Sorry, Mr. Beard. Salt’s not just for cooking anymore. Mined in China as early as 6000 B.C., salt was used as one of the first currencies. Salt’s importance comes from the fact it is an essential electrolyte in the human body and, in that regard, it is critical to performance in the silent sports.
As the hot and humid days of summer arrive and we silent sporters are sweating during vigorous outdoor exercise, we need to think about our salt intake. Too little and our muscles will cramp up. Too much and some of us could die.
The need to do a balancing act comes from the fact that most people already get too much salt in their diet. Prepared and processed foods can be especially high in salt, or sodium chloride. Look at the label on canned spaghetti sauce, for example, and you will find a huge amount of salt. And sodium chloride has been linked to high blood pressure, so people with that condition are admonished to keep their sodium levels down.
It’s been my theory – totally unsupported by any scientific evidence – that recreational athletes who engage in vigorous activity in hot weather don’t have to be overly concerned about the amount of salt they consume because they sweat during workouts and exude enough salt to keep their sodium levels down.
The American Heart Association recommends eating less than 2,300 mg of salt per day. About a teaspoon of salt is 2,400 mg.
Think about your first bike ride or run in warm weather. Salt cakes on your skin and burns your eyes. Eventually your body adapts and retains salt, instead of immediately sweating it out. Strenuously working out in very hot and humid weather can, however, deplete your body’s supply of sodium – and its even more important cousin potassium chloride.
Potassium chloride is an electrolyte that keeps your body running smoothly. It is involved in just about every bodily function, right down to the cellular level. It is so important that it even reduces the blood pressure raising effects of sodium.
Years ago, when home canning was in vogue and people put away fresh fruits and vegetables for the winter, potassium levels made from those foods were higher. The advent of modern food preparation and processing changed the balance heavily in favor of sodium – a much cheaper preservative and flavoring.
Most people do not get enough potassium to lower blood pressure, reduce the effects of sodium, and cut the risk of kidney stones and bone loss. It’s estimated many Americans now consume less than half the 4.7 grams of potassium they need every day.
Here is where the silent sports come in. When your legs cramp up during a long hot weather bike ride or run, look not to a lack of sodium but too little potassium as the culprit. The depletion of sodium’s cousin causes cramps. The problem is how to start out with an adequate supply of potassium, to maintain it during exercise and to replenish it when you are done, so you are ready for the next workout.
Of all the subjects on exercise-related Internet sites and blogs, it is electrolyte replenishment that usually draws the most attention and the most suggested remedies. It’s a complex issue, with individual approaches usually determined by preferences. Many of them you can take with a, ahem, grain of salt.
There isn’t any magic solution. What I can tell you is what my personal regime is to maintain a balance of sodium and potassium. I drink enough water to maintain hydration. A liter per 15 miles bicycling was my intake rule during triathlons.
Like many recreational athletes, I long ago recognized the importance of potassium in exercise. As a result, my diet became high in those fresh fruits and vegetables I know contain potassium. There are a number of food content books available listing fats, calories, sodium, potassium and other nutritional elements that can point you to the foods rich in potassium.
When I cook, I use Morton Lite Salt (350 mg potassium to 290 mg sodium per quarter teaspoon). It’s more expensive than plain table salt, but you use less and get more potassium.
My favorite breakfast drink is low-sodium V8 juice (820 mg potassium to 140 mg sodium per 8 ounces, with lots of vitamin A and C to boot). The 820 mg of potassium is more than that in a large banana (487 mg). Bananas have been the traditional potassium replacement food during bicycle events. It’s somewhat inconvenient to take V8 juice with you, but bananas can fit in a bag or jersey pocket.
There are a lot of other products out there that can be used for electrolyte replacement, but most are sodium-based. Sea salt is touted because it contains traces of other essential minerals. But it’s basically just sodium. So are drinks like Gatorade, but I find the sweetness in most of them somewhat sickening. And they are expensive.
Maintaining pre-exercise potassium levels, putting a pinch of Morton Lite in a water bottle and grabbing a banana or two does the trick for me.
I admit there have been times when I was ill-prepared during a particularly hot bicycle ride, cramped up, stopped at a restaurant, salted my hand with a saltshaker, and licked the sodium off. Better than nothing in an emergency, but certainly not as good as maintaining an adequate potassium-sodium balance in the first place.
Bill Hauda is a bicyclist, veteran of some 50 marathons, including 13 in Boston; a former competitive triathlete; founder and first president of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin; currently a BFW board member; and former director of Wisconsin’s two major cross-state bicycle tours, GRABAAWR and SAGBRAW.
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