Hydration - Recommendations
 

Hi, I’ve been riding with primarily water (& Gels). I used to go with Gatorade but gets gross when hot out. I’m re-thinking my options as I hit a wall going up a 3 mile 8 - 11% hill yesterday, I had to stop for a few minutes, which was midway through a 65 miles, 4.25 hour ride. Suspect I didn’t keep up with hydration and Gel / fuel as I also got bad leg cramps at the end of the ride. This doesn’t happen, a first!! Curious if there are hydration options that really work? Or other options? Appreciate any recommendations. Thx

Hi,
I always use Liquid IV for my electrolytes and they have been working great for me.
The lemon and lime as well as the pineapple are great.
Hope this helps you out.
Costco has great prices on them.

Are you using gator aid straight out of the bottle or mixing it with water. If I do use it I mix it 50/50 with water and freeze it. That way it melts as the ride progresses and is not gross at the end of the ride.

ditto. I did a hot 100+ miler no stops and 18 mph average, consumed two 26 ounce bottles of water with a packet of liquid iv in each (lemon lime on this ride but like pineapple just fine too) a 20ucnce bottle of coke and a 2 16 ounces of plain water and had not dehydration effects. felt 100% the next day. I mix the liquid iv a bit weaker than they call for and one packet per 26 ounces seems perfect. did a windy 60 miler today 17.2mph average and only consumed one 26 ounce bottle with a packet mixed in and a banana and felt 100% fine.

I just use water unless we stop where there is soda. I drink more than most but I always eat before and during a ride. I only cramp when I try to do a long climbing ride after I haven't been climbing for a while.
Acclimation is very important when it gets hot. I like to ease into it before I try a long climb in the heat.

Often a magnesium deficiency is the root cause for muscle cramps. I take a daily supplement of magnesium and also of potassium as I do not get enough of these two key elements in my food. Lack of hydration is not the reason for muscle cramps but it is important to keep the blood flowing smoothly. There are many foods that are good sources for these two elements and they are far more bioavailable than snack drinks no matter what they are called.

I do not drink Gatorade or other soft drinks of any kind. Artificial sweeteners are not healthy in any amount and don't think for a second that if a food additive is approved by the FDA that this makes it safe.

It may help to have a comprehensive testing of your blood to see it you need to supplement your diet. When I did this I found I was very low in vitamin B and so started taking a supplement. With vitamin D the RDA is less than 1000 IU but I need to take 7000 IU to have my blood serum level in the "normal" range.

Here is the electrolytic replacement mix I use for ya all's USF file...

To one liter of water add: 2 tsp Cane Sugar + 1/4th tsp No-Salt + 1 tsp Table Salt

That is equivalent to about: That is 10 grams glucose + 7 mEq Potassium Chloride + 5 grams Sodium Chloride

I specificity use "No-Salt" brand salt substitute as it is pure Sodium Chloride. Not SODIUM CHLORIDE it's pure POTASSIUM CHLORIDE. Thank You Vegas Triker for noticing my mistake!

Also note that there is a difference between Hydration and Electrolyte Remplacement.

It is interesting to know that regular real orange juice can have as much as 8 mEq of Potassium in just 8 oz. Keep in mind the bigger ya are the more water ya need. Yep... When I was riding at 300 pounds I could easily need 4 liters of water when riding just one hour at 100°F.

Both personally and as a medical provider I have found the biggest problem with dehydration is that it is SNEAKY!!!

One day you are a liter behind in your water, and the next 2 liters, and then five days down the road... RATS! I am Dehydrated!

It happens to the best of us...

I've been using Vitalyte (aka over the years, GookinAid, ERG, and Hydrolyte). It's a powdered electrolyte you add to your WBs of water. Formulated for rapid uptake with just enough glucose to be palatable. I find I can drink large amounts of it in a swig. Important on hot days riding fix gears where in hills, miles may go by with no chance to take the hands off the bars and drink. (Doesn't happen either out of the saddle or spinning 175 RPM.) When I get the chance, I can down a half bottle with no bad consequences.

You probably haven't heard of it because they don't advertise. In the '70 they had a small but solid market of endurance types who knew how well it works. (Formulated by a marathon runner who failed to finish the '68 Olympic qualifier on a very hot day getting sick on GaterAid. He was a bio-chemist by trade and decided to use his skills to make a better drink. In the late '80s and '90s, the heavily advertised sports drinks pushed ERG off the shelves. Not out of business; they had a solid following of 3rd world workers who knew how effective it was reviving people suffering near death dehydration from dysentery, cholera and the like. It came back into my awareness in the '00s when I went to REI to research the next drink I needed and saw that it was back! REI has been on and off about carrying it. Clearly not popular with the bean counters but sometimes the employees insist. Doesn't matter. The company is solid, easy to find on line and ships promptly.

https://vitalyte.com

Oh, when I am under stress, the stuff stays down better than plain water. I drink it when I have a stomach bug because it goes down easily, doesn't taste bad coming back up and I might just get a few of those electrolytes while it's down. (And it's so cheap, why not?)

On my sweat-a-thon rides across the Everglades in the summer, I would load up on salty food the day before. A quart of pork fried rice from the local Chinese restaurant gave me lots of carbs, fat, and salt. During my ride I drank water, and a bottle of cola kept in my bag. I would sweat to the point that I was covered with salt crystals, but got no cramps.

Decent diet and enough water has always worked for me. Support your sweat. If you stop sweating, you die.

When I was on a fire crew, among the first supplies that would come up the line was Gatorade. All that did was give me gas. It was good for a laugh at least, but I hated the stuff.

For a 65 mile ride and even 100 mile rides, I just put all my fuel in my bottles. And I take a gulp or two every 10 minutes. I might take something else just for a treat. But unless you are going to stop frequently, wrappers and bags just aren't worth the trouble to me, even though they are not a lot of trouble. Plus, I don't like the idea that a used wrapper might fall out of my pocket when I go for something else and create litter.

Long ago I use to just use a 40-60 or 60-40 percent water and fruit juice. Fruit juice is high in carbs and many already have some sodium, potassium, and other chlorides that are electrolytes in them naturally. Sometimes I'd augment that with a pinch of table salt or Morton's lite salt. But don't go overboard on electrolytes. Gatorade, IMO, has way too many for cycling. Maybe for football's professional athletes it's more appropriate.

Not too long ago I was using Hammer Nutrition's Heed along with a little of their Endurolyte Extreme (but not even a full scoop of the endurolyte). The main sugar in Hammer's stuff is usually maltodextrin. The energy boost seems to last longer between gulps than did the simple sugars in the fruit juices.

For the last couple years I've been making my own maltodextrin mix. A pound of maltodextrin from a online brewing supply, 3 packets of Kool-aide powder, and enough sugar or stevia to take the dry edge off the maltodextrin. Usually about a 1/4 cup.... I think. Depends of the Kool-aide flavor. Unless you use a lot of Stevia or other zero Calorie sweetener, then you can just figure the Calories a 4 per gram. Nothing else is a large percentage of the weight or volume.

With any, I always shoot for 150 to 180 Calories per hour. Sometimes 200 to as much as 220. Any higher, and I sometimes start feeling bloated. And that hurts my performance. You might tolerate more, you just have to find your own level. But if you feel bloated or nauseous, then consider that it might be too many carbs whether drank or eaten and you just need to cut back on them. But don't cut back on water itself. You need to stay hydrated. If you are tired and fatigued for hours or days after your ride, then you probably got a little dehydrated. You should feel like you are ready to ride again after just a short rest. Even for a 65 mile ride.

Always water down your Gatorade 50%. You need water more and you’ll still get the electrolytes.

Leg cramps are caused by fatigue, not lack of hydration or minerals.

Other options would be to gradually increase your mileage or training load, week by week by 5% or maybe 10%. Curious, what was your longest ride in the previous 4 weeks?

Most leg cramps I've seen in cyclists seem to be related to harder than usual rides. Bigger steeper climbs and more miles than usual.

pickle juice
Some of the local hot summer event rides have small cups of pickle juice at the rest stops.
Now, newer studies show that just a sip of pickle juice triggers a nerve reflex in the throat to short circuit some cramps. Ha, that's interesting. (The studies weren't with cyclists, though.)

For example, from the Washington Post:

The pickle juice sounds interesting. I've cramped once in my life. The days before were hard riding and the immediate day before was over 220 miles and around 26,000 feet climbing. I cramped halfway thru the next day's ride and another rider hands me several relish packets to try. Said to put them in my mouth and let it linger. Sure enough, the cramps went away. Bizarre. Relish is sort of like pickels

Drink mix recipe
I've used this tasty drink mix for years. It's a fairly low carb content. I use it to encourage more fluid intake, and the calories do help too. It's somewhat based on a diluted Gatorade idea.

2 1/2 cups white sugar.
4 packets of Lemon Koolaid.... this contains natural flavors, no artificial sweeteners.
Original recipe: 1/2 tbsp salt, and 1/2 tbsp "lite salt". But I don't really need that much sodium, I get plenty otherwise.
Now: 1/2 tbsp Lite Salt, which is about half sodium, half potassium, with some calcium and magnesium salts. I'll add a little more in hot weather.
Mix well.

This is 20 bottles at 2 tbsp mix per bottle. Or 13 bottles at 3 tbsp each.
a tbsp of salt is 7000 mg sodium, so this 1/2 tbsp of lite salt is around 3500 mg / 50% sodium / 20 bottles = 90 mg sodium per bottle.

I store this in a small plastic tub, and put 2-3 tbsp in a 22 ounce water bottle.
Two tablespoons sugar is 30 grams of carbs, 120 calories.
For a really long ride, I'll bring a snack ziplock with another 2-3 tbsp, but normally the other bottles are all water. And there's usually a store stop, with a can of soda, etc.

The electrolytes for me are more about keeping the body from going hyponatremic. Maybe a little about absorption in the stomach for what is being put into it. So pure water in the bottles and nothing else to eat or drink could get to be a problem if 5 or more bottles are consumed in a short time. When it's 95 - 100°F and above here, I can go through a 25 fluid ounce bottle in less than 30 minutes.

I too use to think it helped with cramps, but even my experimentation with it was too ambiguous with results. Cramps from hot weather seem to be more about whether or not I got my body use to the level of exertion I wish to put into a ride in those high heat environments.

Actual studies of athletes have found that there is very little loss of electrolytes from sweating and that there was no need to replace them. One does need to have adequate water intake and one can gauge that for themselves by checking the color or lack thereof in their urine.

Companies like Gatorage and Coke made millions in profits by selling water with a few additives and marketing it as having "special" properties. Snake oil is something people will buy without any critcall thinking or taking time to investigate the claims being made.

Sugar results in a spike in the blood sugar level followed by a big drop, often referred to as bonking. Better to eat dried fruit that has fiber which slows the sugar spike in the blood or even better is pre-loading with carbs. This is not really rocket science and these recommendations have been made for many decades by scientists, though contrary to the hype from marketing departments.

Actual observation has found salt crystals on surface of shorts and shirts during hot weather. I suppose it sublimates out of surface capillaries and re-crystallizes on the clothes, if it's not being lost through sweat?

I too have read some studies about salt being re-absorbed into the body. However the articles indicated that some people do and some people don't. None said that all the salt is reabsorbed either.

If you are one that doesn't crust up your clothes with salt, then maybe less of an issue. However sweat is salty no matter what, and I drip a lot of sweat when cycling. Not quite as bad as a horse that's been worked hard, but I do often have a almost steady stream of sweat dripping off of me.

All I know is if I get to the point I am cramping, not just light spasms, I am entering heat exhaustion as well and need to take a long rest under shade, drink at least a liter of both water and electrolytes, and douse water on my head/neck. I no longer will ride in temps 90F+ and will ride in the early morning to avoid summer heat. My tendency is to push myself and after my last episode of heat exhaustion, it is just not worth dying over "one last climb." There's no money in it.

"Little loss of electrolytes" is literally true, meaning the absolute amounts lost are insignificant relative to body stores. However, rehydration can result in very significant, even fatal, hyponatremia. Sodium replacement during exercise has not been shown to do much for performance, aid in water absorption, or prevent cramps, but probably it fends off hyponatremia to some extent and remains advisable.

Rapid absorption of sugar is desirable during prolonged exercise and glucose is taken up into exercising (and recently exercising) muscle via an insulin-independent mechanism. Glucose drop after ingestion is an insulin-related phenomenon and doesn't happen in exercising individuals. Bonking is mainly related to available glycogen depletion and is prevented by carbohydrate intake.

That would explain a lot. :)

Reabsorbed from where? Sodium is bound to structural molecules in tissues such as skin and there are pools of extracellular fluid which are hypertonic with respect to plasma. It is believed, with some evidence from animals, that these sodium stores are available to replace sweat losses, but the process is too slow to keep up with plasma dilution due to drinking.

From a NCBI article I think or the NEJM.

I likely used the term re-absorbed incorrectly, but essentially this study showed evidence that some of the salts sweated out were being taken back in. But it did say some participants in the study did show evidence of this and others didn't. I think it was a study involving military personnel as the study group. It was probably 5 or more years ago, so I've no idea how I searched and stumbled across it.

And I just read the abstract which is still above my level.

Post if you happen across it again. I’m always interested!

I follow the sports nutritionist on the RCA YouTube channel who touts the benefits of hydration as well as carb boosted hydration drinks supplying mitochondrial energy. Yesterday I decided to put her advice to the test and upped my liquid intake to one large bottle every 45 mins (for 4 hours) with a carb-centric product (SIS Go carb and electrolyte powder). She also recommends eating carb heavy snacks while riding which I also did every half hour. Completed a 70 mile ride with 3,800’ climbing feeling the best I have in years. Usually I am dragging and just want to get it over with. Yesterday I was running at 19 MPH on the flats on the final miles.

When home I took two good gulps of dill pickle juice and took a magnesium pill and for the first time in years, no leg cramps in the evening or during the last hard climb for a mile between 6 and 8%.

Am changing my regime to drink more, ingest more carbs and keep up the pickle juice. Today I feel great, rather than wiped out.

There is a difference between Hydration and Re-hydration and Electrolyte Replacement.

Most members here know this well but I do need to remind...
Sit back and think...

Did I hydrate?
Do I need to Re-hydrate?
Then consider electrolytes after your first liter of plain water...

Remember this hydration stuff is SNEAKY!

I can see the difficulty in trying to publish a reputable article in a semi-reputable journal on military electrolyte data. Here is a example of a mix I used as a medic when Air Born grunts were returning from the field in mid 70's SETAF.

Note: "In the field" is what we termed troops returning from extended "down range" duty. Officially no one was shooting at us... Ha. Further note, in the Army there are Air Born and there are Legs (Grunts). So what happens to the Air Born after they hit the dirt? They become Legs. After a few weeks in the dirt they are all Grunts.

So the mix goes and was provided to me via an up through the ranks E-9 Mess Sargent.

US Army 5 gallon Beverage Power Packet Lemon or Lime mixed with 5 gallons of water, 2 pounds of Sugar, and 1/2 hand full of Salt.

One of the biggest problems after returning from extended Field Trips was constipation. Couple of weeks of C-Rats or MREs with limited water meant not so friendly butt plugs. For that the Mess Sargent had a different mix. It was a Strawberry Powder Packet with 5 gallons of water and a heaping hand full of powdered pink laundry detergent mixed slowly so as not to foam up. You could have one canteen cup of the stuff after ya drank a gallon of the lime mix. I once asked the Sargent why use the Strawberry Packet. His reply was it would hide any blood... Ha. I just don't know of any medical journal we could publish this little method or would want to. Its quite possible this method only works on Grunts...


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...efd7195d1.jpeg

Here is my homemade (because I'm cheap and attempt all organic ingredients) mix:
2T Organic Tapioca Matlodextrin from Nature's Flavors
1T organic Cane Sugar
1/4 t organic pin salt
1 packet of (non-organic) True Lemon or squeeze of 1/2 lemon or lime. True Lemon packets are handy for taking along baggie of extra mix on long ride.

It tastes fine, has about 100 calories per bottle, and is not too sweet which leaves a clean feeling and not a sticky sugary mouth feel.

Looks about right. It's got flavoring for palatability, salt for sodium replacement (and, oddly, palatability) and sugar to promote water and sodium transfer across the gut.

Hooah!

It's been pretty well shown that cramps result neither from loss of electrolytes nor from dehydration. Cramps come from exerting oneself harder than one has trained for, or running low on carbs late in a long ride. As above, treatment is either pickle juice or mustard or Hot Shots. It's the taste, nothing else.

I separate my food, water, and electrolyte sources. Plain water, a high carb source, and Endurolyte capsules. I drink to thirst and encourage thirst by taking Endurolytes if necessary to encourage thirst, otherwise not. I can tell if I'm hydrated: I need to pee about every 3 hours. If I'm dehydrated, my HR goes up more than usual for the circumstances. If I'm low on carbs, my HR is lower than usual.

I'll use a high carb sports drink like HEED or SIS in my water bottles on short rides of 3 hours or less. Otherwise, it's plain water. If it's a long ride in the heat, I'll use a 2 liter Camelbak and possibly bottles. I never use Gatorade.

Again, you know you're adequately hydrated if you need to pee about every 3 hours. If the ride is less than 3 hours, don't worry about it. You're actually faster about 2% dehydrated because you're a little lighter. 3% however is not OK.

Another good tell is to watch your forearms. If they're damp, you're OK. If they go dry, you might have a medical emergency unless you get some water fairly soon. Sweat is the only thing that cools you. I've had my resting HR go as high as 120 from dehydration on a long 105° climb. Luckily, I knew where a tap was and sat in the shade and drank a couple liters of water, took some Endurolytes, was fine and went on.

Everyone is different about how much electrolytes to consume vs. volume of water. You have to experiment on yourself, but that's the big reason I don't have electrolytes in my water. No matter how much is in there, it's probably the wrong amount. I take 1-2 Endurolytes an hour if it's warm to hot. I have a riding buddy who needs 6. He's your usual slim, tough cyclist, but riding behind him in the heat, you'd think it was raining.