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In article ,
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 10:44:02 +1000, Chris Cole
wrote:

With regard to the original question, you should only need to take
additional salt tablets if the fluid you are using to replace your
losses is hypotonic (e.g. water). Modern sports drinks are very close to
isotonic with respect to the concentrations of major/important
physiological electrolytes. So if you're drinking Gatorade, Powerade,
Sports Plus, etc., additional salt tablets are unlikely to be of benefit.
snips
In this context, with modern sports drinks, taking extra salt tablets is
not necessary and even counter-productive.


Why is it that I cramp less in bike races of two hours or more if I
take a salt table before? I drink Gatorade, PowerAde, HydraFuel, etc
and never drink plain water. Is it a placebo? I doubt that. I was
pretty sceptical and only started about three or four years ago (after
over 10 years of racing).


_ I'm assuming that the bike race is in warm weather. You loose a
lot of plain old salt in warm weather. While I don't race any
more, I ride centuries in 80-90 degree weather and I've found
that there just isn't enough sodium in standard sports drinks. I've taken
to adding a pinch of salt to my Cytomax and that seems to
help a lot. In the winter, doing long days in the backcountry,
cytomax by itself seems to work well enough to avoid those
back to the car cramps, but in the summer I need more salt
than just Cytomax. The latest version of Powerade basically
follows this same formula[1], but it still tastes like crap to
me so I've take to adding a bit of salt to the Cytomax.

_ If you finish the day with that crusty feeling, you need more
salt.

_ BWT, my 50K trail running friends all use some kind of salt
tablet and water. Their theory is that all the drinks get hard
to consume after a while and it doesn't matter how good it is for
you if you can't swallow it. It's definitely got me thinking,
the longer into the ride, the more I prefer plain water. But
plain water with no salt is not what you need at that point,
I've taken to carrying pretzels, but salt tablets might be
simpler if you have the discpline to drink enough water.

_ Booker C. Bense

[1]- What should I expect, they were giving it away free at
supergo.

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