Good interview on water and electrolytes

[Horizontal Heith]

link I read the book which is more of the same.

[VMac]

Good stuff. Hyponatremia is real. Most people, unfortunately, want a simple answer to everything ("Drink lots!") rather than have to think about it. We still seem a bit lacking when it comes to the full electrolyte story (Brawndo marketing crap completely aside).

[MarkAJ]

Enlightening. I have always had a problem remembering to drink so I kind of go against the “drink lots” theory naturally. I have always ridden my best when I drank to thrust which is very much determined by the conditions I am in, i.e. weather. It always seems I have more water in my bottles then others around me. However, if I begin to cramp an electrolyte cap or two takes that away within minutes. I have proven this to myself many times. I never pre-hydrate or sodium load. In fact with regards to sodium I never add it to anything.

It was not clear about what was being said regarding carbohydrates. Lately on my Sunday rides I have only been taking water with no mixes and I do fine. My norm is to add some complex-carbohydrates to one of my water bottles.

[hansolo3]

One thing to keep in mind is that almost nothing this Doctor claims has actually been proven. He even says that his book is "just an argument". I'm not saying that he's wrong, BUT he has no scientific studies to support his arguments.

Yes, Hyponatremia is real but the proven research contradicts many things that this Dr. says. Just ask all the pro riders how/what they are drinking and how it affects their performance.

[Horizontal Heith]

Originally Posted by hansolo3

Yes, Hyponatremia is real but the proven research contradicts many things that this Dr. says..

Research with fasted(starved) individuals while looking for the outcome your funding dictates is not research.
Show me a study where force drinking vs drinking to thirst with carb and fluid stores topped off while not being funded by a sports drink 3rd party. I bet you can't find one.

Who shows up to a any type of competition fasted and dehydrated? Maybe a boxer trying to make weight? but his performance usually suffers.

If I did a study of fluid and carb loaded individuals vs. dehydrated/fasted individuals over a 40k time trial and the carb/fluid loaded subjects can't eat anything once the time trial starts. But the starved people can eat as much as they want, after the trial begins. I bet I can tell you who's going to win and if I word it right I can make it sound like starving during a 40k time trial produces better times than drinking sports drinks during a 40k time trial.

He's not saying, don't drink water. He is just saying you might be better off drinking to thirst. I'm not sure you listened to the interview and interpreted it as I did.

[VMac]

The good news is (if I remember it correctly -- I have trouble remembering 30 minutes ago, never mind 2 days ago) that it appears common cycling benchmarks ("1 bottle/hour") is closer to his argument than running benchmarks (relative to their respective fluid loss/needs). And it does appear that it is the runners getting themselves into trouble more often than cyclists.

[hansolo3]

Originally Posted by Horizontal Heith

Research with fasted(starved) individuals while looking for the outcome your funding dictates is not research.
Show me a study where force drinking vs drinking to thirst with carb and fluid stores topped off while not being funded by a sports drink 3rd party. I bet you can't find one.

Who shows up to a any type of competition fasted and dehydrated? Maybe a boxer trying to make weight? but his performance usually suffers.

If I did a study of fluid and carb loaded individuals vs. dehydrated/fasted individuals over a 40k time trial and the carb/fluid loaded subjects can't eat anything once the time trial starts. But the starved people can eat as much as they want, after the trial begins. I bet I can tell you who's going to win and if I word it right I can make it sound like starving during a 40k time trial produces better times than drinking sports drinks during a 40k time trial.

He's not saying, don't drink water. He is just saying you might be better off drinking to thirst. I'm not sure you listened to the interview and interpreted it as I did.

I was not arguing about Hyponatremia or that he's saying "not to drink". I was just restating that even he says that most of his ideas are just "arguments", which happens to contradict research (and I'm not inferring that I agree with Sport Drink research). My sentence was just poorly constructed and confusing (the one you quoted). Sorry for the confusion.

[VMac]

Originally Posted by hansolo3

...contradict research (and I'm not inferring that I agree with Sport Drink research)...

Research rules. My initial comment above about people wanting a simple answer to everything was originally much longer. It is especially frustrating that after every single new study that gets published on anything remotely related to nutrition, you can count on a slew of people responding with "and tomorrow they will find the opposite, so I'm just going to use common sense and do what my Momma done taught me." It seems that science education is virtually non-existent in pubic schools these days.

[Horizontal Heith]

I agree with both of you..
It's just hard to to weed through all the bs that goes into "clinically proven", "University tested". When every time I read the study in full length and see where the funds came from.

It's so easy to and obvious to get the results you want to see.
I can take the same product and get 2 different results by just selecting my subjects carefully. I can take an elite athletes and say we seen less than 1% improvement or we can take a totally sedentary untrained couch potatoes and say we saw a 33% improvement. over a 90 day protocol.
I can starve people for 24 hours and feed them anything, knowing there will be an improvement.

Common sense is the answer..

[Horizontal Heith]

Another 3 out of 74 studies
Here