track racing and water intake

[PawPaw]

Just watching the mens 40km points race on SBS and note the guys don't carry water.
Presume the final time will be ~50mins.
Does anyone have insight into pre-race hydration strategies for this race?

[alex]

sometimes they put lemon slices up their sleeves to help with the dry mouth

but there is only so much pre hydrating you can actually do, they will all be p*ssing brown syrup after that one

[bigfriendlyvegan]

I think the strategy is to absorb the evaporated sweat from the bunch as you lap them.

In other words, I don't know, but it was a bloody good race. Jackson Law did an excellent job for silver.

[PawPaw]

sometimes they put lemon slices up their sleeves to help with the dry mouth

but there is only so much pre hydrating you can actually do, they will all be p*ssing brown syrup after that one

yeah the sweat was dripping off all of em. the wood must get a bit slippery for it.
this is one of those events that would benefit from experimenting with preloading a high sodium drink. the sodium assists kidney resorption of fluid, thereby reducing rate of urine production.

[brentono]

Just watching the mens 40km points race on SBS and note the guys don't carry water.

You got me...
hydration strategies ... is a fad. IMO

[PawPaw]

Just watching the mens 40km points race on SBS and note the guys don't carry water.

You got me...
hydration strategies ... is a fad. IMO

50 years ago, many thought the same about drinking anything during a half and full marathon. They thought it was better to condition the body to adapt to needing less water. And steak was thought to be the best food for endurance. How fortunate for the scientific method, which continues to expose the entombed truth, even if by the painfully slow removal of one brick at a time.

[brentono]

Are we talking Cycling or running here
Re-hydration after a Track event is a given.
Handing bidons in a longer Track event is difficult
(though Stall Gift runners could be used at some events)
Excess fluids can be as dangerous, as lesser.
Training to require lesser fluids may work better than
a scientific method of requiring constant intakes.
(to maintain a balance causes an imbalance)
Individuals require different methods, science sometimes
becomes ALL-encompassing, and in some cases wrong. FME.
"entombed truth" envokes an interesting take, what "truth" is that?
Right or wrong hydration is an individual choice. We are all different.
Just a few of my thoughts, relating to Track Cycling.

[tallywhacker]

Just watching the mens 40km points race on SBS and note the guys don't carry water.

You got me...
hydration strategies ... is a fad. IMO

50 years ago, many thought the same about drinking anything during a half and full marathon. They thought it was better to condition the body to adapt to needing less water. And steak was thought to be the best food for endurance. How fortunate for the scientific method, which continues to expose the entombed truth, even if by the painfully slow removal of one brick at a time.

30 years ago I had a soccer coach (ex Hungarian national player) who wouldn't let us drink for an hour after training for the same reason. He either conditioned us well or scared the bejezuz out of us because I don't ride with a water bottle (don't even have a cage on my bikes) and only drink a couple of glasses of water during the day

[Alex Simmons/RST]

30 years ago I had a soccer coach (ex Hungarian national player) who wouldn't let us drink for an hour after training for the same reason. He either conditioned us well or scared the bejezuz out of us because I don't ride with a water bottle (don't even have a cage on my bikes) and only drink a couple of glasses of water during the day

He was an idiot and going without fluid for extended periods is foolish, especially in the heat.

[foo on patrol]

For me, when I was racing in the 50k point scores, I really didn't drink that much more than I normally did for a normal track meet!
Some of these meets I would ride a 800mtr, 1000mtr handicaps with qualifiying heats and a 10k scratch race prior to a 20 or 30k points score, sprinting
every 1600mtrs.

Foo

[mikedufty]

Interesting interview with Dr Jim Cotter (endurance athlete and researcher) on RN a while back suggesting the importance of hydration is way overhyped, and the Hungarian soccer coach may have been onto something.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... ge/3321026 - click show transcript to read the interview.

One quote

"We've just finished a study with heat acclimatisation or heat acclimation, we've been doing it in a laboratory environment and we dehydrated people every day during heat acclimation and we got indication that there was a better heat acclimation if we dehydrated them every day than if we didn't. And that flies in the face of the sports medicine guidelines, if guidelines ever speak to hydration. So, we think that the guidelines regarding hydration and carbohydrate and electrolyte requirements may need at least some fine-tuning."

[PawPaw]

Interesting interview with Dr Jim Cotter

My money is on the fine tuning being very fine.
There's indisputable evidence performance suffers with acute negative fluid balance.
And there's a lot of phenomena that haven't been explored - compromised peristalsis and bowel evacuation, vulnerability of drier mucous membranes to opportunistic infection (cold flu), compromised bronchial mucociliary escalator, malabsorption due to drier intestinal mucosa, elevated rate of microtrauma to drier intestinal lining contributing to loss of iron, higher rate of arterial wall damage due to significant (15%+) blood volume reduction, accelerated joint cartilage wear due to underperfusion with water, accelerated microtrauma of muscle fibre due to drier state.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

There's indisputable evidence performance suffers with acute negative fluid balance.

This.

As for heat acclimation, that's a red herring.

[brentono]

Thanks mikeduffy for the Dr Jim Cotter interview.
It covers in more detail, exactly the point I was making (particularly relevant to Track Cycling)

It plays into the hands of the sports drink industry to have us believe that good hydration - good hydration meaning adequate or you hydration, normal body water is essential for sport performance. But there's actually no evidence to indicate strongly that dehydration facilitates heat stroke or muscle meltdown

"And when you see adverts from the sports drink people apply the cowshite filter." +1

These days it's about "greed"... so just follow the money trail.

[Alex Simmons/RST]

These days it's about "greed"... so just follow the money trail.

I think that's been true throughout recorded human history, not just these days

[brentono]

True Alex
And throughout recorded human history, fresh water has been the drink of re-hydration.
And it's only been recently, that they can get away with charging $3 a bottle for it.
Just Saying.

[PawPaw]

True Alex
And throughout recorded human history, fresh water has been the drink of re-hydration.
And it's only been recently, that they can get away with charging $3 a bottle for it.
Just Saying.

let's have a look at recorded history
- the first guy to run a marathon dropped dead shortly after.
- mankind have continued to run marathons quicker than in the decade before. thus athletes who follow advice from 50-100 years ago, would not be competitive today.
- as far as can be determined by science, human longevity has progressively improved for at least the last 20 centuries.
- mankind have never had as much leisure time as those in developed nations, and never have so many had the opportunity to push themselves in endurance events.

[brentono]

Don't quite know what the marathon has to do with the topic.
FYI most of the fastest marathon runners come from developing nations, mostly Africa
with little or no access to the latest scientific hydration strategies.
Or even easily accessible clean water supplies.
Conditioning the body to adapt to needing less water seems to still work for them.
Why don't we talk about track racing and water intake, since this is a Cycling site.

[sogood]

FYI most of the fastest marathon runners come from developing nations, mostly Africa
with little or no access to the latest scientific hydration strategies.
Or even easily accessible clean water supplies...

Why did you say that? Would it apply to 1960 or 2012?

[brentono]

To last poster- Stated facts... relevant today (catch up)
http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/africa/water-wars-ethiopia-and-kenya
http://aconerlycoleman.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/water-scarcity-and-conflict-at-the-ethiopia-kenya-border/