Aidan:
Hello and welcome to the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. My name is Aidan Muir and I’m here with my co -host, Leah Higl and this is episode 130 where we are going to be talking about electrolytes and sports performance. At a minimum, very clearly, electrolytes matter for sports performance. But the big thing we’re going to talk through is how much they matter, how much you should consume, and what to kind of focus on with them which is a far more complex topic than you might expect. It’s not like a clear -cut thing where there’s like strict guidelines or anything like that. We’ll also be talking a bit more about sodium than we will be with the other electrolytes, although we’ll touch on all four of them. So it’s sodium, magnesium, potassium, and calcium that we will be talking about. We spend more time on sodium largely just because it’s the one that’s excreted the most through sweat. So it’s the one that probably matters the most in this topic as well.
Leah:
Starting with a quick note on food versus supplements when it comes to electrolytes, particularly that sodium component. I think like here’s a good place to start just because it is like a little bit interesting and like provides like, I guess a good background for what we’re going to talk about. A lot of people probably already know this, but we do want to go over, I guess, quantities of electrolytes in food versus supplements. So some really common examples of utilising supplements typically when during training or before training is things like your sports drink so looking at 600 mL of Gatorade, that contains 300 mg of sodium, 135 mg of potassium, and then no magnesium or calcium. Then comparing that to something like Hydrolyte. So Hydrolyte has around 140 mg of sodium per serve and 80 mg of potassium. Keeping those numbers in mind when we then go and compare that to food and adding a bit more context to this.
So one, my muscle chef meal, so like a ready -made microwave meal, typically contains over a thousand milligrams of sodium. So you’re thinking like one meal, thousand milligrams of sodium or more compared to a full bottle of Gatorade, which is like 300 milligrams of sodium. So there’s quite a discrepancy there. So at a minimum there is like three times more sodium in that than the Gatorade and then like six times more than the Hydrolyte tablets obviously a lot easier to get that through the food component. One medium potato contains 600 milligrams of potassium. So again comparing that to the potassium in Hydrolyte being 80 milligrams obviously huge discrepancy outside of the sodium component in potassium.
And then that’s not even talking about the magnesium aspect where neither of those contain a whole lot of magnesium or the Gatorade doesn’t contain any. Where if we’re thinking whole foods, that’s where we get a lot of our dietary magnesium from like meat, nuts, seeds, dairy, etc. So we’re going to be getting those electrolytes through our whole foods to a greater degree when it comes to like magnesium and calcium.
So when you think of it like that, if we are taking into account needing a whole lot of electrolytes because we’re losing a lot through sweat and things like that. Not only are we talking supplements, but we’re also talking food and having something that is more food based prior to training where you’re getting sodium in potentially a lot easier than being supplement focused.
Aidan:
Yeah. And the reason why I love adding that context is because a lot of people will have something like say, hard light or Gatorade specifically for the electrolytes. without that context and at least knowing like the differences in the amounts adds a layer that could be useful to know. Yeah, I think when we talk electrolytes, a lot of people, their minds go straight to supplements and we kind of completely bypass food and food can be a great source of electrolytes, of course.
So the big thing we want to focus on with this podcast is talking about performance outcomes. So we are going to start by looking at the research on sodium and it will kind of highlight why this is a bit of a complex topic. Talking just a bit about that before we actually talk through that, something that both you and I, Leah, we talked about like two years ago is like, why aren’t there sodium guidelines? Anyway, those guidelines are everything being like this, how many carbs per hour you should have this, like this guidelines are everything. Then everything gets really vague when it comes to sodium. And the complexity we’re about to go through and try and simplify kind of explains why these guidelines don’t really exist very often.
So a systematic review from 2018 on sodium performance outcomes and endurance athletes, only found five relevant studies, which firstly, that’s kind of crazy, but only five relevant studies. One key thing they highlighted that a lot of guidelines, as we were speaking about, mentioned the importance of sodium, but it’s so rare to see people give specific numbers and the next step is, if they do give specific numbers, they often do not give rationale behind them, because it’s kind of hard to justify the specific numbers. But of these five studies, only one found improvements in performance. This was specifically on endurance athletes, but only one found improvements in performance.
In that study, there’s an 8 % improvement in times while using 500 milligrams of sodium per hour. Firstly, that’s an outlier study just in the fact that it’s the only one that found performance improvement, but 8% is huge. Totally.
Leah:
Yeah. Are there any supplements that we can think of that are legal that provide 8 % improvement? 8% for a supplement is enormous.
Aidan:
It’s enormous. So it’s worth being aware of, but I wouldn’t read too much into that specific 8% number. Limitations that were identified in that review were that it’s obviously not that much research, duration of activities might not have been long enough and no studies featured great and 30 degrees Celsius weather, which could obviously be a factor in the importance of electrolytes due to changes in sweat rates and stuff like that too.
Leah:
Talking some other thoughts on performance when it comes to sodium, we talked, you talked a little bit about there being kind of these huge gaps that need to be addressed for us to have kind of resemblance of guidelines and those gaps can be pretty hard to fill. One gap that was filled at least a little bit was through a 2019 research study that was looking at low versus high sodium intake for three days and then comparing the two. The study involved two hours of endurance activity at a moderate intensity. The people in the low sodium group lost significantly more water, during that activity.
Perceived effort was the same between groups though. So there was this kind of large discrepancy in water loss, but perceived effort was the same and performance wasn’t measured since it was a set intensity. Couple of factors to consider here. Sodium increases ad libitum fluid intake. So if we’re thinking like, if we’re giving people hydration specific recommendations around as per thirst, obviously the sodium intake is going to impact how much fluid they end up drinking. So, if you have someone that has a high sodium intake, potentially they are going to be drinking more fluid, making up for more of the fluid that is lost.
Secondary to that, we’re looking at urinary output. So when sodium intake is high, we are going to have like less urinary output of fluids so that can help us retain some of that hydration. In that specific study, sweat race, sweat rate was reduced substantially in the group that had the higher sodium intake. This is all super relevant because we know that when there’s more than 2% of fluid lost, that is, that is dehydration that will impact the performance output of an athlete during physical activity.
So again, they didn’t measure performance output and changes in this study, but potentially there would have been some if they had tested that due to these changes in fluid loss and some of those participants being dehydrated through having more fluids lost over that time period.
Aidan:
An underrated factor with that whole like reducing urinary output and stuff like that is the impact that that will have on very long events. Something I didn’t really think about too much before getting into the whole endurance sports world and participating myself and being around a bunch of people is I didn’t really think that would be an issue until you get to the really long events. But if I went on a 20k run with a group of people and there was some toilets at the 10k mark, there will be a lot of people every now and then who will be like, can we stop and go to the bathroom and stuff like that. It’s like imagine being in middle of a half marathon and you don’t want to stop because you care about your time and there’s this urge to go to the bathroom.
It’s like, of course, either that’s going to affect your performance or it’s just going to be uncomfortable. This is also another factor of prepping your hydration before that. Before I was in this world, was like, surely you’d start a half marathon, a full marathon, well hydrated. But then there’s so many people who are worried about that being an issue that they go in under hydrated so that they don’t have this issue.
Leah:
Yeah, which then could impact their performance. It’s like, you don’t think you win some, lose some.
Aidan:
Yeah. And I’ve had friends doing full marathons who like 10kms in they feel like they just go to the bathroom… oh, 32kms to go, feeling like this. It’s hard to say in a study how much that’s going to affect performance, but in the real world as well, it’s still a factor as well. It’s a small factor, but it’s still a factor. But the thing that is very difficult to interpret is you can kind of hear them reaching a little bit to be like, this is the scenario where this will matter. Whereas what if you just play, I don’t know, you play football or something like that, how much the study mattered there, that’s a complex topic.
What we are going to talk about though, and it might be something that’s on the mind of you listening to this, is what about the impact on cramps? So we know that cramps and sodium and electrolytes in general can be linked because there’s research showing that if you make people sweat heaps and you only give them water for a long period of time, they will start to cramp. That research has been done, we know that for sure and if you then give them salt tablets, they stop cramping. So we know that you can cause
Other studies have had people lose greater than 2% of their body mass through dehydration and then compared plain water versus water with electrolytes for rehydration and the water alone could have cramped more. So we have really solid evidence that electrolytes play a role in cramping. From another perspective though, in athletes the research indicates that electrolytes are very rarely a factor. That sounds like a hot take, particularly if you have your own personal experience where you may or may not have solved it through electrolyte supplementation,
The researchers found that people who cramp consume similar amounts of electrolytes have similar electrolyte levels in their bodies, have similar sweat rates and similar sweat compositions as those who do not cramp. That is fascinating by itself. There’s just like just on average they have the same. It’s hard to pinpoint electrolytes causing it when we’re seeing stuff like that and the next step is that cramps are far more commonly likely to be caused by what we call neuromuscular fatigue theory.
So we did a big podcast episode on really early on, so episode four of the podcast we talked about that. So if you are interested in this, I really encourage reading that. But understanding your muscular fatigue theory is super important for when you’re self -identifying if something you’ve used has helped cramps. Basically, there’s one study that we would have referenced in that that’s super important that was basically looking at NFL athletes in the pre -season in a training camp those four weeks. In week one, from memory, about 67% of athletes cramped. Week two, don’t quote me on this because this is off the top of my head, but like around 40% something, week three, like we’re getting like 16%, week four is like almost none.
Don’t quote me on the specific numbers, because that was just off the top of my head. But by week four, almost nobody was cramping, and in week one, everyone’s cramping. Basically, as you get more equipped to do a task, because you’ve been doing that task for a period of time, you get less likely to cramp. And if one week you cramped, and then the next week you took magnesium and did the same activity, and you didn’t cramp, was it the magnesium, was it chance, or was neuromuscular fatigue theory.
Leah:
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think like when it comes to cramps, like tick the box when it comes to electrolytes. But if you’re still cramping, then it’s probably this neuromuscular fatigue.
Aidan:
I don’t want to downplay that. It’s like, hey, if you if you went on a two hour run and you had no electrolytes and you cramped, yeah, it’s worth addressing that for sure. It’s just if you did address that and then you cramped again anyway, it’s probably it’s probably something else.
Leah:
Talking something that is not sodium based and looking more at magnesium. So magnesium and performance is a bit of a mixed bag. So magnesium consumed pre or intro training slash event has not been shown to improve performance similarly to sodium. So there’s not as much research suggesting that it is as important. Exceptions though can be made when we’re talking about noticeable magnesium deficiency. If you have a deficiency, rectifying it is likely going to improve performance overall. So it’s something to consider there.
Higher dietary magnesium intake typically does contribute to things like better sleep as well, better bone mineral density and other potential benefits. So they can all play a role in that kind of outcome. Indirectly, magnesium can help performance. So the majority of people do not consume enough magnesium. So it could be worth having a look at your magnesium consumption or adding in a supplement if you think your consumption through dietary intake is on the lower side.
Aidan:
So calcium and potassium we’ll talk about, and this is probably going to be super quick because honestly, I haven’t really seen any research indicating that they directly contribute to performance in terms of like literally saying research on endurance activity or even like lifting or anything like that. I’ve never really seen any research being like, have this inside your session or prior to your session, this improves performance. I haven’t seen anything like that.
But there can be indirect benefits. For example, calcium of course can improve bone marrow density. It could reduce the likelihood of getting a stress fracture and or improve the recovery from that and that could carry over. But I don’t think that’s what people are listening to this for. I think people are listening for like the direct improvements in performance.
Leah:
Yeah. So going over a few other things that can be related to electrolytes and performance. So firstly sodium and potassium specifically pre -workout can lead to better pumps in the gym So even taking it out of like the endurance component and talking more about strength training like that’s a pretty cool effect of these electrolytes. You know, like I mean, I like a good pump. Most people like a good pump. It’s a good feeling whether or not that leads like more muscle growth, better performance, like that’s a little bit more of a question mark, but something to mention.
Something else that comes up a lot in powerlifting. I’m sure a lot of other sports, but specifically I see it in powerlifting is dizziness during training. So some people who experience dizziness related to too low blood pressure can address this by having salt pre -workout. I’ve used this with many of my clients and it has solved this issue completely and it’s been like an absolute game changer for them.
Aidan:
Yeah, about once a year I make a post on this topic being like, hey, you should try this. Like if you experience dizziness, try this. And when I did make that post this year, somebody commented that they basically sent that systematic review being like, there’s been no evidence that sodium helps performance. I’m like, we’re talking different things here. Different things. Where I say it’s worth trying is if you happen to have a like, say you’ve got a low salt intake because you eat mostly, quote unquote, clean food, eat mostly unprocessed food, you don’t add salt to any of your cooking or whatever and you also feel dizzy in the gym. It’s like, well, if you had salt pre -workout, maybe it helps. The best bit about this tip, the best bit is you can try it and either it helps or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t help. You know right away.
Leah:
Yeah, I had one client that would always get dizzy and lightheaded during deadlifts. And then we’re like, well, you know what, let’s just try this one thing. Game changer, first deadlift session with that. She was like, it worked and now it’s something that we use all the time. So it could be worth trying.
Aidan:
The other reason why I also specify low sodium intake is because if you look at all of the guidelines for people without hypertension, like less than 2000 milligrams per day is a good recommendation. People with hypertension, you might go a little bit lower, say 1500. Those numbers might not mean anything to you, but it’s like if you have almost no salt in your diet, you’re not at risk of going above that just by adding some. So there’s no downside to trying it, which is why I have that as a caveat first.
Leah:
Yeah, absolutely. The other thing we want to touch on is just safety during long events. So it is rare, but hyponatremia is always a risk with long events. So essentially this is where we have really low sodium stores, but we have a high maybe intake of fluids that are not electrolyte rich. So we have this like imbalance of heaps of water coming in, but no electrolytes. This can actually be really, really dangerous and you can die from this.
So during like very long events or ultra endurance events, like it’s always recommended to be having sodium or electrolytes along with your water intake.
Aidan:
Yeah. The common concern is not so much about elite athletes with this one. This is just your general person doing a marathon or longer at a relatively slow pace, but some is obviously difficult and sweating heaps and every single drink station drinking a lot of water and no electrolytes. That’s where it becomes a real risk.
Leah:
The last one we want to touch on in this particular context is rapid recovery or rehydration. So if you do need to rehydrate quickly, that is going to be easier when you have electrolytes consumed alongside your fluid intake. So whether that’s you having an event one day and then needing to consume, you know, or get be hydrated for an event later in the day or the next day, these electrolytes can be used.
Or talking specifically with where we work a lot is acute weight cuts. So once you do an acute weight cut, you’re really dehydrated and then anywhere from 2 to 24 hours later, you need to be fully rehydrated again. So the electrolytes become a really big component of that.
Aidan:
Lately I’ve been working a fair bit with some pro tennis players. There’s a nice coach in Brisbane who’s been referring me a bunch of them. I really enjoy it. There’s so many logistical challenges with travel and stuff like that specifically, but a lot of them play three times in a day, because they’ll do like singles in the morning, then doubles and then singles and this comes into play, just being like, well, if you lose heaps of fluid in that first one, and then you can rehydrate well for the second one, and then do it again by the third one, you’re gonna have a better time in that third one than if you didn’t do all of this as well.
Leah:
Yeah. So, so summing up, do we think sodium matters for performance? It’s so complex, because like it very clearly does. Like it does in some way, shape or form. It’s just niche circumstances where you will actually see performance improvements due to sodium. Yeah, not always super clear cut. This has been episode 130 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. If you could leave a rating or review, that would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thanks for tuning in.