Greater than for crossfit athleteS
High intensity exercise is the physical act of pushing your body to weakness and tearing your muscle tissues. It’s your recovery to exercise that grows your muscular strength and endurance. For your muscles to fully recover, proper hydration using natural minerals and electrolytes is required for for fluid absorption and protein synthesis.
Every pound of weight lost during a high intensity workout is equal to 16-20 fluid ounces lost. During these workouts the human body loses about 220mg sodium, 63mg potassium and 8mg magnesium from loss of fluid from perspiration & urination. Sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium are the four major electrolytes that maintain and regulate the body's fluid balance.
Water intake without the supplementation of natural minerals and electrolytes blocks fluid absorption into your body’s tissues and is holding you back from peak performance during your CrossFit workouts. In fact, water consumed in large quantities that contains little or no minerals may actually leach minerals from your body.
There’s a considerable difference between drinking fluids and absorbing fluids into your tissues (hydrating). Your body can’t absorb fluids into your tissues (muscle, organs, skin, etc..) without these natural minerals present.
Water and typical sports drinks do not contain significant enough bioavailable levels of these minerals for you to fully recover or grow from your workout (you’re limiting your performance). These minerals are found most abundantly, and easiest for your body to absorb, in nature from coconut water and other fruit juices.
A simple adjustment to your intake of natural electrolytes and minerals can break you out of your fitness plateau and give you more power & endurance during workouts.
Electrolytes Are Key For Performance
Electrolytes are natural mineral elements that form ions in body fluids. They ensure specific bodily functions run at optimal levels. Too few electrolytes will cause muscles to cramp, muscle fatigue, general daily fatigue and increased heart rate.
Without proper electrolyte levels, your body can’t repair the tissue damage from the last workout, you can’t synthesize protein properly, and your body doesn’t have the power to perform at its absolute best.
Dehydrated ligaments and tendons will become more vulnerable to injury due to decreased muscle elasticity. Dehydrated muscles cannot stretch as far without injury, and give you less range of motion.
Bioavailability is defined as “The proportion of a drug or other substance that enters the circulation when introduced into the body and so is able to have an active effect.”
Typical sports drinks, which are manufactured using chemical-based electrolytes, oils, dyes and added sugar, do not have high enough bioavailability of minerals to effectively restore electrolyte balance.
Natural sources of these minerals have both the highest volumes of electrolytes and are also the most biologically available for your body to digest and have an active effect.
The low bioavailability of manufactured electrolytes in typical sports drinks will result in less overall hydration when compared to a natural sports drink.
The Best Way to Recover
With all the great natural mineral compounds and hydrating properties of coconut water, it is currently one of the best options to fully hydrate, beyond average levels. It’s Paleo and Keto friendly ingredients and is packed with two to three times the amount of electrolytes that the bigger artificial sports drinks have. Greater Than is coconut water based and uses other super fruits to recover from the electrolyte washout during exercise and ensure your muscles and tissues are properly hydrated for maximum performance.
Sports Drinks centered on coconut water are a great start but there are plenty of other dietary and lifestyle hacks you can incorporate to start crushing your WODs. Sign up below to find out how you can continue to better hydrate your entire body.