We all want to perform at our best, whether in the gym, on the mats, pounding pavement or just getting after the day. Staying hydrated is the key to boosting your performance across all parts of your day, where adding electrolytes to your routine can help make optimal hydration effortless.
Why Hydration Matters
Dehydration happens when your body loses fluids, which is pretty common. Our bodies use and lose water all throughout the day just to keep everything running smoothly—like keeping our organs happy and our brains sharp. However with that fluid, we also lose essential electrolytes. In fact, even while we sleep, as we sweat, breathe and produce urine, we can wake up a bit dehydrated from loss of water and electrolytes, so hydration is crucial!
The main electrolytes we lose are sodium, potassium, and magnesium, and all of these are important for keeping our fluid balance in check, especially sodium and potassium. Our body cant produce these electrolytes, so it's important we get them from our diets and if we are still falling short, a supplement such as Sodii can be super handy. If you’re dehydrated, you might feel tired, crampy, or even a bit dizzy and none of that helps your performance!
The Balance of Hydration
It’s also possible to over-hydrate, especially if you’re just chugging plain water without electrolytes. This can result in even more electrolyte loss as they get flushed out and depleted, throwing off your electrolyte balance, making your body crave salt to help re balance your levels. Ever feel like your drinking lots and lots of water, yet still thirsty? This could be why. If you feel that salt craving, don’t ignore it — your body’s just trying to tell you something! Try adding some high quality salt to your drinking water and notice the difference.
The balance of electrolytes also matters, we wrote an extensive article explaining the electrolytes in our Everyday Hydration Salts, and why each amount is important to whole body health.
Research on Hydration and Performance
A meta-analysis of nearly 30 studies revealed that dehydration significantly impacts performance. Participants with just a 3% loss of body weight due to dehydration experienced a 5.63% decrease in their VO2 max and a 3.2% drop in power output. This isn’t trivial; for endurance athletes, it can mean the difference between first place and last!
Another study showed that when athletes were hyper-hydrated before events, they improved their performance by 5.7% to 11.4% in time trials and increased total work completed by 4-5 kJ. They also experienced a reduced mean heart rate by 3-11 beats per minute, indicating better cardiovascular efficiency during exercise.
Whilst both of these studies looked at the physical side of performance, high performing athletes will also speak to the mental side of performance needing to be sharp! The brain is 75% water, and when dehydration kicks in, it's not only effecting focus and concentration but also increasing the likeliness of headaches and migraines, the last thing you want when performing. More on this soon...
Pre or Post Exercise?
Hydrating before your daily workouts are a great way to ensure you’re not letting hydration limit your productive output. A decrease in dehydration has been shown to limit performance by up to 10%. 10% is the difference between a podium finish and back of the pack. By hydrating with Sodii before training, you’re ensuring that you’re firing on all cylinders, and ready to compete.
Hyper hydration (ample amounts of fluid before an event) has been demonstrated to be able to improve performance through the metric of exercise capacity. When an athlete hyper hydrates before a workout, run or training session, they essentially operate with a greater level of total fluid in their body, theoretically above their typical threshold. A higher fluid plasma volume is thought to lower heart rate, and improve the bodies ability to sweat, as well as prolonging the time to hypo hydration (dehydration). Consider hyper hydration as another performance benefit to keep in your toolkit.
If you’re engaging in any sort of demanding training, you’re going to be losing electrolytes through sweat, and even heavy breathing! Being dehydrated after a workout will impact your ability to recover, and come back again with the same level of intensity and consistency. Ensuring that you effectively rehydrate with sodium, magnesium and potassium after a workout, will improve your recovery, by improving metrics of sleep, muscle cramp and soreness and regulating several metabolic processes in the human body.
Hydration and Your Mind
Not convinced? Hydration affects your brain, too. A study conducted in China found that after 36 hours without water, participants showed lower scores in mood and cognitive tests. Rehydrating improved their attention and mental performance significantly.
Sodium plays a pivotal role in brain health. It is crucial for the generation and transmission of electrical signals in the brain and nerves. These electrical signals are necessary for thought processes, memory recall, and muscle contractions. An imbalance in sodium levels can significantly impact brain function, leading to symptoms like confusion, dizziness, and in severe cases, seizures.
Potassium works closely with sodium to maintain electrical gradients across cell membranes, a process essential for nerve signal transmission. Adequate potassium levels are necessary for sustained brain energy, and deficiencies can lead to fatigue, brain fog, and decreased cognitive function.
Magnesium is key for brain health, involved in over 300 enzymatic reactions in the body, many of which benefit the brain. It helps regulate neurotransmitters, which send messages throughout the brain and body, and plays a role in protecting the brain from stress and potentially harmful substances.
We teamed up with Mark Payne of Melbourne Functional Medicine to write a complete article on how hydration effects the brain, check it out here!
Time to Hydrate!
So, what’s the takeaway? Hydrate with water and electrolytes, listening to your body’s thirst signals. Don’t just rely on plain water; it can mess with your balance. And remember, up to 80% of Australians are walking around dehydrated, which can hurt daily performance.
At Sodii, we’re passionate about helping you stay hydrated with the right electrolyte mix tailored to your needs.
