Do Athletes Need to Replace Salts Lost While Sweating?

Hey hey, athletes!

Today we’re talking about sweat. More specifically, salt. The loss and replacement of salt in our bodies seems like a tricky balancing act sometimes. Too much of it, and we get sick. Too little of it, and guess what – we get sick. Excess sodium raises your blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. But without enough salt, your body has trouble with temperature regulation, nerve signalling, electrical impulses, and cardiac output capacity. Intense exercise makes you sweat buckets, which of course causes sodium loss and can decrease overall performance. But studies show that replacing sodium lost in sweat boosts immediate performance, but may reduce the long-term fitness advantages that exercise has on our whole-body health. And so the scales tip back and forth yet again: Do you choose instant or long-term benefits?

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