(Image Credit: OpenFit)
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been told at some point in your life that it’s important to replenish electrolytes. After a sweaty workout, a hot day, or a long night out. But what even are electrolytes, anyways? You might be surprised that this is one of the most common questions we’ve gotten since we launched back in 2013.
Electrolytes Defined
Electrolytes are minerals. Once they’re inside your body, they dissolve into ions with positive and negative electrical charges. Like electricity powering your house, electrolytes power your body. They control nerve impulses, muscle contractions, and help balance the fluid in your cells - all of which are necessary to keep your body functioning properly. Big picture, think: heart beating, lungs breathing, muscles moving, brain operating. You can’t live without electrolytes.
What Happens to Electrolytes During a Workout
So why is it so important to replace electrolytes during and after exercise? Because that’s when you lose them. As your muscles get to work and your body temperature starts to rise, electrolytes get deposited via ion channels into sweat glands as a cool-down mechanism. Water follows due to osmosis, and as the glands fill up, sweat is released. When the sweat evaporates off your body, the heat goes with it.
Research shows that 1-3 liters of sweat is lost during an hour-long workout. So that sweat you’re drenched in during your HIIT or spin class is a lot more than just lost water. You’re also losing the electrolytes your body needs to keep going.
The Effects of Lost Electrolytes
Lose enough of them, and it’ll start to affect the way you feel. If you’ve experienced symptoms like muscle cramps, fatigue, dizziness, or even a lack of alertness and concentration during a workout, you’re probably dehydrated and lacking electrolytes. Your performance and exercise capacity can definitely be hindered when you’re dealing with issues like these.
The Electrolytes in Our Organic Sports Drink
That’s why we included the most essential electrolytes for rehydration in our Organic Sports Drink: potassium, sodium, magnesium, and calcium. While they all play individual roles within the body, they work together to help you function, perform, and feel your best.
We source these guys from real ingredients: organic coconut water and Himalayan pink salt. Coconut water contains calcium, magnesium, sodium, and is absolutely packed with potassium. Likewise, Himalayan pink salt is loaded with lots of sodium and traces of potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
When you sip on our Sports Drink during and after a workout, you’re delivering these essential electrolytes back into your cells, so you can keep your body balanced and work on building a better you.
Some Light Reading on Electrolytes
Electrolytes and their relationship to normal and abnormal muscle function
Electrolyte Drinks: Beneficial or not?
Role of Functional Beverages on Sport Performance and Recovery
Electrolytes
