I hate the taste of salt so I rarely use it for seasoning. I find that when I do have something salty or high in sodium that I’m very sensative to it. I feel bloated for a few days afterwards. I would also say that I am a pretty heavy sweater but often times I do not have salt rings which leads me to believe that I’m not a salty sweater. I attribute this to the fact that I tend to have a pretty low sodium intake. I take salt tablets during my long rides when it is hot out and I’ve never had a problem with cramping. What I do have is a tendency toward muscle tightness. After training I get really tight muscles. If I don’t stretch immediately after a workout I definitely feel it later on. It got me thinking that perhaps my tendency to have muscle tightness might be related to the fact that I have a pretty low sodium diet. Any validity to this?
Hows your calcium intake?
Good. Why?
Calcium plays a big roll in muscle contraction and relaxation. This is often noted during exercise, but low levels of calcium can also lead to slower muscle healing and tightness.
I’m not sure low levels of salt themselves would lead to tightness in the muscles, but where ions go, water follows. You could be slightly dehydrated even if you take in considerable amount of water.
All in all, unless 90 %of your meals are home made from unprocessed foods, I would think you are getting plenty of sodium even if you try to avoid it.
I’m by no means an expert, so I will be interested to hear what others say about the tightness.
I’ve been tracking my nutrition for the last few weeks just to get an idea of what I’m putting in my body so I know that my sodium intake is almost always lower than the RDA. It doesn’t track calcium though so I will look into that.
I’m ‘sodium sensitive’ too if that exists - I HATE salt - don’t have the muscle tightness thing that you do though.
Other posters are right that you should look at Ca intake instead… also muscle tightness might be unrelated to electrolytes, and could be just ‘inflexibility’ on your part. Stretch, yoga, foam rolll…
I’ve been tracking my nutrition for the last few weeks just to get an idea of what I’m putting in my body so I know that my sodium intake is almost always lower than the RDA. It doesn’t track calcium though so I will look into that.
RDA is WAY too high from what i’ve heard from nutritionist. the next crusade in US nitrition is the war against sodium…but they say that’s going to be a TOUGH battle.
so yeah…if you’re coming even within 75% of the RDA, you’re getting PLENTY of sodium (unless you workout and sweat like a mofo…then you’ll need a bit more).
I have no knowledge about the calcium angle, but I do believe that if you limit your salt intake that your body learns to conserve salt by not sweating it out. I don’t think sodium supplementation is necessary even for people with low sodium intake…assuming you are consistent with your intake and your body isn’t in the process of acclimating to a sudden restriction.
so yeah…if you’re coming even within 75% of the RDA, you’re getting PLENTY of sodium (unless you workout and sweat like a mofo…then you’ll need a bit more).
That was kind of the reason for my post. I am a heavy sweater AND I take in an average of around 1800 mg of Sodium per day (the RDA is 2400 mg). I’m curious if there have ever been any studies done to see the effect of chronic low sodium intake. Again I’m just curious if it would have any effect on muscle tightness. To put it another way, if cramping is the result of a large sodium deficit during prolonged exercise, is muscle tightness the result of having a slightly smaller sodium deficit on a long term basis.
As you mentioned though the RDA might be set too high on this. BUT the RDA might be too low for endurance athletes who spend significantly more time working out than your every day person. Perhaps the RDA for an endurance athlete doing 15-20 hour training weeks should be more like 4000 mg per day. Any science on this? I vaguely remember seeing an article by Bob Seebohar recently that addressed salt intake during exercise. Anyone remember what the conclusions were?