Originally Posted by
Iride01
Unless you are riding long and very hard, I'd question if you even need any supplementation of electrolytes.
I've wondered the same. I'm by no means an expert in the area of sports nutrition but have had to make some changes to what I put in my water bottles this year.
I started adding an electrolyte mix to one water bottle after experiencing awful leg cramps at night after a long ride. The night after my first relatively long outdoor ride this past Spring, nearly every muscle in both legs cramped up at the same time while sleeping and that's not an experience I want to repeat! I'm now 48 years old and have always used just water in my bottles in my 35+ years of cycling but aging certainly changes things.
It's my understanding that plain water, especially purified water in my case, pulls minerals
out the body like sweating does. I.e., if your water isn't full of minerals to put
into your body, it'll pull them out.
If one doesn't mind the taste, simply adding salt to one's water is certainly the least expensive path to adding minerals back into the water and hence your body. I personally prefer Himalayan pink salt over sea salt (table salt) as it's less likely to contain microplastics. Unfortunately, we've polluted our planet with plastic and sea salt contains plastic, whereas pink salt was created long before we introduced plastic into our environment... or so I've read.
I've started using electrolyte powders from Skratch Labs for the reason that they put an emphasis at using more natural ingredients and don't put things into their products that aren't needed, like food coloring. Their electrolyte powders are very lightly flavored so one's water doesn't taste like you're drinking syrup on a hot day. I can't say as though their powders have helped improve my performance at all, but I've had far fewer instances of leg cramps since I started using their product. The one thing I don't like about their electrolyte powders or any powders for that matter is that they're a mixture of sugar and salt. While the sugar is a quick-burn fuel source for my body while riding, my teeth always feel awful after a ride from dumping all the sugar in. I guess everything has trade-offs.