The Top 3 Hydration Supplements

EndurElite Chief Endurance  Officer Matt Mosman discusses 3 supplements runners, cyclists, OCR, and other endurance athletes can take to promote hyperhydration in the body.

Video Transcription:

3 Supplements Runners, Cyclists, OCR, And Other Endurance Athletes Can Take To Hyperhydrate

Good morning, family of fast, Matt Mosman, the Chief Endurance Officer over at EndurElite. Today we're gonna talk about three supplements that can help you hyperhydrate before you go out to train or race. Now, why would you wanna hyperhydrate before a race or a training session?

Why Endurance Athletes Want To Hyperhydrate

Well, depending on how hot and humid it is, hyperhydration may provide and be a useful strategy to prevent dehydration from happening or delaying dehydration, especially if you're not drinking enough fluid during your training and racing sessions. 

And then also on the same token too, I know a lot of you don't like to drink a lot of fluids during your races, especially you OCR folks that are climbing over obstacles when, you know, getting some fluids might be few and far between, or you just don't like to carry anything with you in terms of fluid. So, in these situations, hyperhydration may be able to prevent dehydration to some extent or at least delay it. And we all know that 2% to 3% decrease in bodily weight or fluid during exercise can have some pretty negative consequences on your performance as far as making you tire out quicker, and in the worst-case scenario is heat exhaustion and heatstroke. So, we want to avoid those if at all possible. 

The Three Supplements That Can Hyperhydrate

So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna tell you three supplements that you can take, how much, and at what time to kinda help hyperhydrate your body before you go out training and racing. Now, the first one is betaine or trimethylglycine, which is a derivative of the amino acid glycine and it's naturally found in things like beet. 

Betaine

Now, betaine is an osmolyte, which basically means it helps protect the cell from dehydration. And in this case, betaine helps with water retention in the cell. Now, to get the full effects of betaine, you wanna take anywhere from 2.5 grams up to 6 grams daily divided into two doses. Timing really doesn't matter here. So, that's the first one, betaine. 

Glycerol

The second one is glycerol. Now, some of you may have experimented with this before, and the way glycerol works, it basically causes the cell to uptake or causes the cells to uptake more water into them. So, it kinda hyperhydrates the cell. Now, as far as dosing on glycerol, I'm gonna get my book out here because I can't remember this because I'm old. So, with glycerol, you need to ingest 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight and 26 milliliters per kilogram body weight of fluid, 60 minutes prior to exercise. So, timing kinda matters here a little bit. 

You can also add a little bit of glycerol in your bottles if you're out drinking during training and racing to kinda help prolong the hyperhydration. So, so far we have betaine and glycerol.

Creatine

Now, the third one is one supplement I'm totally in love with and all of you know this, and this is creatine monohydrate. Now, creatine kinda works similar to glycerol as far as it promotes water uptake in the cell. Now, with creatine, the dosing is a little bit tricky for endurance athletes. Most of the time you'll hear five grams daily of creatine. And that's fine, that'll lead to some pretty significant uptake of water into the cell and benefits. But you also might experience some weight gain if you take that five grams of creatine.

So, I would start, if you wanna try this as a hyperhydration strategy, start by taking anywhere from two to three grams of creatine daily and see if that affects your weight at all. You know, if not, great. If you don't mind gaining a little bit of extra weight, you know, no big deal at all. And then with the timing, the timing of creatine really doesn't matter too much. You may take you a while to see the benefits of the hyperhydration with creatine, though, as a traditional loading period at 5 grams a day, takes up to 28 days, but you'll probably see some benefits of hyperhydration a little bit before that.

So, that's it, in a nutshell, my endurance friends. The three supplements that can help with hyperhydration are betaine, glycerol, and creatine monohydrate. On another point, don't mess with all these various other forms of creatine. There's a lot out there that'll say, you know, it absorbs or is more soluble and all this other bologna. But stick with the king of creatine, creatine monohydrate. It's cheap, it's effective, and it's probably one of the best supplements out there in terms of, well, performance. And then to some extent with the hyperhydration. 

So, that is all I have today for my endurance friends. I'm gonna go ahead outside right now and sweat my ass off in this hot South Dakota heat. But if you have a friend who's constantly dehydrated or might find some use in some hyperhydration strategies, please share this video with them. If you want other videos like this on endurance training, nutrition, and supplementation, subscribe to the EndurElite YouTube channel or head on over to the EndurElite blog at www.endurelite.com. Get social with us on Instagram and our Facebook Training & Nutrition Club page, and until next time, my friends, stay fueled, stay focused, stay fast and stay informed.