the easiest, but if hydration is really going to be a challenge (in terms of fluids per hour over a long timeframe), then sodium citrate may be better, as it has smaller molecules than sodium chloride (table salt) and is more easily absorbed by the gut (lower osmolarity).
@SarahLaverty - I think this needs to be further clarified. It sounds like you’re saying “go for a ride and don’t drink anything”, which I’m sure you didn’t mean. I’m guessing you meant to say to consider the amount you consumed in your post ride weight?
Besides /u/SarahLaverty’s great points, I suggest you get a precise measurement of your sweat loss by booking a sweat test through a nearby Precision Hydration facility: Book a Sweat Test by Precision Fuel & Hydration.
I did one a few months ago. It’s a non-invasive test and does not require any athletic performance. The entire test takes about an hour and I was sitting in a chair while they stimulated/took samples with sensors on my arm. It cost $100 USD.
My results were eye openingly informative for my training: I lose 1,945mg sodium per 32oz (0.94 liter) sweat.
Additionally, consider using the Saturday Pro Fuelling app by /u/Dr_Alex_Harrison. It’s wonderful and I highly recommend it. Free trial and minimal cost per year.
You can approximate your sweat rate with some Gatorade sweat patches that you can administer yourself. Not as accurate as a lab test, but much more accessible. LMNT is a product I use all the time to add the 500-1000mg I use per bottle depending on what I’m doing. It has great flavor and a mixture of electrolytes.
For some people, it may be worth considering that total sodium lost = concentration * volume of sweat. I think my salt concentration is within the 500-1500mg range. But I perspire a ton. I drink quite a bit more than my friends on hot days. One of my teammates rides around with one 16oz bottle unless it’s the middle of the darn summer. I always have two 24oz bottles unless it’s late fall. For that matter, next summer I may put an extra bottle in my rear pocket.
That said, didn’t Alex Harrison say that replacing sodium alone is adequate for most during the ride?
I’ve been using an HDrop (sweat / hydration sensor) to figure out how much sodium I’m losing and @Dr_Alex_Harrison 's Saturday app. The combo has been pretty good, The best lesson from Saturday app is sodium citrate, not salt. I do still use some salt in the form of LMNT, but I’m working on a home made replacement to their mango chili which is my go to pallet cleanser / electrolyte.
I hesitate to the be the contrarian here, but there is an established ‘salt cycling industrial complex’. So many products/companies pushing salt as the magic elixir which will solve your cramping. My personal experience is salt stains are just an indication of how much excess salt my body is holding. The more salt you intake, the more impressive your salt stains! There were separate interviews last year with Matt Beers and Team Bora nutritionist who revealed they’d stopped sodium intake during races. That the primary benefit was the ‘camel effect’ of using your body to store excess water prior to race (instead of in bottles on your bike.). I stopped with the salt and it had zero impact except for my clothes staying cleaner and my HR strap lasting all season.
What I’ve done is:
Preworkout: hold all my full water bottles while naked and weigh myself.
Postworkout: hold all my empty/partial water bottles while naked and weigh myself.
Subtract. Since I am a closed system and I don’t care about fluid that’s moved from bottle to me, the starting total weight minus ending total weight is whatever I sweatted.
Combined with my sweat concentration results, I’m able to estimate how much fluid I’m losing per hour and also how much sodium I’m losing per hour. For me, my Recovery bike rides are about 1,300 mg Sodium and 660 mL of fluid PER HOUR. For Threshold rides, those numbers increase to 2,070 mg Sodium and 1,020 mL fluid PER HOUR.
I’m very interested in this. I’m most interested in determining how (if?) my sweat rate/concentration changes over time during longer workouts/events. )
How have you found the HDrop2 product? Are you satisfied with it? What do you like/dislike about it?
I use one - it doesn’t really tell you how it differs throughout a workout. You can compare a 1 hour vs. a 2 hour vs. a 3 hour workout though. And you can compare workouts of different temperatures.
If you use it for multiple rides and take the average, it’s pretty good for sodium content. Fluid loss component doesn’t work though - it’s way off.
Net / net - I used it until I had my sodium needs close, then there’s really not much need to use it anymore.
This is an ironic name since camels require more salt than most other animals and that salt is needed to ensure they stay hydrated. Sodium causes you to retain water, not the other way around. I don’t doubt that stopping additional sodium intake has had zero impact because our diets are full of salt as it is, but I wonder if your quote from Matt Beers is specific to races and not training. And I don’t think this is bad advice. However, I think most of the advice here revolves around replacing what you lose, which is necessary at the end of the day. However, as I said, it’s very likely you replace it well enough with your diet to not need it during a moderate volume of cycling. I think your comment on salt stains lacks context. If you are producing salt stains after 1 hour or even 2 hours, then maybe. However, salt stains after 4 hours or more is an accumulation of sweat over that period of time and assuming normal sweat rates, that’s going to add up. Also eventually, that will lead to an electrolyte imbalance. I think a lot of bonks are electrolyte based rather than glucose based. If you’ve ever drank a ton of water in a day and had some Hyponatremic symptoms you know that when your body water is diluted to an extreme extent, those neuron’s aren’t going to conduct electricity properly through your body.
Yes, that would probably be enough for me! If I end up buying it, I will probably use it for several workouts of varying duration/intensity/temperature and then update my spreadsheet to try to figure out determine averages/trends…
Definitely is. Even when comparing my gear inside vs outside it is going to seem different. I take my outside stuff off and it is dry so the salt is visible. I take my inside gear off usually wet and no salt is going to be visible. I could be losing more salt inside but if I went by stains it would seem like less.
The longer your training history and the higher your fitness (and the less extreme your racing/training conditions) the more you can get away with this.
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