Training & Nutrition - Hot Humid Days

When the weather is hot and humid, do you drink differently when you work out? Differently as in do you eat or drink something different during your workout?

I just drink water like I normally do, just more of it. Of course you need electrolites to triger those muscle fibres so either load up on em before hand or bring a sports drink with you on a long ride. Living in southern MS I have experienced my fair share of humid and hot weather :rolleyes: . I'm too cheapt o buy the sports drinks so I just deal with it. No big.

I think I drink more water a big insulated jug or sometimes freeze a bottle half full of water then fill it when I leave the house. I think I drink more grapfruit juice hopefully that has electrolites because I also don't buy sports drinks. But I do eat some Saltene Crackers.

Joe

I just suffer through it, drink (water) before I go and just take more water with myself. If I am going to be out longer then 90min, then I will bring about 16oz of somekind of sport drink (whatever is on sale, or I get free), but I just usually try to adjust when I ride more then anything else, like going in the morning at 6am instead of 5pm, so the humidity is not as bad, and if the heat index is >100 then I just do not ride, it is not worth a heat stroke to ride in that temperature b/c the road makes it even hotter

As others have posted, I drink more water. Also, I may go with a 50/50 (or more) mix of sports drink/water ratio in my insulated water bottles.

Drink more water, when it's really hot I usually bring a small bottle of some sort of sportsdrink just to make sure I get enough salts.

I generally drink 5-10 litres of water/day regardless of the weather conditions (hot & humid can be described as "normal" around here). It's habit forming. :D

I pretty much do the same as above, and make sure that along with water, and some gatorade each day, I try to have strawberrys and other foods that are high in potassium. I feel like I can get my salt much easier, than other minerals. I also take a multivitamin once a day, sometimes twice (shakley)

Originally posted by killerasp
When the weather is hot and humid, do you drink differently when you work out? Differently as in do you eat or drink something different during your workout?

I recently spent time in hospital after collapsing from heatstroke a couple of weeks ago.

I was taken to hospital and given fairly intensive treatment many hours to bring my temperature back down from 104 degrees. I had stopped sweating so my body was apparantly literally cooking.

Anyway, the ER doc (who is an avid cyclist) suggested that I take a mix of water and gatorade on future rides and that I also take along an extra bottle which is frozen overnight.

I have not had any problems since, although I did take a week off cycling at his recommendation after I was released from hospital.

Justen

My goodness!

We haven't had an extraordinarily hot summer this year, but we have had a few really hot humid days. Absolutely take some gatorade. And eating too is important, because food has water in it. The weekend before this I did a long ride, and it was longer than I'd planned and I also ended up getting dehydrated. I had plenty of water but no gatorade, and I got parched. It was warm but not hot. Still, I was absolutely parched when I got home and just drank and drank, and the next day I felt like HELL. I remembered Lance armstrong and how he looked in the tour after being dehydrated and how he said he felt like crap, and I thought, he isn't kidding! You do feel like crap! I didn't ride the next day, and as it turns out, most of the week because it rained nearly every day. But I learned my lesson- bring the gatorade!

A few years back, our bike club did a Saturday ride from town to a well-known restaurant in a town 45 miles away. We were to meet others and spouses there for lunch. This was on July 9. In middle Georgia. At the time we left at 9 am, the temp was passing the 90 mark. By the time we started arriving at the restaurant, it was up to 104 and around 97 percent humidity. I was less than 2 miles from the place when I started to get an upset stomach. By the time I got in the parking lot, I was dizzy, nauseous, sweating profusely, and basically on the verge of a sunstroke. I had gone through 4 28 oz of water, and had stopped at a store and had a quart of gatorade. Fortunately, my wife and kids were meeting me there, so I spent the remainder of the time in the car with the AC on high. It took me a couple of days to recover.

Also, it was so hot that I had 5 bikes on my 2-bike rack, and we had 8 people in my Oldsmobile for the return trip. Even the diehards in the club that I thought would never accept a ride, sagged back with us!

Good drink with electrolytes is a must when over 2/3 hours training.Even if I dont have any maxim/gaterade etc i fill up my water bottle with water and a couple of spoon fulls of sugar.

The problem is in hot weather if you are training hard and only taking in just water, it can lead to depleted sodium levels.

Originally posted by bikerdave
Good drink with electrolytes is a must when over 2/3 hours training.Even if I dont have any maxim/gaterade etc i fill up my water bottle with water and a couple of spoon fulls of sugar.

The problem is in hot weather if you are training hard and only taking in just water, it can lead to depleted sodium levels.

Yeah..I think Gatorade is definetely the way to go - even if it is diluted - it seems to work better for me than plain water. I haven't had any problems with dehydration since my nasty Heatstroke incident so I guess I learnt my lesson. I now have a water cooler here in my apartment which sits right in the living room/dining room area so I have a constant reminder to keep drinking. Our tap water tastes pretty nasty so I prefer to spend the money on the water delivery each month and now drink four times more water than I ever did before.

I ride pretty hard so the Gatorade is pretty much essential before during and after - just in varying degrees of dilution.

Justen

Interesting question. But just what are you asking? Do you drink differently because of heat and humidity? Or, do you drink different products when it's hot and humid?

One thing to remember, winds and high altitudes hide perspiration loss because of increased evaporation. Good old humidity is a great at reminding us of just how much fluid we are losing during riding.

One of my worst cases of dehydration happened last year on a hot-windy day. The sweat evaporated so fast I wasn't even damp. I thought I was fine until 2pm then I cramped and bonked big time.....even after guzzling a couple of bottles I dawdled home 10lbs under weight.....

I understand the same thing happens to cross country skiers and hikers sometimes. It's the altitude. (low humidity)

This past Sunday I did a "hill climbing" century.
Over 10,000 ft of climbing and it was 90F with over 90% humidity

Ate a big bowl of cereal 1 hour before the ride and drank a ton of water.

On the ride:

Drank:
100 oz of water
80 oz of Accelerade

Ate:
1 bagel
1 banana
4 cookies
1 power bar
2 gu

Was 1 lb heavier after the 7+ hr ride, and felt great...could have gone another 50 miles...its all about hydration and nutrition!