What & When to Drink to Ride Longer
Hydration (and dehydration) can make or break an endurance ride. Stay strong. Drink right.
One of my worst rides ever happened in a heat wave – and I’d left my filled-to-the-brim water bottles on the kitchen counter. About halfway through my ride my mouth felt like I was fuelling on sand; I could sense my energy flagging fast. To say I limped home would be an understatement.
“Staying well hydrated is essential to proper body functioning and performance.”
“Staying well hydrated is essential to proper body functioning and performance,” says dietitian Marni Sumbal. “Replacing fluids inadequately during exercise can lead to a host of physical and mental issues: compromised digestion, poor body temperature regulation, irritability, fatigue, decreased sweat rate and reduced blood flow.”
When your plasma (blood) volume shrinks from sweat loss, water from other areas comes into the plasma to compensate. This leaves less water available for body temperature regulation, which may make you feel like you’re frying and leave you with an increased risk for heat illness.
What’s more, skill and physical performance are more likely to degrade when hypohydration levels reach 2 per cent or more body-mass loss, though it depends on the individual. Some research even suggests a loss of as little as 1 per cent body weight can impair muscle endurance, power and strength.
We tapped into the knowledge of the Bicycling sports dietitian to help you figure out your optimal fluid intake plan, based on how long you want to ride. Here are your sipping points.
How to Hydrate for Training:
1 TO 3 HOURS
Hydration is just as important in training if you’re to get the full benefit of your workout. Aim for 700ml per hour or 200ml every 15 minutes. Include carbs (30-60g per hour) and electrolytes (500-700mg of sodium) per hour with your fluid intake. Once you push past the hour mark, keeping on top of your hydration needs becomes more pressing.
“When it comes to longer workouts, drinking on a schedule instead of to thirst is more advantageous.”
Sumbal suggests taking small sips more frequently, to help with digestion and minimise stomach sloshing. “For longer workouts, drinking on a schedule instead of to thirst is more advantageous to performance and health,” Sumbal explains. “Thirst sensations and signals are not always accurate during exercise.”
Longer, more intense workouts should include more than just water, Sumbal says. A sports drink will provide the valuable carbs your muscles need for energy, while sodium in the bottle can help replace some of this electrolyte lost in sweat to improve water balance in the body.
“You’ll be losing more fluids and sodium throughout a workout of this length, and depleting glycogen stores – all of which will compromise health and performance if you don’t consume a well-formulated sports drink,” notes Sumbal. Fast-digesting carbs will also promote better water absorption by increasing the activation of fluid transport mechanisms in the small intestine.
In general, your goal is to consume 30 to 60g of carbs for each hour of activity, which can come from a combo of fluids and food. The baseline recommendation for sodium intake per hour of exercise is 500 to 700mg. If your body weight is still below normal by the end of your workout, or you’re very thirsty, you crave salty foods and have dark pee the hue of apple juice the day after a longer ride, Sumbal says this is a tip-off that you didn’t adequately hydrate during and after your workout.
How to Hydrate for the Big Day
3 HOURS OR MORE
For many, the amount of fluids they believe they’re consuming versus what they actually take in can be miles apart. “For rides of length, I’d recommend between 750ml and a litre of fluid, along with 60 to 90g of carbs and at least 400 to 800mg sodium as a good baseline for each hour of your ride,” says Sumbal. That’s 1 to 1.5 bottles’ worth of fluid for each hour of activity. But experiment with these guidelines during training, Sumbal adds.
Again, our thirst mechanism isn’t the most reliable when we’re exercising for hours. So think about reminding yourself to drink up – set a timer on your watch or GPS device to beep every 15 minutes, to remind you to take a swig or two of fluid. An important note: if you normally drink 300ml of fluid per hour, but suddenly double this amount to stay better hydrated, this could result in an unpleasant stomach experience. Rather ease into hydration by adding 100ml or so to your previous hourly intake for a few workouts, then another 100ml for a few more, until you get to your goal.
For all-day rides, remember that all liquids contribute to hydration. So if you pull in for a cold Coke, that counts towards your fluid intake. One way to better estimate how much liquid you need to drink to sidestep performance-sapping dehydration is a sweat test: weigh yourself naked before a workout, then keep track of how much you drink during a typical training session. Weigh yourself naked again post-workout, then subtract your post-workout weight from your pre-workout weight. Add to that the amount of liquid you consumed. For example, if you lost 1kg (equivalent to 1 000ml) but drank 500ml, it means you sweated out about 500ml in one hour.
Repeat the test in a few different environmental conditions and at different intensities of riding. The goal isn’t to match all the fluid lost during a workout, but to come reasonably close by slowing the rate of body weight loss. “This can be a simple method for addressing hydration status to better understand your fluid needs,” says Sumbal.
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