durianrider wrote:Aussiebullet wrote:durianrider wrote: Add in salt if you want to carry that water retention up the climbs and the next day.
Lol!
Doesn't matter if you add salt or not or if you drink them or not, if you leave home with 2 bottles of water ~1.5lt fluids it's still 1.5kg to lug up hills weather or not you drink them and weather or not they contain salt/sodium.
Not to mention sodium is an essential mineral needed to maintain homeostasis, without it your heart will stop dead!
My advice is if you train/ride alot and or in warm to hot weather to ignore durianrider's advice on this matter unless he has some evidence to back up his theory and turn everything we already know to be true upsidedown and leave us scratching our heads.
# Do your own experiment. Go ride 6190km in Jan like I did this year on Strava. Ive followed a low sodium diet since 2001. I don't add sprinkle salt on my food. Don't own a salt shaker. If I use condiments I use sparingly and always seek out the lowest sodium ones. I would say objectively that my sodium intake is less than 1000-1500mg a day since 2001.
# Drinking water with no sodium means your body can pass it out quicker. It means it doesnt have to filter the sodium out before it can be used. REMEMBER sea water will kill you!
Sodium is a critical nutrient but the bodies needs are VERY small. The body so effectively conserves precious minerals that sodium deficiency from any natural diet is unknown. Even Ironman triathlon runners competing in 12-hour long races require no sodium supplementation. How on earth could I WIN 24hr mountain bike races with no added sodium in my foods or drinks? What about riding 515km in a single day with NO added salt in my foods or water?
If you drink sea water with sugar (gatorade) then you will hold more fluid over the next few hours than just drinking straight water which will be passed out quicker. Do the experiement. Add more salt to your daily diet and weigh yourself the end of the day. You will weigh more just from fluid retention alone. The American Heart Association recommends that everyone consume less than 1,500 milligrams a day.
Body on needs around 50mg of sodium a day...
DAHL LK. Salt intake and salt need. N Engl J Med. 1958 Jun 5;258(23):1152–contd.
Thanks, but I'll stick with current advice including that on the AIS website and from my GP and the blood tests taken to work out Nausea and fatigue (feeling like I was hypoglycemic, but knew I wasn't) issues I was having with a high training load, seems the low sodium diet I was on didn't work as well for me or others as well as it does for you ( my blood tests done over several months of experimenting showed sodium levels well below low normal, doc was really worried at first but a simple electrolite satchel fixed the nausea within minutes) simple experimentation solved my unpleasant issues, oh wait you already told me that
How do you know what supplementation every triathlete needs or uses to compete? Just simply finishing a ~12hr triathlon is not the same as setting the best time your capable of.
I used to pass plain water very quickly too but not ideal when one is trying to rehydrate especially from back to back to back long and or hard training sessions, many of which these days are north of 300TSS.
Not sure what drinking sea water has to do with anything, drinking too much plain water has killed people too but so what?
I don't tell people how much salt/sodium to consume but I never tell them to avoid it or sports drinks before during or immediately after exercise because it's bad for them or it will make them gain weight just because Joe blogs says so, that would be irresponsible of me, Following other peoples training, nutrition or hydration strategies is foolish.
FWIW I do agree with the heart foundations recommendations for the avg person and the w/end warrior or gym junkie,
but the avg person doesn't train up to or above 20 hrs week in week out, when my training is low or I'm taking rest days then my sodium intake is very very low but as soon as I resume hard training if I don't include higher amounts of sodium then the nausia returns and I don't need more blood test to know what the issue is if I've tried to avoid sodium during hard training blocks.