Understanding The Role Of Electrolytes In Hydration

Understanding The Role Of Electrolytes In Hydration – Electrolytes are chemicals that form ions in body fluids. Electrolytes help certain body functions function at optimal levels. Having too few electrolytes can cause your muscles to cramp. As serious athletes know, electrolyte deficiency can make a big difference in athletic performance. So how can we prevent cramps and keep our body’s performance at the highest level? At Kingsfield Fitness, we believe in controlling the controllable. One of the things we need to do is to supply our body with adequate amounts of electrolytes. 

Sodium, calcium, potassium, chloride, phosphate and magnesium are the most common electrolytes. You get it from the food you eat and the liquids you drink. We then break down each electrolyte:

Understanding The Role Of Electrolytes In Hydration

Proper fueling during exercise requires more than calories and fluid intake; It also includes consistent and adequate electrolyte support. Electrolyte needs vary much more than caloric or hydration needs; Therefore, you will need to experiment a bit in training until you can adapt this aspect of your fuel to your specific needs under various conditions.

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Electrolytes are like the engine oil in your car; They don’t start the engine, but they are absolutely essential to keep everything running smoothly. Proper functioning of the digestive, nervous, cardiac and muscular systems depends on adequate electrolyte levels.

Muscle cramps are usually caused by improper hydration and/or improper electrolyte supplementation, although there are many theories as to why this happens. Of course, no one wants to cramp, but remember that cramping is a condition far below electrolyte depletion. Cramps are when your body says “Hey! I’m empty! Give me back or I’ll stop!” It looks like the oil light on the dashboard; you never want it to go that low.

This is exactly why you shouldn’t wait for cramps to remind you to take in electrolytes. Just as you shouldn’t wait until you’re drunk to refuel or dehydrate before rehydrating, your regimen should always include these essentials.

Electrolytes are chemicals that create electrically charged particles in body fluids. These ions carry electrical energy needed for many functions, including muscle contractions and transmission of nerve impulses. Many important body functions depend on electrolytes. Optimal performance requires a consistent and adequate supply of these important nutrients.

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Many athletes neglect constant electrolyte supplementation because they are uneducated about its importance. Even if you’re lucky enough to never experience the debilitating effects of muscle cramps, you still need to provide your body with consistent and adequate amounts of electrolytes. Why is this so essential? Because the purpose of electrolyte supplementation is not to prevent cramps, but to keep certain body functions at optimal levels. Cramps are your body’s way of letting you know it’s running on E in terms of electrolytes. Once you reach this point, your performance is severely impaired for a while. Remember, you want your body to perform without interruption, without interruption, and without compromise. As an athlete, you constantly excrete important nutrients and minerals through sweat. Consistent replenishment of electrolytes is just as important as the fuel you consume and the water you drink during exercise.

Each of these topics is important and we will discuss both. Let’s focus on the second one for now.

Too many athletes suffer from unnecessarily swollen hands and feet due to water retention from taking salt tablets or electrolyte products that are too high in sodium during prolonged exercise in the heat. The body has very effective mechanisms for regulating and recirculating sodium from body stores. Excessive sodium consumption interferes with or eliminates these complex mechanisms. Sweating causes large sodium losses, which are closely monitored by hormonal receptors in the body.

However, rapid sodium exchange neutralizes the system, allowing water intake to dilute the sodium content. High sodium electrolyte supplementation compromises the natural physiological control of serum electrolytes. When the body detects an increase in sodium from exogenous sources (food, salt tablets or products containing very high sodium), the hormone aldosterone signals the kidneys to stop filtering and recirculate sodium. Instead, the kidneys will excrete sodium and another hormone, vasopressin, will again become dominant, causing fluid retention. While consuming large amounts of sodium can temporarily resolve sodium deficiency, it increases the risk of a number of other problems, including increased fluid retention in the form of swelling (edema) in the extremities.

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Consequences also include high blood pressure and increased sodium excretion. All of these hinder performance. If you’ve finished a workout or race with swollen hands, wrists, feet, or ankles, or if you’ve experienced puffiness under your eyes and around your cheeks, your sodium/salt intake may be too high.

The truth is that the human body only needs a very small amount of sodium to function normally. We only need 500 mg of sodium each day, athletes maybe 2,000 mg. This is easily achieved from natural, unprocessed foods. However, the average American consumes about 6,000 to 8,000 mg per day, well above the upper limit of the recommended dose of 2,300 to 2,400 mg/day.* (See asterisk on page 44) The average athlete has at least 8,000 mg dietary sodium in tissues and keep these stores ready during exercise. In other words, you already have a large reservoir of sodium in your body, obtained from your diet, ready to serve you during exercise. In addition, your body has a very complex and efficient way of monitoring sodium and returning it to the blood to maintain homeostasis. You should supplement with sodium during exercise, but in amounts that work with these complex body mechanisms and not override them.

*In 2009, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided additional scientific evidence that the majority of Americans over the age of twenty should limit their daily sodium (salt) intake to 1,500 milligrams (mg) to prevent disease. and lowers high blood pressure.

Not only are high-sodium diets bad for your health, but those who consume large amounts of sodium in their diets are guaranteed higher rates of sodium loss and require higher sodium intake during exercise. As you probably know, sodium causes thirst, and thirst causes drinking; until the extreme results are definitely not a performance enhancing scenario.

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It is easy to formulate a product to match one of many sweat analysis studies and then sell it on the basis that athletes need to be compensated for what they have lost. Some products do just that. Unfortunately, there is a problem with this because individual sweat loss varies greatly and the human body cannot efficiently replace what it expends during exercise at any intensity above walking pace. Lost electrolytes are not replaced by electrolytes currently consumed.

At best, the body can only replace one-third of what it loses during exercise. This applies to fluids, calories and electrolytes. If you try to replace all fluids at once, you can end up with dilutional hyponatraemia (too diluted blood sodium levels) or water intoxication. If you try to refill all the fuel you’ve spent, your stomach will swell in total rebellion and refueling will grind to a halt. Likewise, if you’re trying to replace all the electrolytes you’ve lost in equal amounts, some hormonal triggers can cause all sorts of problems like stomach discomfort, edema, muscle spasms and cramps.

As highlighted in the LESS IS BETTER *The Right Way to Fuel* article at the beginning of this book, the key to successful fueling (fluids, calories and electrolytes) is to focus on how much energy you have, not what you are . lose. the body can accept and absorb effectively. Bill Misner, Ph.D. he says, “Give your body 30-40%, 110% for crying out loud. When it comes to the amount of fluids you drink, the calories you eat and the amount of electrolytes you replenish, it’s an important principle to remember The tighter you commit to it, the better your chances of success.” 

Courtesy of an article written by a registered dietitian, a practice now being considered and even accepted by many athletes is to increase sodium in the diet by three to four grams of sodium approximately 12 to 24 hours before the pre-race to load

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What’s annoying about this advice is that it seems like a registered dietitian should have knowledge of the health consequences of a high-sodium diet (which the vast majority of Americans consume). However, this person advocates adding additional sodium to the diet before a race. We currently adhere to the medically recommended principle of limiting sodium, as research supports that chronic consumption of more than 2,300 milligrams per day can contribute to congestive heart failure (CHF), hypertension, muscle stiffness, edema, irritability, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. , premenstrual syndrome (PMS), liver disorders, ulcers and cataracts. 

1) Eichner, E.R. “Genetic and other determinants of sweat sodium.” Current Sports Medicine Reports 7.4 Suppl 1 (2008): 236-S40.

Comment: Our interpretation of Eichner’s statements/conclusions is that the more sodium in the pre-event diet, the greater the plasma aldosterone level.