Here it is your edge over your competition and your ultimate performance boost!
Hi Josh here and I am proud to bring sweat testing to our regional areas of N.S.W and Beyond!
If you suffer from Cramps, Dizziness, Headaches or you are not able to hold concentration through your chosen sport or you are not recovering well there is a big chance you are starting under Hydrated becoming Dehydrated and are nowhere near your best. Is this you during training? On Race Day or Gameday? YES Advanced lifestyle Training Sweat test is for you!!
Your body contains lots of water – 50-70% of it is made up of the stuff in fact, depending on the amount of muscle and fat that you have. Around a third of that water exists outside your cells, in extracellular fluids like your blood. Much of our sodium reserves are found here.
What does sodium do?
The total volume of extracellular fluid in your body is directly related to the amount of sodium you have on board at a given time. So, more sodium equals more fluid; less sodium means less fluid.
As well as maintaining fluid balance, sodium plays an important role in the absorption of nutrients in the gut, maintaining a higher concentration level with enhanced cognitive function, nerve impulse transmission and in muscle contraction. Basically, it’s pretty Bloody important.
Most of the sodium we consume is in the form of sodium chloride, or the common table salt found in food and drinks.
We take salt for granted these days as we’ve developed ways to make it widely available. But in the past wars were fought over salt, over access to and the control of salt, which gives you a pretty big clue as to its importance to life!
Because your body can’t produce or store it beyond a certain point, you need to consume sodium every day to keep your levels topped up.
Sweating is the main way athletes lose sodium and fluids during exercise. That’s basically why those of us who train regularly have different needs when it comes to replacing sodium than those who don’t.
Everyone loses a different amount of sodium in their sweat. At Advanced Lifestyle Training we see athletes who lose from as little as 200mg of sodium per litre of sweat to as much as 2,000mg/l. I personally lose ~1269 mg/l and I often suffered from hydration issues in hot shearing shed when i was shearing all over Australasia. It was my personal search for optimal performance when preparing for Shearing world records that led me to the process of learning my sodium loss in my sweat and it was my step up to my next level of ” Stronger for Longer”
Sweat rates also vary from person to person of course; and from situation to situation for any given person (from almost nothing in cooler conditions and at low intensities, to several litres per hour during intense exercise in the heat).
When you combine differences in sodium concentration with those in sweat rates, the potential variance in the total net sodium losses experienced from one athlete to another can be really significant.
And, in a lot of cases, those losses are many times higher than someone who’s not sweating on a regular basis. This is why the standard government guidelines for sodium consumption should be viewed cautiously by athletes. It’s more than possible to lose the daily 2,300mg of sodium recommended by the existing government guidelines in just 1 hour of exercise, if you’re sweating heavily and you’re sweating out lots of sodium. Your losses during a longer period of exercise really can be massive.
It’s impossible to nail down the exact point at which sodium (and fluid) loss through sweating becomes a problem for an athlete. But, it’s clear that when losses reach a certain point, the effects can be detrimental to your performance.
Your blood volume is drastically reduced as your sweat losses increase. That’s because sweat is drawn from your blood plasma. This increases the strain on your cardiovascular system, making it harder to pump blood to your skin to cool you down and to your working muscles.
Other issues such as a general feeling of fatigue and muscle cramps can also be experienced if losses are allowed to go uncorrected for long enough, or if significant imbalances between fluid and sodium are allowed to occur.
Up to a certain point, taking in plain water is enough to mitigate sweat losses. But, as those losses start to mount up, you need to replace sodium too in order to avoid your blood becoming diluted.
This is a potentially disastrous condition called hyponatremia, which can certainly ruin your day and results and, tragically, has even been fatal on occasion.
Because sweat/sodium losses are so individual, any generic guidelines on the replacement of sodium and fluid should always be viewed with suspicion.
Having said that, figuring out whether your net losses are likely to be low, moderate, or high can be a great starting point for honing in on the level of sodium and fluid replacement that’ll work best for you in different circumstances.
The two main inputs that drive your personal net sodium losses are…
Figuring out approximately what these are is a sensible place to start.
Booking a sweat test with Josh is the next step for optimizing your performance.