by Steve Born

We athletes know that there are a number of factors that can negatively affect the quality of our workouts and race performances. Of all those possibilities, I think most of us would agree that it’s usually hot weather—or, more appropriately, the inability to deal with hot weather—that’s at the top of the list. Well, guess what? We’re now rapidly approaching the time of year when hotter temperatures take over and once they’re here, they’ll be with us for quite awhile. We can no longer avoid the fact that it’s getting hot and it’s only going to get hotter.

The good news is that while you do need to respect the heat, you don’t need to let it intimidate you, allowing it to hinder or even ruin your workouts or races. In order to make this happen, however, there are three basic principles that you need to employ:

• Common sense – If the weather is hot, it will most likely be necessary for you to change your “game plan” in regards to your pace. Some athletes slavishly adhere to a “business as usual” type of strategy when racing, even in hot conditions, meaning that they go out hard and fast as though they were competing under normal conditions. By not respecting the heat and adjusting their pace accordingly, most of the time these athletes experience poorer-than-hoped-for results, if they don’t drop out altogether.
• Fueling adaptation – It’s definitely a good idea to have a fueling protocol in place, one that you’ve honed in your training. However, just as it is with your pace, when the weather conditions are hot, you need to be willing to alter your original fueling strategy in deference to the weather. In hot weather, this usually means lowering your calorie intake, slightly increasing your fluid intake, and increasing your electrolyte intake, perhaps quite substantially.
• Use of heat-specific products – Hammer Nutrition makes two products—Endurolytes and Liquid Endurance—that will help you achieve the results you want, even when the weather is abysmally hot. Incorporating them into your fueling plan is one of the wisest strategies that you can employ.
• Elsewhere in this piece we provide additional tips for adapting to the heat that we know will be helpful for you. For now, though, let’s focus on the two Hammer Fuels that will provide you with the nutritional “ammunition” to take on even the worst weather conditions.

  ENDUROLYTES – The body’s motor oil

  “Fueling” is comprised of three things: fluids, calories, and electrolytes. Most athletes are fairly well versed on the importance of the first two, but the latter one, electrolytes, is a component of their fueling that they either don’t give much thought to, or outright neglect. That’s a serious problem because if you’re not adequately fulfilling electrolyte requirements, you are depriving your body of one-third of the fuel that it requires. As a result, it simply will not perform the way it could or should. Electrolytes are as important to your fueling program as the fluid you drink and the calories you eat, and in order for your body to perform to its potential, you must replenish them regularly.

  Now this is somewhat simplified, but think of what electrolytes do in the body as being similar to what the motor oil does for the engine in your car. The motor oil isn’t what makes the engine run, but it does keep the internal parts working smoothly. While they don’t produce the actual energy your body uses, electrolytes are vital in maintaining the optimal performance of many of your body’s functions, such as proper muscular contractions. This makes consistent electrolyte replenishment important, even in cold weather. In warm to hot weather, it’s crucial.

  Complete electrolyte profile required… it’s not just about the salt!
  Aside from the primary mistake of neglecting to replenish electrolytes to begin with, many athletes make two other major mistakes when it comes to electrolyte replenishment:

• They equate “electrolyte replenishment” with the intake of salt tablets. Unfortunately, while salt (sodium chloride) is indeed an important component of electrolyte replenishment, it’s not the whole story. Other minerals—potassium, magnesium, and calcium—are required to adequately address and fulfill electrolyte requirements.
• They consume too much salt, which interferes with, and even neutralizes, the body’s complex and efficient “built-in” mechanisms that regulate and re-circulate sodium from body stores. Here’s the deal: Sweat generates large sodium loss, which is monitored closely through hormonal receptors throughout the body. However, rapid sodium replenishment neutralizes the system, allowing water to dilute sodium content. High sodium electrolyte supplementation contravenes natural physiological serum electrolyte control. What this means is that when the body receives a too-high donation of sodium from your fuel consumption (salty food, salt tablets, or products too high in sodium), the hormone aldosterone signals the kidneys to stop filtering and re-circulating sodium and instead, excrete it. When this happens, another hormone, vasopressin, predominates and causes fluid retention.

  Bottom line: when you oversupply your body with too much sodium you end up causing more problems than you resolve.
  Proper electrolyte replenishment during endurance exercise requires a gradual, consistent approach that incorporates all the necessary minerals, not just salt (sodium chloride), in amounts that do not override normal body mechanisms. Remember, you need to consume enough to support bodily functions and prevent heat-related issues such as cramping, without overwhelming your body. In other words, electrolyte intake, especially salt, must slip under the body’s “radar detection system” while still providing optimal support.

  Don’t make the mistake that so many athletes make, which is to try to replenish what your body is losing in equal to near-equal amounts from your fuel intake. You need to remember that the body is simply not designed or equipped to replenish fluids, calories, and electrolytes in amounts that come anywhere near to what it’s losing. Fortunately, the body recognizes this, which is why it has all of these wonderfully complex and efficient mechanisms in place, to counteract the fact that it can’t replace what it loses in 1:1 amounts. When it comes to sodium, yes, the body does need your help in replenishing its losses, but that replenishment dose needs to cooperate with the body’s hormonal mechanisms, not overwhelm and neutralize them.

  Endurolytes is a full-spectrum electrolyte product designed to fulfill the body’s electrolyte requirements, countering the effects of hyperthermia, optimizing specific bodily functions, and enhancing endurance performance, especially beyond the two-hour mark. In the purest sense, the Endurolytes formula is not so much an electrolyte replacement product, but more appropriately described as an “electrolyte stress support formula.”

  Bottom line: Endurolytes helps the body perform better under the demands of exercise, especially in the heat, by providing a full complement of minerals in the proper balance without interfering with normal body control systems. Simply put, Endurolytes is complete and it works with your body, not against it.

  LIQUID ENDURANCE – Hot weather no longer has the power to intimidate

  Endurolytes, because it is an integral part of your fuel (along with fluids and calories), is a product that you need to use daily, and especially on warm-to-hot weather days. But what do you do when the weather gets REALLY nasty—we’re talking about hot, humid, just awful conditions—and how can you deal with it, especially if you’re not thoroughly acclimated to it? Well, there are a number of tips you can employ (which we’ve listed elsewhere) and one of them is to use Liquid Endurance.

  This product will enable you to train and race, even on the hottest days, by helping to reduce the potential for dehydration while maintaining a lower core temperature. Liquid Endurance enables you to hyper-hydrate prior to those hot weather workouts and races, allowing the cells of the body to hold more water while increasing cooling efficiency. It’s a thoroughly researched and phenomenally effective “must have” product for any hot weather training sessions or races.

  Glycerol – The key to how Liquid Endurance helps you to keep hammering, even in the heat
  The primary component in Liquid Endurance is glycerol, a naturally produced metabolite during fat metabolism for energy production. During the first hour of aerobic exercise, 30-35% of your energy comes from fat mobilized into the energy cycle. During the second hour and every hour beyond, the contribution of fat to energy is doubled. The rate of fat recruited, then oxidized, affects the rate of glycerol metabolites. That said, glycerol is a very important part of the energy cycle to all athletes whose exercise duration goes beyond 60 minutes.

  Studies have shown that glycerol + water ingestion results in greater fluid retention than does water alone, increasing the water content in blood, cells, and extra-cellular spaces. Prior to hot-weather events, where extra-cellular spaces need to store all the fluids they comfortably can, a 3-day loading dose of glycerol-based Liquid Endurance will increase total body water, resulting in a significant increase in cooling efficiency during prolonged exercise, and effectively improving endurance during hot weather exercise.

  L-carnitine – The fatty acid “shuttle”
  L-carnitine is another component in the Liquid Endurance formula and it’s a perfect complement to the glycerol component in the product. L-carnitine is a vitamin-like nutrient essential for the shuttling of fatty acids to the mitochondria where they can be utilized for fuel. One nutrition scientist writes, “Carnitine absolutely controls fat use because it forms the transport system that moves the fatty acid molecules into the mitochondria (furnaces) of the cell where they are burned for energy.” Simply put, inadequate l-carnitine inhibits your body’s ability to convert fats into fuels.

  Now, if it weren’t for the glycerol
  component in Liquid Endurance, the kidneys would filter out most of the l-carnitine before it could do much for you. However, glycerol reduces kidney filtration by redirecting fluids consumed into extra-cellular spaces. This allows the l-carnitine to circulate longer and therefore absorb better, so you get more of it to help convert fats to fuels. In other words, in the presence of glycerol, l-carnitine has a longer ‘shelf life’ in the body.

  Considering that fatty acids fulfill about two-thirds of your energy requirements during prolonged exercise, the benefits provided by the glycerol/l-carnitine combination in Liquid Endurance are hard to overstate.

  Bottom line: While Liquid Endurance’s primary purpose is to help you tolerate hot weather conditions more effectively, it has the added benefit of maximizing the use of fatty acids as a fuel source. It’s a fantastically effective dual-purpose product!

  Electrolyte requirements fulfilled & how weather concerns are resolved

  Training and racing in hot weather can be challenging, but it no longer needs to be intimidating. Apply the tips that we provide (again, found elsewhere in this piece), adopt an appropriate fueling plan (one that’s weather-specific), and use Endurolytes and Liquid Endurance. This combination will allow you to train more effectively in the heat and achieve top race results even in the hottest conditions. We guarantee there is no better hot weather product combination than Endurolytes and Liquid Endurance, so with warm-to-hot temperatures already here (or coming really soon!)—and knowing that, if anything, it’s only going to get hotter—now is absolutely the time to incorporate these products into your fueling regimen. Put them to work for you, make them your hot weather “allies” and while your opponents are suffering in the hot weather, you’ll be able to keep hammering. We know you’ll be completely satisfied with the results you receive from Endurolytes and Liquid Endurance… we guarantee it!