Latest / Find Your Edge: Training, Nutrition + Longevity for Endurance Athletes / How to Use Your Sweat Rate Pattern to Create Your Hydration Plan Ep 161
Transcript
- 0:38Coach Carlie: Hello and welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast.
- 0:41Coach Carlie: I am your host, Coach Chris Newport, and today's episode will be a short one, but also I've got a treat for you guys, and I'm super excited to announce it.
- 0:51Coach Carlie: And it relates to sweat rate.
- 0:55Coach Carlie: So one of the questions I get all the time is why should I do a sweat test when I already know my sweat rate?
- 1:02Coach Carlie: Well, your sweat rate isn't a number, it's a pattern.
- 1:07Coach Carlie: So for example, you could lose a third of a liter on an easy cool run.
- 1:14Coach Carlie: You could lose over a liter on a moderate bike ride, and you could lose far over a liter and a half during a hot race.
- 1:23Coach Carlie: Same athlete, different sport, intensity, and environment.
- 1:27Coach Carlie: And that doesn't mean it's bad data.
- 1:29Coach Carlie: That's your data.
- 1:31Coach Carlie: Your body is responding predictably to what you're asking it to do.
- 1:36Coach Carlie: So what actually creates this pattern?
- 1:39Coach Carlie: And I have this conversation so many times over and over again with athletes.
- 1:42Coach Carlie: So I want to make sure that this is clear.
- 1:44Coach Carlie: Well, number one, it could be sport.
- 1:46Coach Carlie: Just like I was telling you, you are more likely to have a higher sweat rate running than you are for biking, for example, or swimming, for example.
- 1:55Coach Carlie: Intensity, that's a clear one.
- 1:57Coach Carlie: The harder you go, the higher your core temperature, and the higher your sweat rate.
- 2:03Coach Carlie: So an easy run for the same amount of time will be a lower sweat rate than a fast hard run.
- 2:12Coach Carlie: Same thing with temperature.
- 2:14Coach Carlie: And of course, we're all experiencing this, these higher temperatures.
- 2:18Coach Carlie: But if you go out for a run when it's 30 degrees Fahrenheit versus 80 degrees Fahrenheit, obviously your sweat rate is going to be different, which relates to the humidity, which in turn is the dew point.
- 2:31Coach Carlie: So, in other words, the lower the dew point, the lower the sweat rate, the higher the dew point, the higher the sweat rate.
- 2:36Coach Carlie: The lower the intensity, the lower the sweat rate, the higher the intensity, the higher the sweat rate.
- 2:41Coach Carlie: And even there's some individuality within sports.
- 2:43Coach Carlie: So for example, I had an athlete who his sweat rate was much higher inside on his indoor bike trainer versus cycling outside.
- 2:54Coach Carlie: He added a fan, so increased the convection in his indoor trainer, and his sweat rate went down.
- 3:01Coach Carlie: So that is going to make a difference.
- 3:04Coach Carlie: And then also just general individual physiology.
- 3:07Coach Carlie: You know that you have been on a bike ride or on a run with friends of yours, and um one person is literally just absolutely drenched, and the other person looks like they barely did any work.
- 3:20Coach Carlie: So there is individual physiology and individual variation for sweat rate, just like there is for eye color and skin color.
- 3:29Coach Carlie: So this isn't just about your Iron Man.
- 3:32Coach Carlie: It could also be like, I challenge you, go out and mow your lawn for 90 degrees for 90 minutes in Raleigh in July.
- 3:40Coach Carlie: And of course, you're going to be sweating.
- 3:41Coach Carlie: And in fact, you can add that in as your quote unquote sport.
- 3:46Coach Carlie: Your body doesn't say, oh, this isn't, you know, a scheduled workout and training peak, so it doesn't count.
- 3:51Coach Carlie: It absolutely counts.
- 3:53Coach Carlie: So the question becomes what does my body tend to do under these conditions?
- 4:01Coach Carlie: And once you accumulate enough of your own observations, enough of your own data, hydration becomes way less mysterious and so, so, so predictable, you guys.
- 4:11Coach Carlie: So let me give you an example of a really cool research study that just came out, 2026 uh journal of applied physiology.
- 4:22Coach Carlie: And what it said, it took nine trained, now granted this is a small, small study, but hang with me here.
- 4:28Coach Carlie: Nine trained males, cyclists and triathlete, they did 160 minutes of cycling at 50% of their peak power in in sort of moderate conditions.
- 4:38Coach Carlie: So not hot, probably just indoor conditions.
- 4:41Coach Carlie: They consumed the same amount of carbohydrates, so 60 grams per hour of glucose in both trials, but they changed up their fluid availability.
- 4:52Coach Carlie: So for the first time that they did the study, they intentionally dehydrated them.
- 4:58Coach Carlie: And then the second time they did it, they made sure that they were what's called uhydrated.
- 5:03Coach Carlie: So not losing an excessive amount, basically staying hydrated.
- 5:09Coach Carlie: So an interesting takeaway that they found is that the dehydrated condition resulted in a 2.8% body mass loss.
- 5:18Coach Carlie: And typically in the research, we see that about 2% is where performance losses start to occur.
- 5:23Coach Carlie: Compared with they only lost 0.2% when they were trying to keep them e-hydrated or sort of neutral from a hydration perspective.
- 5:33Coach Carlie: However, so again, carbohydrate intake did not change.
- 5:38Coach Carlie: Fluid did change.
- 5:41Coach Carlie: The amount that they were able to send to their working muscles of those carbohydrates was 16% lower in the dehydrated trial.
- 5:54Coach Carlie: Like that's that's kind of like mind blowing.
- 5:58Coach Carlie: So think about that.
- 6:00Coach Carlie: We spend so much time arguing over whether this athlete needs 60 or 75 or 90 grams of carbs or 100 grams or 120.
- 6:08Coach Carlie: But fueling, which I think of as carbohydrates, so those getting to the muscles, and hydration, which I think of as fluid and electrolytes, are they different processes?
- 6:18Coach Carlie: Yes, slightly.
- 6:20Coach Carlie: But do they go together?
- 6:21Coach Carlie: Absolutely.
- 6:22Coach Carlie: And this was such an interesting study to confirm that is that yes, you can get all the gels you need and all the carbohydrates that you need or are quote unquote prescribed.
- 6:34Coach Carlie: But if you're getting your fluid and hydration wrong, then what does it matter?
- 6:42Coach Carlie: Right.
- 6:42Coach Carlie: So again, we can't necessarily apply that principle to everyone, but in that study, it's such an interesting way of looking at things to say, oh, these are, these do go together.
- 6:55Coach Carlie: And again, just to piggyback on that, that 16% in that very specific study has to be further researched for females, for different populations, for different intensities, for different sports.
- 7:09Coach Carlie: This was very specific looking at male set of a small cohort.
- 7:15Coach Carlie: Regardless, knowing your sweat rate as a pattern is going to give us incredibly valuable information.
- 7:24Coach Carlie: And even more importantly, knowing the sweat test or your sweat content gives us even more data to understand you and your body.
- 7:33Coach Carlie: So I want to tie this all together into this central concept of it's important to measure, log, understand your pattern to be able to predict your hydration and then actually execute on it.
- 7:49Coach Carlie: So doing one hot run in the summertime is not enough to tell you what's going to happen in December.
- 7:57Coach Carlie: One cool ride doesn't necessarily in October doesn't necessarily predict what you're gonna move, what you're gonna lose in July.
- 8:07Coach Carlie: So it's important to collect your data and you don't necessarily see a lot of data.
- 8:11Coach Carlie: Again, once you start to collect at least, let's say, three to five data points per sport, especially for traffics, we got a lot of sports going on, and that's fine.
- 8:21Coach Carlie: But understand your patterns, and you don't have to necessarily do this all the time, but just enough to understand how your body performs across different sports, across different intensities, and across different conditions and even durations.
- 8:38Coach Carlie: So instead of asking how much should I drink, the better question is to say, what does my body typically require when I do a certain sport for a certain amount of time at a certain intensity in certain conditions?
- 8:55Coach Carlie: So that's a completely different level of decision making.
- 8:59Coach Carlie: And if your head just exploded just a little bit, that's literally why we built a brand new app.
- 9:06Coach Carlie: And it is out and on the market.
- 9:09Coach Carlie: I cannot believe it.
- 9:09Coach Carlie: I feel like I just birthed a new baby, you guys.
- 9:12Coach Carlie: It's crazy.
- 9:13Coach Carlie: So I had been operating for so long in spreadsheets.
- 9:18Coach Carlie: And for every person who came through the door, who did a home sweat testing kit, who did a sweat test in our office, was always and still do do a one-on-one session with them to actually translate that information and help them build their fueling and hydration plan based on their unique GI conditions, based on their unique races, et cetera.
- 9:42Coach Carlie: But part of that was showing them this massive spreadsheet that just literally grew legs and had all these different it was just overwhelming.
- 9:51Coach Carlie: So that's when I finally said it's time that we turn this into an app.
- 9:56Coach Carlie: So it's super easy.
- 9:57Coach Carlie: In fact, I'm gonna show you what it looks like if you are watching on YouTube so that you can actually see it.
- 10:05Coach Carlie: Here it is.
- 10:07Coach Carlie: It's called the Hydration Edge, personalized hydration plans.
- 10:10Coach Carlie: Right now, it is available exclusively for Apple devices.
- 10:14Coach Carlie: So hang tight, all you Android users, because yes, I am also an Android user, so it feels a little weird that um I can only use this right now on my iPad.
- 10:24Coach Carlie: But as you can see here, this is how you find it.
- 10:26Coach Carlie: So you know exactly how much you sweat, you can predict your needs before you train, before you race, you can dial in your fluid and sodium needs, and it's super easy, built exactly for endurance athletes.
- 10:41Coach Carlie: So that is officially on the market to help you simplify your hydration needs by simplifying your sweat rate and understanding it as a pattern.
- 10:58Coach Carlie: Okay, so it's just gonna make things so much easier because once you unlock your own data, you have this amazing framework for hydration, no matter what you're doing.
- 11:11Coach Carlie: Let's say you do an Iron Man and then you're like, heck no, I never want to do that again.
- 11:14Coach Carlie: Now I want to do ultra runs.
- 11:16Coach Carlie: Okay, you're gonna have that information.
- 11:18Coach Carlie: Or maybe you want that information for going out and mowing the lawn.
- 11:23Coach Carlie: However, it is that you're gonna be doing your sport, whether it be running, soccer, swimming, cycling, training in the heat, playing basketball, again, even mowing the lawn, no matter what it is, then you will have your data unlocked so that you can see your patterns beautifully and make it so much easier without making yourself go crazy of, okay, well, now I'm gonna be doing this marathon in Chicago in the middle of October, but then I'm also going to do a sprint triathlon in the middle of summer in North Carolina or Florida.
- 12:00Coach Carlie: You're gonna have all that.
- 12:01Coach Carlie: You're gonna have all that data already and unlocked for you.
- 12:05Coach Carlie: So you simply say, This is what I'm doing, where I'm doing it, how hard I'm gonna go, and boom, it's gonna appear right there.
- 12:13Coach Carlie: It's gonna be awesome.
- 12:14Coach Carlie: So your hydration strategy shouldn't come from what your training partner drinks.
- 12:19Coach Carlie: Because you guys, we've talked about this before on another podcast that I've done, is it's oftentimes not the product.
- 12:28Coach Carlie: But in our heads, we're like, well, this doesn't seem to be working for me as optimally as that person seems to be operating.
- 12:36Coach Carlie: So maybe it's their product.
- 12:37Coach Carlie: And sure, maybe it is partly the product that they are doing.
- 12:42Coach Carlie: But again, it's so individual.
- 12:44Coach Carlie: So your hydration strategy shouldn't come from what your training partner drinks or what's even printed on the side of a bottle, or generic ounces per hour recommendation.
- 12:54Coach Carlie: I get that question so much.
- 12:55Coach Carlie: And I've gotten to the point where I do not feel comfortable recommending general sports drinks or general amount to consume per hour because we are all so vastly differing.
- 13:06Coach Carlie: We have had people who have sweat, their sweat content is as low as eight to 10 milligrams per ounce of sweat versus somebody who's 80 plus milligrams per ounce.
- 13:20Coach Carlie: Like that that's just such a massive gap that it becomes hard for me to say, oh, everybody should drink X product.
- 13:27Coach Carlie: Do we all need to stay hydrated?
- 13:29Coach Carlie: Yes.
- 13:29Coach Carlie: But we all need to understand, especially if you're an endurance athlete, your sweat rate pattern and your sweat rate content.
- 13:37Coach Carlie: So your body is already giving you this data.
- 13:40Coach Carlie: You just need to capture it in order for the pattern to become clear.
- 13:46Coach Carlie: And once you know that pattern, again, hydration edge app will give it to it, give it to you.
- 13:51Coach Carlie: You can literally stop guessing and you can start that planning process.
- 13:56Coach Carlie: So you don't have to stress over spreadsheets anymore.
- 13:58Coach Carlie: You can enter in.
- 14:00Coach Carlie: Here's where I'm racing, here's what I'm doing.
- 14:03Coach Carlie: And then the app will say, This is how much you need per hour.
- 14:07Coach Carlie: So Hydration Edge is officially live, and I could not be more excited to finally get this tool in your hands.
- 14:13Coach Carlie: So if you head on over to the Apple store and search for Hydration Edge, we will also link to it below so that you can get your hands on it as well.
- 14:22Coach Carlie: For those of you who have had a sweat test done with us, you will get a special gift by email.
- 14:28Coach Carlie: And if you don't hear from me, you can always message me in the portal.
- 14:31Coach Carlie: You can reach out to us on our website or via socials at the endurance edge and make sure that you get your prize as well.
- 14:39Coach Carlie: Because I want this in your hands.
- 14:40Coach Carlie: I want you to be able to make this so easy that hydration and fueling is no longer even a question.
- 14:47Coach Carlie: You know your data, the app knows your patterns and can literally tell you exactly what you need, no matter what training event you're doing, no matter what racing you're doing, and no matter if you're mowing the lawn, y'all.
- 15:00Coach Carlie: So I hope this episode was helpful.
- 15:02Coach Carlie: I'm so excited for you to get your hands on the hydration edge app.
- 15:07Coach Carlie: And I'm listening to all of your feedback.
- 15:10Coach Carlie: So send me, send me, send me as much feedback as possible.
- 15:14Coach Carlie: I'm gonna get me and my new intern on this to continually add more and more products.
- 15:19Coach Carlie: It already has over 200 different fueling and hydration products in it.
- 15:22Coach Carlie: Doesn't mean that one is superior than the other.
- 15:25Coach Carlie: It just means that there is one or two or several.
- 15:29Coach Carlie: There's even recipes in there, you guys, on how to make your own gels, how to make your own sports drinks, and how to make it all work for you.
- 15:36Coach Carlie: But we are doing our best to give you the right products for the right sport in the right intensity.
- 15:43Coach Carlie: So excited for you guys to try this out.
- 15:45Coach Carlie: Let me know what you think of it.
- 15:47Coach Carlie: And thanks again for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast.
- 15:50Coach Carlie: And I will catch you next time.
- 15:51Coach Carlie: Thanks.