Water, Water Everywhere . . .

Water, Water Everywhere . . .

WATER SURROUNDS US AND IS CONTAINED WITHIN US—OUR bodies are made up of 60 percent water. Even more so than food, water is the true source of life and strength. We’d keel over quicker from a lack of water than a lack of food. Yet even though we can easily sweat out a pound an hour—and up to two on hot days—hydration is often the one thing most cyclists neglect. Which is too bad since dehydration slows you down. A lot.

Dehydration is fluid loss that happens as you sweat from exertion. It’s not just a state that you suddenly end up in, but a continuum that starts from your very first pedal stroke (sometimes earlier) and builds with every minute in the saddle that you don’t drink. Bear in mind, too, that your sweat doesn’t just contain water but also other valuable minerals called electrolytes that help your muscles function. You can find these in abundance in foods, but sports drinks can help replenish them as well. However, do your research. Not all sports drinks are created equal, and some are so low in electrolytes that you might as well be drinking water.

In a state of dehydration, your body’s ability to regulate heat fades, increasing your core temperature and putting you in danger of overheating. Heavier cyclists will have this effect amplified. At the same time, your blood volume decreases (making it a thicker, slower flow), which puts a larger load on your heart. Essentially, the longer and more you sweat, the harder your ride gets and the worse you start to feel. Hot or windy days will make it worse, but less-conditioned riders who are new to the sport feel it most acutely.

The best way to start your ride is to be fully hydrated, and you can’t simply accomplish this by slamming a couple pints in the few hours before. Only 10 percent of the water in your body is in your blood. The rest is in your muscles, organs, and bones—which count on bloodflow for their water supply. It takes almost a full day for your body to balance and replenish low levels. The water has to get delivered from your digestive system to your blood and beyond, so hydration isn’t just something you need to be thinking about while you exercise, but in the 24 hours before your ride as well.

When you drink on the bike, you are simply trying to keep ahead of impending dehydration. It’s impossible to fully hydrate while exercising, so rehydrating off the bike becomes especially critical if you’re on a multi-day ride—like a bike tour, heavy training period, or the first nice weekend of the spring—because you won’t have as much time to fully rehydrate.

Luckily, there are many ways to get the recommended 1½ to 2 quarts a day that our bodies need. You don’t have to stick strictly to water. Almost any form of fluid is good—from juices, teas, and coffee to soups and the milk in your bowl of cereal. Don’t overlook water-charged foods like melon, tomatoes, oranges, pears, cucumber, or celery—they count, too.

Avoid soda, sweetened drinks like flavored waters, and alcohol. All of these just add on the empty calories, and in the case of alcohol, actually dehydrate you. Thinking about diet soda or other artificial sweeteners? Not so great, either. Since your body doesn’t really digest the processed chemical sweeteners, they may just prime your taste buds to eat more calorie-laden sweet stuff later. Studies have shown that for every “diet” drink consumed per day, the risk for being overweight jumps 41 percent. When in doubt, best to stick with good old water.

The Electrolyte Hype

Think of your body as a supercomputer of cells, tissues, and fluids that are constantly connecting and communicating through electrical impulses. It needs to maintain a delicately balanced environment, friendly to conduction, and that’s where electrolytes come in. They are the salty rock-stars that keep those ions firing so your computer doesn’t crash. On a ride, you know you’re getting close to the danger zone when you feel cramping, fatigue, nausea, and possibly a little irrational or emotional. In short, it’s important to keep your levels steady if you want to be strong on the bike and have a pleasant ride.

On a day-to-day basis, the foods we eat should give us plenty to keep our processors thrumming. When we jump on the bike and start to sweat, we leach them out—especially potassium and sodium, two of the seven main electrolytes our body needs. To keep things in balance, sports nutritionists have designed drinks to help replenish what we lose during a workout.

Although they’ve always been easy to find in food, electrolytes have been marketed since the creation of sports drinks and have gained in popularity with the advent of bottled waters and “energy drinks.” Many of these contain carbohydrates as well, but the latest studies have said that on the bike, you should get most of your carbs from food and save your drinks for hydrating and digesting what you’ve eaten. Studies have found that this is a better way for your digestive system to absorb the most electrolytes and carbs possible. You can find electrolytes in drinks and foods lining your convenience store shelves and in towering displays at your local bike shop.

A good rule of thumb is to use them if you’re working out in excessive heat or for over an hour of moderate exercise on the bike. Any less effort or time than that and water will work just as well and keep you from taking in more carbs than you need.

Be wary of trying to use gels for food that are marketed as “replenishing electrolytes.” Because they are so dense in carbs, it takes a lot of water within your body to digest them. Instead of replenishing, they leave you more dehydrated. For this reason, gels are notorious for causing the infamous “gut rot,” whose symptoms include cramping, bloating, and copious amounts of gas. If you do use gels, you need to drink a huge amount of water along with them to keep yourself from dehydrating during digestion.