Important Article? Thoughts? Too Much Water May Be Deadly for Athletes - Page 2

Be careful there too. If you mix it too concentrated, your body will have a difficult time taking it up. My understanding is Gatorade (and I assume most other sports drinks are fairly "isotonic" and have just about concentration of salts/sugars as our body fluids. That's one of the reasons they move across our cell membranes so eaisly. If the solution is too strong, Hypertonic, then, if I remember physiology correctly (I took it 15-20 years ago...), the some dulition of the fluid has to take place before it can be take up by our cells. This comes from cellular fluids. In effect there is a bit dehydration that takes place at the cellular level. Most of this water is re-absorbed, but the bottom line is that super concentrated liquids aren't easily absorbed by our system. This is also the reason that the makers of "goo packs" suggest drinking them with a little water....


IF I mix up sports drinks stonger than reccomended, I always make sure I drink them along with some plain water. Now the reasons to mix these stonger than reccomended is the ability to carry more calories. I live in Utah and it's fairly arid here in the summer time with low humidity. On longer MTB bike rides where I have 2 cages and a hydration bladder. I have mixed a few bottles stronger and the suplimented with water from my hydration bladder. It just give me a bit for flexability.

Hope this helps....

L

I would like to say that I'm no nutritionist (I'm a biologist), I just took severeal physiology and nutrition classes in college (long ago)....

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There was an article in this weeks Time Magazine about this... crazy that you guys are all talking about it.

In any case something you can do at home might help you determine if your drinking to much or to little (liquid). Im not speaking to water or sports drinks, but just liquids as a whole. Weigh yourself before you start and after you return. If you lost weight when you return you have under drank and if you have gained weight you have obviously over compenstated... Again im not talking about water over anything else, just basic fluid loss.

There is a more accurate method.

Monitor the colour of your pee. If it's bright yellow, you're probably not drinking enough. If it's clear you're doing fine.

This is not 100% accurate. If your supplimenting vitamins its going to make your pee extrodinarily yellow. When your dehydrated your urine will have a much stronger odor (amongst being yellow). Pale-yellow to near clear would indicate a good level of hydration.

This is good advice. I try to always do this. The funny thing is after doing it for many months, I can roughly tell how well I'm going to ride BEFORE I get out there (based on weight and hydration level). I have a weight range where I know I'm slightly dehydrated. If I show up there I try to drink a little be more before I go out.

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