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salt tabs



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 28th 05, 10:12 PM
32 degrees
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Default salt tabs

I see salt pills or tabs mentioned on rec.running occasionally ... usually
in conjunction with longer endurance types of events.
Whats the deal - are they supposed to help you retain water? electrolyte
balance?

But, I've never seen them mentioned here....

any input?
good?
bad?
necessary?
don't work?

JK


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  #2  
Old June 28th 05, 10:32 PM
John Forrest Tomlinson
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On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:12:50 -0400, "32 degrees"
wrote:

I see salt pills or tabs mentioned on rec.running occasionally ... usually
in conjunction with longer endurance types of events.
Whats the deal - are they supposed to help you retain water? electrolyte
balance?

But, I've never seen them mentioned here....

any input?
good?
bad?
necessary?
don't work?


I started taking a salt tablet before bike races of over two hours,
esp. in warm weather. About an hour to half an hour before the start,
followed by several ounces of sports drink. Since starting that I
cramp much less. My diet is probably a little better than typical
American, but I definitely have salt in my regular diet and in sports
drinks. But even so, the salt tablet helped.

Not so sure how useful they are for skiing, but I take one anyway
before marathons.

JFT


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  #3  
Old June 28th 05, 10:59 PM
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Years ago, when I was putting in very high mileage weeks racewalking, I
had recourse to salt tablets; they worked. It was summer; I had been
walking and drinking a lot and yet, one day I felt horribly stiff, just
could not loosen up - like my muscles did not want to work.
Electrolytes? I went home and took two salt tabs and a lot of water.
The next day I was OK. From then on I included a tab a day during warm
weather and, as JFT mentioned, before long races.
Supposedly taking salt tabs can be bad for your stomach - creating a
brine pocket - if you do not take enough water with the tab. One also
has to take them, in a sense, BEFORE the body needs them. General
advice nowadays is to add a bit more salt to one's diet during the
warmer weather, especially if one is planning lots of strenuous work.
And drink more water.
My little experience recounted above was before the onset of the many
"sport drinks" that are available. Nowadays I keep a few quarts of
Gatorade in the fridge and drink'em regularly (mixed 50/50 with water)
as well as adding a bit extra salt.
Pete


John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:12:50 -0400, "32 degrees"
wrote:

I see salt pills or tabs mentioned on rec.running occasionally ... usually
in conjunction with longer endurance types of events.
Whats the deal - are they supposed to help you retain water? electrolyte
balance?

But, I've never seen them mentioned here....

any input?
good?
bad?
necessary?
don't work?


I started taking a salt tablet before bike races of over two hours,
esp. in warm weather. About an hour to half an hour before the start,
followed by several ounces of sports drink. Since starting that I
cramp much less. My diet is probably a little better than typical
American, but I definitely have salt in my regular diet and in sports
drinks. But even so, the salt tablet helped.

Not so sure how useful they are for skiing, but I take one anyway
before marathons.

JFT


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  #4  
Old June 29th 05, 02:19 AM
Marsh Jones
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32 degrees wrote:
I see salt pills or tabs mentioned on rec.running occasionally ... usually
in conjunction with longer endurance types of events.
Whats the deal - are they supposed to help you retain water? electrolyte
balance?

Yup, the idea is to replace electrolytes and keep them in balance. As
mentioned by JFT and Pete, I'm not real big on just salt tabs. Too much
water, and you get hypokalemia. Too much salt and not enough water, you
still have an imbalance.
http://www.hmc.psu.edu/healthinfo/h/hypokalemia.htm for more on
hypokalemia.

For the Chippewa Tri this year (6hr event), I mixed a gallon of Cytomax
about 2/3 strength, and added in a packet of Gookinaid ERG, to boost the
electrolytes. I went thru 3 liters of that mix during the canoe and
bike legs, and then just did water and Gu the last hour (run). I also
used 4 or 5 Gu during those legs. Seemed to work out pretty well. I
didn't seem to crust over as badly as I've done in the past and
recovered a lot quicker.
On the whole, I probably could've just used Gatorade with the Gookinaid.

Marsh Jones


But, I've never seen them mentioned here....

any input?
good?
bad?
necessary?
don't work?

JK


  #6  
Old June 30th 05, 12:44 AM
Chris Cole
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Marsh Jones wrote:
32 degrees wrote:

I see salt pills or tabs mentioned on rec.running occasionally ...
usually in conjunction with longer endurance types of events.
Whats the deal - are they supposed to help you retain water?
electrolyte balance?


Yup, the idea is to replace electrolytes and keep them in balance. As
mentioned by JFT and Pete, I'm not real big on just salt tabs. Too much
water, and you get hypokalemia. Too much salt and not enough water, you
still have an imbalance.
http://www.hmc.psu.edu/healthinfo/h/hypokalemia.htm for more on
hypokalemia.


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.

It's worth remembering that during heavy exercise you lose fluid not
just by sweating, but by a dramatic increase in so-called insensible
losses (the most significant being via your lungs). This is particularly
notable in a sport like x-country skiing where you're typically going
your hardest in a rather dry / low humidity environment (you saturate
every breath of dry air you take in to 100% humidity before you exhale
it again). This loss involves negligible electrolytes (you're pretty
much losing pure water) and therefore you actually increase the overall
"saltiness" of your body.

In this context, with modern sports drinks, taking extra salt tablets is
not necessary and even counter-productive.

With regard to hypokalaemia... Water intoxication (drinking heaps of
plain old H2O) can be very dangerous, but the danger comes from
hyponatraemia (low sodium) and _not_ hypokalaemia (low potassium). Your
body can easily compensate for the diluted plasma [K+] by shifting it
from the intracellular to extracellular compartment, however in the face
of massive amounts of incoming water, it just can't keep up with the
alteration in sodium concentration, and this is a very very bad thing
for the human brain.

Cheers,
Chris






  #7  
Old June 30th 05, 02:03 AM
John Forrest Tomlinson
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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).

JT



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  #8  
Old June 30th 05, 05:05 AM
Booker C. Bense
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Default

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

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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  #9  
Old June 30th 05, 12:27 PM
Terje Henriksen
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Posts: n/a
Default

Booker C. Bense wrote:

_ 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.


Sport drinks are probably made in such a way that the body shall consume
them immediately, so the concentration of salt is like the normal
concentration in the body fluid, but sometimes you need more than that
because you are very low on salt.

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


You need salt if you are beginning to get cramp.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes


  #10  
Old June 30th 05, 06:03 PM
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Default

Very informative thread. Serious question: do any of you know about how
long the body takes to absorb/disperse salt when taken as a salt tab? I
guess that the actual statistic will vary with each person as well as
each situation but I expect that there are some benchmarks.
Pete

Terje Henriksen wrote:
Booker C. Bense wrote:

_ 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 rinks. 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.


Sport drinks are probably made in such a way that the body shall consume
them immediately, so the concentration of salt is like the normal
concentration in the body fluid, but sometimes you need more than that
because you are very low on salt.

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


You need salt if you are beginning to get cramp.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes


 




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