By Steve Born
Whether you're running, biking, swimming, paddling, hiking, golfing, playing tennis, or doing any other endurance activity, there's absolutely no reason to suffer through painful cramps and other maladies caused by electrolyte depletion. Avoiding muscle cramps is as easy as taking a couple of capsules or dropping a tablet or two into your water bottle!
By supplementing with Endurolytes before, during, and after all of your workouts and races during these hot summer months, you'll replenish necessary electrolyte minerals and prevent cramping. That's important year-round, but it's absolutely essential now as outdoor temperatures and your training volume increase.
Don't downgrade the quality of your workouts or jeopardize your races by relying on salt tablets, incomplete electrolyte supplements, or the old sugar/salt/citric acid sports drinks. Endurolytes - available in two unique encapsulated formulations and in effervescent tablets - contains ALL of the electrolytic minerals your body requires, in a perfectly proportioned balance and it's available in three convenient forms.
Endurolytes will accurately and precisely meet your electrolytic mineral needs hour after hour regardless of your size, sport, training intensity, fitness level, weather conditions, or your acclimation to those conditions. We guarantee it! (P.S. And, we're proud to say, it's made in the USA!)
The importance of electrolytes
Electrolytes are chemicals that form electrically charged particles (ions) in body fluids. These ions carry the electrical energy your body needs to perform many functions, including the contraction of muscles and transmission of nerve impulses. Because so many bodily functions depend on electrolytes, athletes require a consistent, adequate supply of these important nutrients for optimal performance.
Many athletes disregard electrolyte replenishment because they've "never had cramping problems." Even if you've never suffered the painful, debilitating effects of cramping, you still need to provide your body with an appropriate supply of electrolytes, even in cooler weather. Why? Because the goal in replenishing electrolytes is not simply to prevent cramping, but primarily to maintain body functions at optimal levels.
Cramping is your body's way of telling you that it's "running on empty," electrolytes-wise. It means that the performance of many systems (including cardiovascular, nervous, digestive, and muscular) has been severely compromised for some time, and your athletic performance has been steadily deteriorating, as well.
You want your body to perform smoothly, without interruption or compromise. That's why, just as you shouldn't wait until you're dehydrated or bonking to replenish fluids or calories, you should never wait until you're cramping to replenish electrolytes.
Salt alone is NOT the solution!
Besides completely neglecting the replenishment of electrolytes, many athletes make these major mistakes:
They equate "electrolyte replenishment" with the intake of salt tablets, or high-sodium foods, fuels, or electrolyte products. While salt (sodium chloride) is indeed an important component of electrolyte replenishment, it's not the whole story. Many athletes forget that other minerals - potassium, magnesium, and calcium - are required along with sodium and chloride to adequately fulfill electrolyte requirements.
They consume too much salt in their daily diet or they preload their bodies with massive quantities of salt or sodium (the latter usually in the form of citrate or bicarbonate) in the hours just prior to a race. Neither of these practices enhances athletic performance - they usually ruin it, actually - or benefits health. Consuming too much sodium in any form, whether in your daily diet or prior to an event, interferes with your body's complex and efficient built-in mechanisms that regulate and recirculate sodium from body stores.
Bottom line: When you oversupply your body with sodium, you end up causing more problems than you resolve. We've heard this over and over again; far too many endurance athletes consume excessive amounts of sodium and then suffer from a variety of problems, the least of which is stomach distress.
Achieving cramp-free exercise success with Endurolytes With three outstanding formulations and two delivery methods available to you, avoiding muscle cramps and maintaining optimal performance of critical body functions is a breeze.
Endurolytes - The original formula - available in capsules or powder - that thousands of athletes have relied upon for decades. We formulated Endurolytes and Endurolytes Powder to meet the needs of most athletes exercising in a wide range of conditions. Each capsule or scoop contains a specific blend of minerals to meet your specific electrolyte needs with precision hour after hour.
SUGGESTED DOSE: 1 capsule or scoop per 50-60 pounds of body weight hourly
Endurolytes Fizz - Designed primarily for those who have difficulty swallowing capsules and/or who prefer lightly flavored "fizzy" electrolyte water. One tablet is the approximate equivalent of two Endurolytes capsules, and contains no artificial colors, flavors, or unwanted chemicals - ingredients commonly found in other effervescent electrolyte products.
SUGGESTED DOSE: 1/2 tablet per 50- 60 pounds of body weight hourly
Endurolytes Extreme - Bolstered with a hefty 300 mg of sodium chloride (salt) and 75 mg of potassium per capsule - three times more than the original Endurolytes formula - Endurolytes Extreme is guaranteed to resolve even the toughest electrolyte replenishment challenges, such as:
- If you're participating in an unusually hot-weather event
- If you're not acclimated to the weather conditions
- If you consume a high-sodium diet
- If you are "physiologically predisposed" to cramping (e.g., you sweat excessively)
- If you are training early in the season, when a lack of fitness can lead to greater loss of sodium, chloride, and potassium
SUGGESTED DOSE: 1 capsule hourly, increasing the dose to 2 capsules - perhaps even 3 capsules - as conditions dictate.
Summary
Consistent replenishment of electrolytes during workouts and races is as important as the consistent replenishment of fluids and calories. The goal with electrolyte replenishment is not just to prevent painful cramping, but more importantly to allow your body to perform at its best.
Getting fluid and caloric needs dialed in is fairly easy to accomplish, but fulfilling electrolyte needs requires more attention and fine tuning because you must account for more variables - weather conditions, fitness level, exercise intensity and pace, dietary sodium intake, and others.
Using Endurolytes during your training and racing - as well as anytime you're exerting your body outdoors on a hot day - will resolve that challenge. Don't wait until you suffer the painful, performance-ruining consequences of improper electrolyte replenishment to use this product! No matter what the weather throws at you, Endurolytes is ready to serve you. We guarantee that all of the Endurolytes full-spectrum electrolytic mineral formulas will drastically reduce the potential for cramping and allow you to enjoy optimal exercise performance.
