It occured to me today, can you ever drink too much water while working out?
I changed my work schedule which allows me workout in the mornings. Today was a humid morning. I did a 3 mile run in the gym. I was very thirsty so i kept drinking while i was running. I must have drank at least 1 liter of water during this time. After this, i biked for about 30 mins outdoors doing flatlands and some hills. I had my camel backpak and was drinking water after each hill climb. But midway through, my stomach got quezy and i felt like i was gonna faint. I stopped and rest for about 15mins after which i felt fine.
This also happened to me last week. I just rode my bike for 30 mins while drinking intensely. Next thing i know, i wasnt able to breathy correctly. I stopped to the side and i threw up about 1-2 liters of water that i was drinking during the ride. After which i didnt ride anymore for the rest of the day.
Can you ever drink too much water in one sitting?
Maelstrom
06-25-03, 11:04 AM
Yes but generally if you aren't on drugs your body will tell you quite clearly to stop. However when on some drugs your brains thinks its thirsty and make you drink yourself to drowning...
Usually overdrinking of water doesn't cause faintness but a very distinct feeling upset stomach followed by heaving and sometimes puking of said water. I typically drink 1 to 3 litres a workout. I think I would take a look at the food you are eating prior, during and after the workout.
late
06-25-03, 02:45 PM
Prob need a sportds drink that will get that water where it's needed. I often mix a sports drink with water fifty/fifty. Works for me.
cbhungry
06-25-03, 03:14 PM
You can become hyponatremic, if hypotonic water is drunk very quickly and you are losing salt. This is when the serum sodium levels are low and can cause queeziness, nauseu vomitting etc. late is right, I would add in or supplement some of the fluid replacement witha sports drink that is not hypotonic.
caloso
06-25-03, 03:32 PM
Although it's a rare occurence, people have died from hyponatremia. In fact, recently runners in the Marine Corps and Boston Marathons (http://www.restonrunners.org/special/hyponatremia/hyponatremia_news.htm) died as a result.
Scary, but easily avoided with some sports drink or salt tablets.
cbhungry
06-25-03, 04:04 PM
caloso is right, in addition, seizures can occur with hyponatremia and a destructive brain injury called central pontine myolysis can occur if the sodium is replaced too quickly after hyponatremia. Don't mean to scare you.
caloso
06-25-03, 04:08 PM
I ran in one of those races, the '02 MCM, and it wasn't particularly hot so I was really surprised to hear about the death. The woman who died was a back of the packer so she was out on the course a long time. I wonder if this is an unfortunate consequence of novice athletes being pounded with the message to hydrate, hydrate, hyrdrate....
killerasp
06-25-03, 08:32 PM
thanks guys. i think one reason why i dont drink sports drinks is that its just extra calories that i dont need.
cbhungry
06-25-03, 08:42 PM
Just add some salt and lemon to the water. That's what I used to do when i was a student living below poverty level.
killerasp
06-25-03, 09:06 PM
i think i should have mentioned that i sweat like a freaking water fall. this could be the reason why i loose salt so easily.
Inoplanetyanin
06-25-03, 09:48 PM
Originally posted by cbhungry
You can become hyponatremic, if hypotonic water is drunk very quickly and you are losing salt. This is when the serum sodium levels are low and can cause queeziness, nauseu vomitting etc. late is right, I would add in or supplement some of the fluid replacement witha sports drink that is not hypotonic.
I experienced that while hiking for two days in Grand Canyon. When food was out, second day I had to drink almost only water, and got to the point when I couldn't drink anymore... and without food was literally falling off the legs...
P.S. North Kaibab Trail is a killer...
Chris L
06-26-03, 04:09 AM
Hmmm... After climbing Mt Barney last year I downed about four litres in one sitting. And I normally drink 5-10 litres of water a day (often more). I'm just wondering how much water one has to drink before they actually have too much? Having said that, I've never tried to live on water exclusively, so this might be a mitigating factor.
Richard Cranium
06-26-03, 08:38 AM
Can you drink too much water? Sure, and drinking too much will actually "hurt" your exercise efforts.
I find it interesting that something as obvious as "water overload" is easily understood by most people, yet the same people will go ahead and throw in "handfuls" of minerals and or vitamin-like supplements during their training and think they cause no "performance harm" simply because they are not thought to be toxic, even at high levels.
Pat
06-26-03, 09:15 AM
We have 2 different issues here.
One is drinking too much water and one is hyponatriumia.
As far as getting bad effects from just drinking water (assuming you get enough electrolytes), yes it can be done. I recall being told this in a physiology lecture. It was known from ONE case in the literature. A rather deranged person decided it was "healthy" to drink enormous amounts of water and managed to die from it, I think of kidney failure. So can you drink too much water? Probably not as long as you stop when your urine is reasonably copious and clear.
Now hyponatriumia is a whole 'nother issue. I ride in Central Florida. It gets hot and humid in Central Florida in the summer. In facts, there are no organized centuries for the months of June, July and August (kind of tells you something). I perspire copiously and I can go through a CamelBack (70 ounces) in just over an hour on a hot day.
I find that eating table salt helps restore my sodium balance and that way I avoid hyponatiumia which I have gotten a few times. Drinking sports drinks would not help me because they don't have much sodium in them (besides table salt is cheap).
Dipper
06-26-03, 03:34 PM
Runners World magazine has an interesting article on this topic....
So, I ride in Central Florida too. Mountain bike in Ocala and the amount of water I drink is unlimited and unimportant when it's 97 degrees! But I also teach spinning at a university down here. I ride an hour a day, six days a week. Sometimes I drink a liter and a half per ride. What's a safe amount then?? When you're spinning?
RWTD
06-28-03, 11:18 PM
Outdoors in the sun in Fl. I drink water steadily and then load up on stops until I start having to urinate frequently and it is still clear.This is a sign that I am just wasting valuable vit&mins at this point.I also go with snacks high in sodium and potassium. Otherwise I would just use how dry your mouth feels as a guide just drinking steady amounts and increasing it somewhat if my mouth started drying out.
BigHit-Maniac
06-29-03, 12:11 PM
When I'm doing a lotta exercising... I'll usually down a protein bar, or some kind of bar... like a Clif.. or even a Gu.
I usually also eat a few saltine crackers mid-way through my rides, and workouts to replenish the salt in my body.
If you really want salt... just take along a bag of Funyons...
:beer:
sch
07-02-03, 08:25 PM
I saw that RW article and like many such it was anecdotal in nature. People are not the same physiologically and I suspect that people that get into this type of trouble have some sort of anomaly in their handling of salt and water. The average person can't empty more than 800-1200ml/hr from their stomach,
so the stomach acts as a reservoir; one of the discoveries of the '70s was of the influence carbos have on emptying, if the liquid drunk has more than 4-6%
carbos stomach emptying slows significantly, hence the value of gatorade
compared with koolaid. Drinking 3-4liters per hour just expands your stomach til vomiting results. This is the reason you should hydrate in advance of an event (assuming your bladder can be emptied). It is also the reason most people tend to lose weight during longer events, because you can certainly sweat and pee more than 1200ml/hr. I try for 1-1.5oz/mile fluid intake on longer rides. It gets really hard to go above 1.5oz/mile because of the full stomach and rate of emptying problem. Steve
Gargoola
07-03-03, 12:55 AM
I guess it's different with metabolisms as well, some people need more water per km than others. I use hardly any, like about 1200mls (1 bottle) per 40-50kms. That's like nothing, others use heaps, I guess you just have to find the right balance. and as mentioned above, hydrate before you out, even a couple of glasses of water really help.
I eat salted peanuts as part of my scruggin mix, that seems to work fine for the salt replenishment.
joeprim
07-03-03, 01:44 PM
What are Funyons?
Inoplanetyanin
Thanks for them memory the I sweated out all my salt in the Grand Canion spring of '66. A couple of salten crackers and some salty beef solved it real quick, but for a couple of min. I could not imagine what was wrong with me. Then I realized my cloths and hat were white.
Joe
killerasp
07-03-03, 03:07 PM
i think i should try eating something during my rides. Even though my ride was about an 1 hr long, after drinking water and only water, i started to get quezy.
Pat
07-04-03, 03:54 AM
Well, central Florida and summer riding.
On a long ride I can consume at least 6 liters or water and often more like 8 or even 10. I have looked up the amount of sodium in plasma - a good proxy for sweat because sweat is isoosmotic and I figure I can sweat out about 3 teaspoons of NaCl on a ride our about 6000 mg. Since the average sports drink has only about 50 mg of NaCl, that means I would have to drink about 100 of them. Sports drinks do not have enough sodium because that would make them too salty to be tasty and no one would buy them. I find that just eating some table salt during a ride works well. I know that I need it that when it tastes good and does not produce a yuck or gag.
I can also sweat out water faster then I can absorb it. I can still drink it but the what is not absorbed is just stored in my gut which apparantly can expand quite a bit.
I can even get heat exhaustion on really hot days and riding hard because I can get dehydrated while drinking water because I sweat it out much faster then I can absorb it. But that only happened once towards then end of a hot century.
Sweating here in Florida doesn't do much good anyway. It is too humid to get much evaporation. When I stop at a light, I see sweat drops falling from my handlebars and sometimes I get back and my socks are wet (yuck).
As I said, hyponatriumia and drinking too much water are different issues. Most people do not drink enough and drinking a little too much is better then drinking too little. And you will not get hyponatriumia if you just consume some salt (NaCl).
Originally posted by Love2MTB
So, I ride in Central Florida too. Mountain bike in Ocala and the amount of water I drink is unlimited and unimportant when it's 97 degrees! But I also teach spinning at a university down here. I ride an hour a day, six days a week. Sometimes I drink a liter and a half per ride. What's a safe amount then?? When you're spinning?
I would think that 1.5 liters should be no problem. I have to chug more than 4 liters, ride at least 50 miles, and sweat profusely before I begin to run into this problem. I sweat a bunch so I am more susceptable than most people.