# Bicycling magazine article about cramping



## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

Have any of you seen this article (in Dec 2014 issue titled 'Stamp Out Cramps')?

It seems rather interesting to me. They explain how sports labs can collect your sweat and then give you an estimate on how much sodium you're losing per hour, so you can try to match that while exercising.

The interesting part is that for the person tested they lost almost 3000mg of sodium in an hour. That is a staggering amount but according to the lab that was high but not uncommon.

I'm a big fan of both Skratch Labs and Tailwind Nutrition so I'm useto drinking about 300-500mg of sodium an hour (figuring 1-1.5 bottles mixed at 1 scoop/bottle), but it sounds like if I'm still cramping (which I almost always do at the end of long races) then I should be upping that dramatically. The Skratch Labs hyper hydration mix of 1700mg of sodium, which normally would only be used for a pre-ride sodium load maybe could be used more throughout the ride on an hourly basis.

In the article they list a few companies which do the testing via mail-order (Individual Test | for $75 & Infinit but I couldn't find anything about it on their webpage).

I have no idea how much sodium I lose but I know my jersey is usually streaked with white, my helmet and straps are often pure white and there is enough dried sweat in my hair that when I take a shower afterwards my eyes burn from the salty water now flowing by them.

Anyone tried one of those mail-order or in-person labs for sweat analysis?


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## jimPacNW (Feb 26, 2013)

how long is a long-race for you?


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

jimPacNW said:


> how long is a long-race for you?


The rides (some races, some non-competitive fun rides) where I've cramped bad on were anywhere from 3-9 hours, most 7-9 hours. The 3 hour one was a tough mtn bike race on a hot day on a course I had never ridden before, my naive "I bet the next aid station is just right down this hill..." was sadly mistaken, get done with a hard fun descent and go to climb and legs won't work, everything painfully locked...argh.


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## QCC (Nov 10, 2014)

Our location (Beyond Exercise) was one of the facilities that was mentioned in the article. We do onsite sodium testing utilizing a method that is similar to that used to test for Cystic Fibrosis. Our test equipment is mobile allowing me to test and consult with individuals all over. I have done testing for athletes and helped them to do a custom formulation utilizing Infinit, H2Pro, and other products to formulate a customized hydration plan based on sodium loss and sweat rate. From the research we know where the cut-offs of too much loss of water and electrolytes are and customize the hydration plan considering those cut-offs. 

Sweat rates are extremely variable. The sodium concentration can have an eight-fold difference, and combined with the variability in sweat rate can lead to a total of a 13-fold difference in net electrolyte loss. 

That being said, cramping has not been completely defined. Research has shown that there are multiple factors involved - hydration, electrolytes, training, muscle strain, etc. However, my theory is, if you can control the hydration and electrolytes through training and are still have cramps then we need to reevaluate whether muscle imbalances, tightness, weakness, etc exists.


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

Didn't expect to hear from an expert on this...cool!

So is it expected that any sampled sweat is the same as any other sampled sweat? For example the do-at-home kit from Levelen has you put a gauze patch on your skin, seal air-tight to your skin then exercise, take it out, put in container and mail to them and also weigh how much weight you lost during that workout. Obviously that is not terribly complicated science, they figure out how much sodium (and other 'stuff' probabaly) was in the sample you provided them and extrapolate that out matching how much overall fluid you lost. I can only hope over the years they (and maybe your company too) has parameters about how much fluid loss was just from breathing (which typically has little to no sodium in it, I usually am in a very dry climate so feel like I lose lots of water by just breathing hard) and how much was from actual sweat. 

Is all sweat the same composition from all parts of the body? Arm, head, back, legs, etc? I'm just curious how accurate a forearm sample is compared to other locations that seems to produce more sweat (forehead for example).

Appreciate the info!


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