By Lisa, my client wrote: The weather will be in 80s+ for Quabbin century on Saturday. I can only bring two bottles of your HMSD (Homemade Sports Drink, recipe below). How do I get lots of electrolytes and whatever else I need? What about a powdered sports drink I can mix after the HMSD is gone? Or electrolyte supplements? There will be aid stations hopefully with salty stuff. There will be some stores where I can buy stuff.
Coach Hughes answers: Eat salt!
Why? Let’s look at what’s in sweat:
Electrolyte Concentration Per Liter (Quart) of Sweat
Sodium
Concentration / Liter (quart): 800 mg
Daily Recommended Intake (DRI): 1,500 mg
Daily Recommended Intake for Athletes: >1,500 mg up to 10 g
Chloride
Concentration / Liter (quart): 1,065 mg
Daily Recommended Intake (DRI): 2,300 mg
Daily Recommended Intake for Athletes: >2,300 mg to match sweat losses
Potassium
Concentration / Liter (quart): 115 mg
Daily Recommended Intake (DRI): 4,700 mg
Daily Recommended Intake for Athletes: 4,700 mg or more with heavy sweat losses
Calcium
Concentration / Liter (quart): 40 mg
Daily Recommended Intake (DRI): 1,000 mg
Daily Recommended Intake for Athletes: 1,300 – 1,500 mg
Magnesium
Concentration / Liter (quart): 19 mg
Daily Recommended Intake (DRI): Males 420 mg, Females 320 mg
Daily Recommended Intake for Athletes: 400 – 450 mg if from food, 350 mg if from supplements
If you get the daily recommended intakes in your food of potassium, calcium and magnesium you greatly exceed what you’d sweat out riding all day in the heat. The only electrolytes that you need are what’s in salt: sodium and chloride.
How Much Electrolytes Do You Need?
According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) if your ride is less than four hours, you probably don’t need to supplement with electrolytes unless your jersey is caked with salt or you cramp. Sodium depletion may be one of the causes of cramps, so if you suffer from cramps try supplementing with sodium.
If your ride is longer than four hours, then additional sodium and potassium are recommended.
Electrolyte Replacement Drinks
Here’s what the ACSM recommends for a sports drink and what the HMSD provides:
Calories
ACSM Recommends Per 8 fluid ounces: 50 – 100
HMSD Per 8 fluid ounces: 50
Sodium
ACSM Recommends Per 8 fluid ounces: 120 – 170 mg
HMSD Per 8 fluid ounces: 150 mg
Potassium
ACSM Recommends Per 8 fluid ounces: 19 – 46 mg
HMSD Per 8 fluid ounces: 40 mg
My DIY Sports Drink Recipe
Here’s my homemade sports drink to make 1 quart (0.95 L), which matches all of the American College of Sports Medicine recommendations:
- 1/4 cup (80 ml) orange juice
- 8 teaspoons (50 g) sucrose (table sugar), glucose or maltodextrin (a starch)
- 1/4 teaspoon (1.2 ml) salt
- water to make 1 quart (0.95 L)
Liz, you could make this with the ingredients found in many mini-marts. A standard water bottle holds about 20 fl. oz. Just use about 2/3rds of each ingredient. Or eat something salty and drink an 8 fl. oz. bottle of orange juice, which gives you 100 calories and a whopping 450 mg. of potassium as well as 20 mg. of sodium.
Important: The three most popular sports drinks (Gatorade, PowerAde, Heed) have much lower sodium and potassium than the American College of Sports Medicine recommendations. If they did, they wouldn’t be palatable.
Electrolyte Replacement Supplements
If you chose to use an electrolyte replacement supplement check to see how much sodium and potassium in contains. One popular capsule contains only 40 mg of sodium and 80 mg of potassium, as well as other trace electrolytes, which you don’t need! To meet the ACSM’s recommended sodium intake you’d need to take 8 to 10 capsules with every 20 fl. oz. bottle water that you drink!
Cycling in the Heat Bundle
You can learn more about the science of riding in the heat, and managing your fluids and electrolytes, in my two-part eArticle series:
- Cycling in the Heat, Part 1: Ride Management is 19 pages and covers how to acclimatize to hot conditions, how to train in hot months, what to wear, eat and drink, how to cool down if you overheat, and how to deal with heat-related problems.
- Cycling in the Heat, Part 2: Hydration Management is 21 pages and covers how to determine how much you should drink depending on your physiology and sweat rate, how best to replace your fluids and electrolytes, the contents of different sports drinks, how to make your own electrolyte replacement drinks, how to rehydrate after a ride, and how to deal with hydration-related problems.
The cost-saving bundled eArticles totaling 40 pages Cycling in the Heat Parts 1 and 2 are just $8.98 (a 10% savings) and, as always, just $7.64 for our Premium Members (includes their everyday 15% discount!).
Summer Bundle
- Cycling in the Heat, Part 1: Ride Management, 19 pages
- Cycling in the Heat, Part 2: Hydration Management, 21 pages
- Preventing and Treating Cramps, 10 pages
Detailed look into the causes of cramps, prevention techniques, and tips (both on-bike and off-bike, including photos) for breaking and flushing cramps. - Eating and Drinking Like the Pros, 15 pages
What pro riders consume before, during and after a stage and the benefits for cyclists at all levels. Eating and drinking like the pros offers recreational riders the same nutritional benefits, which you can customize to your own needs at a fraction of the cost of commercial sports food and drink, if you choose to make our own. I worked with a professor of nutrition and an expert on hydration and electrolytes (both experts are cyclists) in creating recipes for both sports drinks and food.
The cost-saving bundled 65 pages of eArticles Summer Riding are just $15.96 (a $4 savings) and, as always, just $13.58 for our Premium Members (includes their 15% discount by using the coupon code you get as a member that works on all ebook and e-article purchases).
I am fairly certain that Dr Gabe Mirkin has written that it is unlikely that somebody riding in hot weather can replace salt lost by taking salt in a drink as it would be unpalatable. He recommends salty food including pretzels (seldom seen here in the UK so I eat salted peanuts).
John—
If you’re riding for less than four hours, is water (instead of sports drink) sufficient?
Michael
When I was growing up in the panhandle of Florida in the early to mid 50’s, I lived on a military base. Every gym and exercise area had salt tablets. We took these as kids and tolerated temperatures and humidity levels that today we would be getting all kinds of health warnings about as being dangerous. We played hard all day in heat that was +90’s with humidity 85% to 100%. Do these still exist and are they a solution to not being able to tolerate the taste of liquids with sufficient electrolytes?
You might check out a product called S-caps. I have successfully used them for many long distance, hot rides. They are mostly sodium with some potassium.
when I was really racing and training hard between 1985 and 2005 cramps were the thing that held me back more than anything…being a retired racer nowadays I like Skratch drink mix…after reading this article it seems pretty close to the ideal …I also use Sport Legs and Hammer’s Race Caps….
John-
I was always taught that an ounce had 30cc of fluid, making 2 oz. 60cc. Your article says 2 oz. OJ is 80cc.
can you set me straight?
29.57 cc per fluid oz.
I use a combination of table salt, light salt (for potassium) and calcium via antacid tablets. For a long ride (110+ miles) I take in 1/4 tsp. of light salt, 1/2 tsp of table salt, and two extra strength antacid tablets, I mix half the salts in my bag of mixed nuts and cookies for the mid-ride break and the other half of the salts in my bag of fig bars that I snack on while on the bike. I moved to this after a pretty unpleasant experience with “the sloshies” where my gut couldn’t transport the water I needed to drink and on a hot/humid day. With lots of salt coming in, my gut can process a lot of water. Without the salt, the osmotic pressure is all in the wrong direction for getting the water out of your stomach and into your cells and blood system.
After reading John’s e-articles years ago I started mixing my own energy and electrolyte replacement drinks with inexpensive ingredients found at the bulk food store – dextrose and fructose powder plus table salt and the “No-Salt” salt substitute (it’s potassium) along with an inch of fruit juice and the remainder water in a waterbottle. This costs pennies compared to the commercial tablets. For rides longer than two large waterbottles I carry small plastic baggies of pre-mixed powder – one per anticipated bottle. I’m not the same “Mike T.” poster as the one above.
Does anybody have a suggestion for electrolyte replacement that would have no calories – especially no sugar and no juice?
I get potassium from oranges and sodium from sunflower seeds or just straight salt that I carry.