Barbell Shrugged - Physiology Friday: [Hydration] Salt, Water, Magnesium and Health Optimization w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash and Dan Garner Barbell Shrugged

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: The optimal amount of water you need to drink in a day. The role of salt in optimal hydration Why your drinking a ton of water and still dehydrated Why dehydration is killing your progress in the gym Proper hydration and supplementation protocol Connect with our guests: Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram Dan Garner on Instagram

Shrug family this week on Barbell Shrug Physiology Friday. We're doing it friends! Today on Barbell Shrug we're going to be digging into hydration. Dan Garner is going to be telling us why we need water and salt and magnesium so much. Why are the electrolytes so important for you when it comes to brain health, performance, and how you can maintain optimal hydration throughout your day. And as always friends make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. If you would like to come in and check out what we do from lab testing, lifestyle tracking,

all of the subjective ratings, performance testing, how we go and build sleep and stress and nutrition and supplementation and all the protocols and then how we go and execute on those. Get over to rapidhealthreport.com. Schedule a call. You will be meeting Casey Garner. She is phenomenal human being. Just kind of walk through your performance goals, health history, the things

that you want to be working on. And that way we can align the program specific to exactly what you need to get you to the place you want to go. And you can access that over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Marner, Doug Larson. Coach Travis Mash has got some sick kids, so he's not hanging out with us today. Dan Garner back on the show. Dude, today we're talking about hydration, which is super awesome because I actually remember when you read my labs, hydration, you kind of like joked on me for drinking all of this water, yet still kind of being dehydrated. And I was like, damn, I've been carrying this 32-ounce Yeti around with me.

Like it's an appendage of my body thinking that I'm the most hydrated person. I'm peeing all the time. It must be good. And then reality sunk in that I might not'm the most hydrated. I'm peeing all the time. It must be good. And then reality sunk in that I might not be the most hydrated person. So I'm super fired up about today's show because I need to work on some hydration and how my labs actually showed you that whatever water I'm drinking is just kind of going through me and not being actually hydrated or getting into what I needed. What is like the highest level of this hydration conversation? Because if drinking water isn't the answer, how do we get hydrated? Well, hydration, it's the combination of water and electrolytes.

And it's funny you say that I drink a ton of water, but I'm not hydrated. I see that all the time. I just saw that in a blood consult last week where a guy, and it's always generic. This guy is just like, I have a gallon of water a day. That's me. That was me. That's the most generic number in the world. It's like, okay, so if you're 180 pounds, if you're 220, if you're 175, if you're an MMA, or if you're a bodybuilder, gallon of water a day. I'll tell you the exact thought process is if I'm going to do it, I might as well slightly overdo it because I just pee it out. It's no big deal. Okay, cool.

So when it comes to training volume, do you overdo it? Does that sound like the right thing to do? He's over there like, yeah, yeah, dude. That's exactly right. know me i think the last thing i need right now is more logic so let's just uh if it's in a 32 ounce bottle and i drink four of them i should be good all that logical training references there um yeah sorry that's all good so i think probably to kick it off i want to like bring people to the importance of hydration i think that's that's important because there there's a tendency to

to create hydration as if it's some sort of underrated aspect like i really think it's one of the most underrated aspects of not just health but also performance and recovery because it's its own lane. So for example, when you look at percentage of water body loss, a half a percent loss in body water increases stress on the heart. So your heart actually begins beating faster just at a half a percent loss in body water. Elevations in heart rate are associated with exercise induced fatigue. So just at a half a percent loss in body water, you're already creating stress on the heart. At a 1% loss in body water, you're decreasing your aerobic cardiovascular fitness. So this is just at a 1% loss in body water. Your aerobic conditioning is decreased. At a 3% loss in body water, you reduce muscular

endurance. So muscular endurance, think like longer sets, say like anywhere from 12 to 20, or repeated muscular efforts in sports, like if you're grinding up against the cage in a fight, or fighting for a takedown or repeatedly throwing jabs, these are all examples of muscular endurance. And then at a 4% loss in body water, it's been demonstrated that you'll have a reduction in both absolute strength and muscular coordination. So to kind of tally all of that up, when you have a 4% reduction in total body water, you are weaker, less coordinated, have less muscular endurance, have less aerobic conditioning, and are increasing stress on your heart. And the reason why I say hydration is an independent factor towards

performance is I could have all my calories and macros dialed in, I could be a genetic anomaly, and I could have gotten amazing sleep last night. But if I'm dehydrated, I will not perform optimally today, period. It is a rate limiting step in performance. So when it comes to truly utilizing nutrition to advance your health performance and recovery, hydration has to be at the forefront of that. And if it's not, the entire thing falls down because cellular biology demands hydration, demands it. Just for clarity, when you say a 4% loss in body water, you mean a 4% loss of body weight due to

water loss? So if you're 200 pounds, like if you're dehydrated to the point that you're eight pounds lighter, is that what you're saying there? No, in total body water. So not in total tissue weight plus water. So it would just be the total water content of the physiology, not total body weight. However, total tissue weight plus water. So it would just be the total water content of the physiology, not total body weight. However, total body weight is a good way to rehydrate after exercise. They say when you look at the literature, if you lose a kilo of body weight in training, which is 2.2 pounds, you should replete that with one and a half liters of water. That's a good way to kind of maintain hydration over the long term. But yeah, with respect to that question, that is just total body water content, not total

body weight. And why I just give an example there, like how would you how would you know if you were 4% down on total body water? That would be done in a lab. That would be done in a lab. So the way I wouldn't ever want to know what it feels like to be at a 4% loss, I would want people to just remain hydrated because measuring your total body water is something you would do in a lab.

It's not something that would be practical for an everyday workout, everyday practice or everyday game. And that's why I like the total body weight equation that I just gave you on 2.2 pounds down, replete that with one and a half liters. So that's something that's something that's super, super common that people can use easily. And, uh, but to get into kind of the, the role of hydration and health, there's something known as the cellular theory of health that, um, I really like to use a lot in my coaching practice. And it essentially breaks down how you can work with

anybody who comes your way. Uh, At the fundamental level, we are just a bunch of cells. And when you put a bunch of cells together, they become tissues. And when you put several tissues together, they become organs. And when you put a bunch of organs together, that creates an organ system. And when you have multiple functioning organ systems, you have ultimately an organism, which is the human body. And when you are assessing anybody, when it comes to hydration, cells require hydration for optimal function. There's actually a paper called The Role of Cellular Hydration in Cellular Function. I'd recommend everybody read that paper. It's a review article. It's not too wordy, but it's outstanding that the list of things that you'll see are

impacted by hydration in terms of cell function, but also DNA expression, like absolutely everything gets impacted by it. And that's why I like to bring this example across using the cellular theory of health, because what happens downstream flows upstream. So if we have unhealthy cells, that's going to lead to unhealthy tissues. Unhealthy tissues are unhealthy organs. Unhealthy organs are unhealthy organ systems. And an unhealthy organ system is a symptomatic organism. Somebody who has low energy, fatigue, poor sex drive, painful joints, trouble sleeping at night. These are all reflections of the health of the cells of the body because it always works upward. And since we are made of literally 70% water, we are made of

70% water and our muscles are 75% water. How well is a muscle going to perform if it's made of 75% water and you're dehydrated? It's going to perform like crap. But on the flip side, how well do you think you're going to recover if you're 75% water in your muscle tissue and you're dehydrated? Both performance and recovery take a huge hit. And that's kind of one of the reasons why I really don't like saunas post-workout either. Have you guys ever heard of people really jumping in saunas after training?

Not to jump too far ahead because I wanted to bring it up to you, but when it's sweltering in my garage, it's like 110 outside in August in North Carolina. It's one of my favorite things to do when I'm training is to just go hit it really hard in the gym and then get the sauna up to like 160 and just sit in there for 20 minutes after. And I just like seeing how long I can go without really dying, I guess. But yeah, it's, it's, I've walked out like not passed out, but had to like, I went too far and had to like lay down in my garage to like,

cool down. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. So that it depends on the goal then, right? Because I think that that could be something to do if you're trying to build a mental resilience. That's trying to build a form of mental I'm not doing it for performance. Exactly. Yeah. Because the reason I don't really like saunas post workout. I don't say saunas are bad, but I don't like them. A lot of athletes, maybe I'm just more familiar with athletes getting in the sauna post-workout here in Canada because it's cold. But there's a lot of hockey players and athletes I've worked with who like the sauna after training because someone's told them it increases growth hormone or they just feel like a nice

relaxing effect. So I think if I feel a little bit relaxed, and it might be good for recovery. Although that's there's some aspect of truth to that, a sauna is going to increase temperature dramatically. And what we've seen from research is that that sauna through increasing temperature is going to just result in more dehydration. So after you've dehydrated from yourself from training, now you're getting in a sauna to dehydrate yourself even further. But also increases in temperature in combination with dehydration have been demonstrated to deplete glycogen. So in the post-workout window, we are trying to hydrate and refuel. And by getting in a sauna, we're actually dehydrating and increasing the rate

at which we deplete glycogen. And then lastly, even slight changes in dehydration and physiology have been demonstrated to increase cortisol, which is catabolic to muscle tissue. So when I think about the post-workout window, I think, okay, from an nutritional perspective, I want to activate an anabolic state, I want to replenish glycogen stores, and I want to optimally hydrate. If I get in the sauna, I'm actually entering a catabolic state, I am depleting glycogen, and I'm also inducing dehydration. So it's the right tool for the right job. The sauna is not bad for non-training days or for outside of the post-workout window. If that's your thing, cool, go for it. But in terms of right tool for the right job, the post-workout window, if that's your thing, cool, go for it. But in terms of right tool for the right job, that post-workout is definitely not the time for sauna. So I just

think I wanted to kind of open the podcast up a little bit that way to show people how big of an impact hydration can have towards performance and recovery, even at really small percentage points. And when you're talking about performance in 2022, little details are big details, especially the guys who work with me. There's no small details in my world. If there's a $30 million contract or a world record or a world title on the line, if you ask the athlete, like, Hey, do you want to just not worry about these things? You know, if I've got a fighter who's fighting in, in eight weeks for a world title, they're not going to say, ah, nah, let's kind of wing this part of it. They're all little details are big details. So hydration, I really think it's the most underrated aspect, or at least one of

the most underrated aspects in all of nutrition, because in a world where everyone's counting your calories and macronutrients, if you're not hydrated, that stuff doesn't really matter. Yeah. I actually, when I, when I think about like the two sports that really take hydration to the end, um, one of them is very performance based and that you're going to be fighting somebody in a cage in the next 48 hours. And that's very unhealthy to begin with much less going into it being super dehydrated how do you get those guys back to being at a healthy hydration getting them to wait uh i remember we interviewed galpin i want to say a year and a half ago when he was doing a bunch of

stuff on hydration um but what's what's kind of your methodology for getting your fighters back to a healthy body weight. So they're not entering, entering the cage at minus, you know, 4% body weight and totally dehydrated. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be different for every fighter because throughout camp, you're taking measurements on very specific things that work well with their gut and work and don't work well with their gut as well. But very, very, very long story short, I'll typically have a type of solution that is a combination of protein powder, glutamine, carbohydrate powder, and electrolytes and water. And based on that athlete's physiology, everything is calculated out appropriately, they will have that immediately after the scale. And then I'll have another shake for them that I want them to consume within the

next 30 minutes. And then I'll have another shake with them that I want them to consume 30 minutes after that. So 60 minutes after being on a scale through the combination of glutamine, electrolytes, whey protein, carbohydrates and water, they've had, depending on their size, anywhere from two to three and a half liters already, immediately post-scale. And the calculations at which those are present are going to determine the upload of those nutrients. Because if you screw that part up, it can actually be in one hole out the other. There's a lot of fighters that get diarrhea after weighing in because their rehydration and refueling process is completely wrong. And by the way, those are two different

things. There's rehydration and refueling. And then after that first hour of immediate getting them out of that extreme emergency state, that's when I start introducing easily digestible meals. And they'll actually be small feedings and not big feedings. I'm not big on an athlete going and pigging out on something giant meat after weigh in, it's going to slow down digestion. If there's too much unhealthy fats in there, it's really not going to replete them or contribute toward their performance the next day. So I'll do small, frequent meals every one to two hours. Again, it's all based on the size of the athlete of very easily digestible foods. And then we will do that with water, usually water and some salt, depending on depending on the athlete again, and all the way up until they reach fight night.

And that strategy, you know, it is calculated specific. So it's tough to talk about here. It's also, you know, something pretty dangerous. I don't want people to just not know what they're doing and then try some stuff. But when you do it right, it's incredibly, incredibly impactful. Like one of my clients is Sean O'Malley. And I was going to bring up. Yeah, I've like 20 pounds. If I remember your Instagram post from it puts on like 20 pounds for two days after weigh-ins. Yeah. So I know his body inside and out. Now I've been with him for six fights at this point in time. And, uh, I know the only, but the only person who knows his physiology better than me is him. Uh, because I have done so many lab rounds on him. I'm in constant contact with him and we got his weigh-in so dialed in at this point in time that

you're right. He went from 156 to 135. And then that night he was back up to 156 again, that night. So when he went back to the, they do the real weigh-ins if people are unfamiliar, the real weigh-ins are in the morning. And then there's a ceremonial weigh-in at nighttime where like they step on the scale, but it's fake. They step on the scale. They flex. They do the face-off.

That's a ceremonial weigh-in. I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. So they'll weigh in at 135. Or no, he weighed in at 135 at the real weigh-in.

And then it was 156 by the time the ceremonial weigh-in came around. And, you know, if you do it right, it's an incredible advantage because Sean O'Malley, that athlete, so I'll take 20 pounds, 21 pounds in this case, 21 off of them, and then put 21 back on. And you'll hear a lot of people say things like, you can't cut too much. It's really going to hurt your conditioning. You can't cut too much because it's really going to hurt your power. Sean knocks out people. He knocks out people left, right, and center. And then in his last fight against Chris Moutinho, he set an all-time UFC record for most strikes landed in a fight. So not only does he retain his KL power, he also set an all time record for most strikes

landed, which is a representation of phenomenal conditioning. I was going to say the thing you talked about at the beginning with your aerobic capacity to be able to hydration as a massive piece of that. So if he's able to put 20 pounds back on after losing it and maintain the highest level of capacity that's existed in the sport. You're doing it right. Yeah, exactly. I had another, another cool story too, of, uh, I was Michael Bisbing's coach for a long time, many years. And I was his coach when he won the middleweight title against Luke Rockhold. And, uh, it was a pretty cool story. One of the craziest times in my career, actually, he called me and, uh, it was like like he called me and i looked at my phone

and the universe just told me he's like wait what because bisping and me and him were buddies but it's he doesn't like just call you and say hey man what's going on so if he's called me something's up so then i i look at my phone and this is actually jacare had got injured and uh so he couldn't fight luke rockhold So then they were looking for somebody to fight Rockhold. And Bisping calls my phone. And I was like, Oh, is this it? And then sure enough, I pick up and he's like, Hey, I got the title shot. It's in two weeks. What do we do? And then I was like, Okay, what's your weight? That's my first question. And he was 208. And in two weeks, we needed to be 185. And yeah, so I was like, okay, I understand you something start today. And that was like the end of the

conversation because I wanted to get to work for him right away. So we need to start as soon as possible. Long story short, we got to 185 in two weeks. He was 203 that night at the evening weigh-ins and then went in the next day fully fresh and got a first round KO. So won the title that night. So it was a very cool time in my career, but it's just a representation that if it's power or if it's conditioning,

if you do that rehydration and refueling, right? You can hang on to those things, but that's something you really need a coach who knows their labs. That's something you really need to optimize that. Yeah. Well, and then on the other side of it, the other, I know you work with a bunch of them. I actually saw one of the bodybuilders you work with. He tagged you in something the other day.

And I was like, this man, he's got like 90,000 Instagram followers. Oh, that's Ben Chow. Ben Chow. What a giant human being. What in the world is life like when you are that size? Like talking about flying in a plane earlier. Jeez, could you imagine riding coach next to that guy? And he's a little over six feet too a lot

of those bodybuilders are small he is enormous yeah he walks around at a pretty lean 295 right now have you helped people get to their stage weight on in bodybuilding prep yeah yes absolutely that's in the beginning of my career. That's kind of how I started making a name for myself. This was all the way back in like, though, this is like in maybe 2012, 2013 kind of area. I was working with bodybuilders, physique competitors, lots of bikini girls. I got a ton of them ready for their stage prep. But then as my career kind of progressed, I gravitated more towards athletics than fitness competitions. But yeah, I've been there and done that.

When I did a show myself. Look at you. Yeah. A small amount. I was not a big guy. I think on stage I was like 176 or I think I was 176. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm no heavyweight bodybuilder. Do you get down to like 5%? Yeah. So I was super heavyweight bodybuilder. Do you get down to like 5%? Yes. I was super, super lean on calipers. I was like three or 2%, but we know calipers don't really count, but I was shredded. Yeah. The reason I'm always blown away. I'm actually like super blown away by professional bodybuilders because they're, they're nutrition and hydration and how they, when they stand on stage, the amount of water that they have between the skin and the muscle is like the difference between potentially winning and nobody knowing your name ever. How, what, what is like that, that process in comparison to having to go down and up

in such a short period of time. I think bodybuilders are probably the most unhealthy, call it people that are competing in front of that. Like, I feel like the MMA world, yeah, it's not the healthiest sport, but they're, when they walk in, they're dialed in. When you're working with bodybuilders, how do we get, what is, what actually physiologically happens to them? Um, I guess on the way down, because they're about as dehydrated as you can possibly get when they walk on stage yeah yeah they're so dehydrated i know a guy whose name will not be mentioned that uh flexed he was doing a rear back double bicep and he was so dehydrated that when he flexed the backside of his body actually tore his calf flexing holy yeah dug his toes in and and his calf was gone they don't want to be like all the way dehydrated

right you want to have like some you want to have some fullness in your muscles like you don't want to look this was not my client yes i'm actually wondering how do you do it in a bodybuilder? Because those are like, to me, when I think those are like the two extremes. You've got bodybuilders that want to walk on stage as lean and as shredded as possible. And the water weight makes a huge difference. And then MMA guys are down and up so quick that it, that whole process seems so, so crazy to me. Um, but what, what is the strategy to get those guys down and not tear their calf when they're flexing their back? Yeah. Well, I mean, that strategy,

it wouldn't be able to be discussed too much on this podcast because there's drug use involved, but it's also very different person to person because some people also just naturally have a drier look and may not need next to anything in order to appear dry. And then other people, they just tend to retain water or the water is in between their skin and their muscles for any issue that there's several of these that lab work could create or not create rather identify. And that's on a super, super case-by-case basis. But I agree with you that bodybuilders are some of the, it's one of the more unhealthy sports

just because they're very risk-averse. So they'll do anything in order to achieve a cosmetic look, which is admirable, but also dangerous because they got all of their eggs in one basket and they're very risk averse. So like risk averse, meaning they're willing to get that dehydrated. They're willing to eat any diet if it makes them look a certain way. And they're also willing to take a lot of underground non-pharmaceutical drugs in order to get the job done. So what I do is kind of reduce that risk

adverse because I'm not going to tell them who they should be. That's not my job. What I'm going to do is try and keep them as healthy as possible and performing and recovering as well as possible in that timeframe. So I will set up components of their diet based upon their labs. I will set up their pre-contest to ensure that they don't hurt themselves. But lots of times I'll also do labs to ensure that what they're taking isn't also doing more damage than we otherwise thought. Because if you're taking a selection of underground drugs, you don't actually really know what's in those. You're assuming, but there could be a lot of heavy metals in those because some dude could be making them in his kitchen. So you've got no idea that could contain heavy metals. So like I would like to do heavy metal screening on these people because my philosophy is if you're going to put poison in your body, make it just one poison,

not multiple poisons. That's a good philosophy to live by. Because if you're going to take a form of performance enhancing drugs, it probably shouldn't be contaminated with a bunch of other stuff. You don't know what it is. So yeah, and bodybuilding can also be a little bit more harmful than a weight cut for MMA, because and bodybuilding can also be a little bit more harmful than a weight cut for MMA because many bodybuilding shows are across two days. So you'll you'll do you'll do posing on Friday and on Saturday, whereas a weight cut, I'm actually minimizing dehydration, there's a difference between weight loss and water loss. And I get off as much weight as possible before I dehydrate. So we're dehydrated for as little time as possible

when we step on the scale. And then we step on the scale, we rehydrate back up. So time under tension with respect to dehydration is way longer for a bodybuilder. Yeah. Immediately post scale, you were talking about the list of things that go into the shakes that they have. And L-glutamine was one of those things.

What's the benefit of having glutamine specifically in addition to just having protein? Okay, cool. So glutamine, it actually helps transport electrolytes to muscle cells faster than if you don't include glutamine. Actually, glycine does this as well, but glycine can actually induce some loose stools for people. So it's not going to make sense immediately after weighing in because they're already at risk for having loose stools. But glutamine has been demonstrated in research that it's a carrier. So it will actually grab on and pull electrolytes out of the small intestine faster than water and electrolytes alone. So when you add glutamine to it, it helps

with that process. It actually, there's a product you might be familiar with called Pedialyte. Pedialyte is a, uh, is something they give to people in hospitals in order to prevent them from dying from if, uh, if they have a infection and their diarrhea is causing so much dehydration and their vomiting is causing so much dehydration that they're at risk for death, then, uh, Pedialyte is added in, in order to get some hydration in there to prevent from serious problems from happening. And it contains sugar, amino acids, and electrolytes in combination with water because sugar enhances electrolyte uptake as well as certain amino acids. And then of course, they need the electrolytes themselves. So that's one reason I like glutamine in there. Two other reasons I really like glutamine is

glutamine is known as a conditionally essential amino acid, meaning it's essential for physiology, but only under certain physiologic conditions. There's several physiologic conditions that glutamine can be essential within, but two of which are in an immunocompromised state, which you absolutely are in when you're at your lowest body weight that you shouldn't even be at. And the second is that glutamine will help in cases of severe catabolism, which is something that you absolutely are undergoing in that low body weight. So from electrolyte transport to fighting catabolism to enhancing immunity, so you don't get sick the day before your fight.

It just makes the cost and then having no toxicity or negative impacts just wins the cost benefit analysis. Yeah. Do you find that that happens where fighters dehydrate, you know, the day before a fight and then they end up getting sick? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. But it's the straw that breaks the camel's back. Because if you're training twice a day for a six to eight week fight camp, you're already at risk for being immunocompromised and from physical activity alone. But then also stress can decrease immunity and you're stressed out about getting in a freaking cage for two months in a row. You're stressed out about getting in a cage and that's going to suppress immunity. And then also disruptions in sleep are going to depress immunity.

And a lot of fighters do not sleep well at all the night before a fight because they know they're fighting tomorrow. There's so much pressure on them. And then the weight cut also kind of screws up their sleep by itself as well. So it's a highly immunocompromised state. And then that weight cut might just be the straw that broke the camel's back, but it's not the only thing that resulted in them being sick that day. I couldn't even imagine the stress trying to go to bed the night before a fight when you're like,

well, tomorrow I'm going to wake up and have to fight the meanest man in the world at my weight class. Holy crap. That's going to hurt. That's going to hurt really bad. Yeah, and especially when you know someone's going down. Like recently, Tai Tuivasa and Derek Lewis fought. It's like that's one of those fights where even they know it's not going to decision. It's like someone's going down. Like, oh, man, been sleeping the night before that? Like you would just have to have such an iron will. That would scare the hell out of me. sleeping the night before that like you would just have to have such an iron will uh that would

scare the hell out of me can we put like another person in the cage just so like there's a third of a chance i die instead of 50 yeah like a rodeo like a rodeo clown to distract me i always felt like if i didn't have a lot of weight to cut before a fight like at eight mma fights i cut a bunch of weight for all of them. But like having the weight cut kept my mind off of the fight to some extent. Cause like there was, there was a goal that was preceding the fight itself. If I wasn't cutting weight and I was just thinking about the fight all the

time, then I think I would have been more nervous, but I had this other thing that I needed to make sure that I made weight. And so it kind of kept me focused on this other thing that was within my control. And then I only had to be focused on this other thing that was within my control. And then I only had to be like really nervous for like the last 24 hours. So I feel like cutting weight had a benefit there, like in addition to the actual,

like getting out there and being, you know, 10% over your fight weight. That's really interesting to hear because lots of times I'm always like, I want them to not think about nutrition because if they don't have to think about their weight, then they can think about strategy. But at the same time, maybe thinking about strategy induces more anxiety than thinking about the

nutrition itself. So that's really good to hear about on my end from someone like you, dude, I didn't know you had eight fights. Holy crap. That's awesome. Back in the day. Yeah. When, when you're actually, you've mentioned it multiple times, but when you're actually looking at people's lab reports, what are the pieces that they were to pull up their

most recent blood work that they could start to look into to see if they kind of fall into these traps that we're talking about? Sure. So there's something known as serum osmolarity, which is like a real gold standard for hydration. Serum osmolarity, you can like a real gold standard for hydration. Um, serum osmolarity, you can look at, there's many, many papers on this. And if you walk into a room of a thousand coaches, maybe like one or two are going to put up their hand when you say who here measures serum osmolarity, almost nobody does say that slower serum, some osmolarity, osmolarity. Gotcha. Yes. Yeah. Osmolarity sounds fancy, but it's not, it's basically, um, again, this also sounds great. Osmolarity. Gotcha. Yes. Yeah. Osmolarity sounds fancy, but it's not. It's basically, again, this also sounds, it's gradient concentration.

That stuff sounds fancy, but it's not. So just imagine there's a wall and there's more of something on one side than there is on the other. Your body always works to balance concentration gradients. So if there's a bunch of things on one side of the wall and not many things on the other. Your body always works to balance concentration gradients. So if there's a bunch of things on one side of the wall and not many things on the other side of the wall, your body will balance it out. So there's an equal distribution of things on both sides of the wall. So in this example, you can think about it like the serum is just your blood flow. The wall is the point in between your blood and your cells. So when we know

what's in the serum, it is predictive of what's in the cells because your body will balance out concentration gradients every single time. So in biochemistry, there's solutes and solvents. Solutes are your things and solvents are typically water. So if you drop some solutes in water, they will dissolve into that solvent. In blood, there are three main solutes that we can use to measure your hydration. And that is urea, glucose, and sodium. If you get any basic blood chemistry panel, it will have urea, glucose, and sodium on it. Then you can Google serum osmolarity calculator, input your sodium, urea, and glucose in that, and it will predict your cellular hydration because serum osmolarity represents cellular osmolarity

because they're going to be even. So since we know what's in your blood, since we extracted it, we can predict what's in your cells due to concentration gradients. So again, put your urea, glucose, and sodium in a calculator that you Googled on serum osmolarity calculator. You, my friend, have just done the gold standard hydration test. If it is over 295, the concentration is too concentrated. So you are in a state of dehydration. However, if you are between 285 and 295, that is the ideal concentration of hydration.

And then if you are under 285, you're too dilute, you are losing things. It is too dilute. There is not enough solutes in the solvent currently happening in the blood. So that's one huge, enormous thing that people can do with their labs. That's so easy to get the gold standard of hydration. And the second thing that you can do is just with the same lab, get a urine analysis. It's going to be like 20 extra bucks, hyper cheap. And you'll, you would get a measure called your urine specific gravity. If you're a urine specific gravity, this urine specific gravity, again, this stuff sounds fancy. It makes me sound smart, but I'm

not. This is the urine specific gravity as how concentrated the urine is. So just think about it as the osmolarity of the urine. If it's very concentrated, you're dehydrated. If your urine specific gravity is very low, then you are dilute. You are someone who is, the urine is too diluted. So the interesting thing here is dehydration. And I don't want to get too far down this rabbit hole unless you guys want to. But if somebody has a very high concentration of their urine, that's representation of dehydration due to inadequate water intake. These are the people who've got like yellow, cloudy, stinky urine. That's somebody who's dehydrated because they're not having enough water, period.

But then you've got like an Anders fellow who comes to you and they've got dilute urine. So in this scenario, someone can be dehydrated because of their adrenal function. Okay. So from a laboratory perspective, someone could have high urea, high glucose and high sodium. So your blood is telling you your serum osmolarity is dehydrated. Your blood is telling you, you are dehydrated. This is indisputable, but then you've got really dilute urine thinking that, Hey, so what, how could I possibly have dilute urine? If I've got really concentrated blood? Well, that's when adrenal dysfunction comes into play because the adrenals, they release a hormone called aldosterone and aldosterone is

responsible for actually holding onto your urine. So when you have a low level of aldosterone, then you are unable to hold onto your urine because your kidneys are supposed to reabsorb a certain amount of water and salt from your urine and bring it back into circulation. That is controlled by your adrenals. So if you have low adrenal output, then you have low aldosterone output, and you are unable to retain your sodium, and therefore you will lose sodium and a lot of water, which really makes the urine very, very, very dilute. And to kind of bring this into, because that can get a little complicated to understand in the air. So to bring an example of this, this is someone who gets lightheaded when they go from seated

to standing. That represents a lot of people and that is low sodium, but a lot of people. And that is low sodium. But a lot of people are also under a lot of stress. So it's adrenal glands can actually play a huge role in that. And this person also their doctor might tell them, hey, you've got great blood pressure. And they're like, and they think it's great, because it's really low. But somebody with low sodium also has low blood pressure. So that person, they would have lightheadedness when they stood up, or they would also have lightheadedness post-workout. And they would also have dilute urine. And they would also, I just had another third one there, and I was going to say it. They would be lightheaded. They would have dilute urine. Oh, and they would have low blood pressure, what I already said.

So those would be the main symptoms of somebody who is dehydrated due to adrenal status and not due to their water intake. So there's a big difference. Hydration is the combination of water, electrolytes, but then also even the hormone status of the body because aldosterone is regulating that. And then that person would need more salt in their diet. Let's dig into that real quick with blood pressure. A lot of people, especially I remember growing up, all I ever heard was salt gives you high blood pressure, which is, I don't hear that so much anymore. What's the status for a healthy person as far

as salt intake, having high blood pressure, et cetera? Salt intake is going to be fine, but you also need to have adequate potassium and magnesium as well to help regulate that salt. So electrolyte status, they work together really like brothers and sisters. So just that, you know, kind of a more morbid example. If you poured sodium, say on a dead frog that's in front of you, let's just say there's a dead frog in front of you. If you poured some sodium on a dead frog that's in front of you, let's just say there's a dead frog in front of you. If you poured some sodium on that dead frog's legs, his legs will actually start to kick. And that's because sodium causes muscular contraction. You'll see it in Asian

cuisine too. If you pour soy sauce on like tentacles, the tentacles will start moving before you eat it, which is super weird, but it's something that happens in restaurants. But that's because soy is very high in salt. So those legs will start contracting. But if those legs are contracting from the salt, and then you sprinkle a little bit of potassium on the legs, the legs will actually relax. And that's because sodium causes muscular contraction, and potassium causes muscular relaxation. However, magnesium is the doorman that determines intracellular and extracellular sodium and potassium concentrations. So somebody could have perfect sodium and potassium intake, but if they have low magnesium,

it doesn't really matter because magnesium is regulating how sodium gets in and out of cells and how potassium gets in and out of cells. All right. So when somebody increases the sodium intake, this is totally and completely fine under in many scenarios, and it's usually beneficial for hydration and athletic performance. Stan Efferding has done a lot of good work in this area of bringing up the importance of salt. But I would also just add to it, let's also bring up potassium and magnesium because those three work so closely together that we don't want one dominant component. And that's going to play

as much a role in blood pressure as it is in muscular performance as well. You can actually have cramps too. It's like in a weird way. If you have cramps in the beginning of your workout, that's more connected to a magnesium deficiency. But if you have cramps in the beginning of your workout, that's more connected to a magnesium deficiency. But if you have cramps as your workout goes on, that's more associated with sodium and potassium because you're losing sodium and potassium through sweat, but you're not losing magnesium. So if you get cramps later in the workout, it's more reflective of sodium and potassium because you've likely lost it at a rate that you're not repleting it from your intro

workout hydration. But if you get cramps right in the beginning, or if you're one of these people who's just sitting at the computer or sleeping in bed, and you get a cramp, just all of a sudden for no reason, that's magnesium. So you can kind of get a good insight as to okay, I either have a sodium potassium problem because it's happened later in my workout, or I've had a magnesium problem when I've got a giant hamstring cramp at three in the morning or a calf cramp while I'm sitting at my computer. Just kind of a good way to begin your diagnoses and self-administration of what you're going to do. Yeah. We got about 10 minutes left here. I want to get into

some actual tactical things that people can use in their own lives. Um, but before we do that, I know a lot of people are going to also want to know about electrolytes and how that plays into, um, hydration post-workout, how, how should they be recovering from their workouts?

Um, what is kind of the role of electrolytes in this? Uh, basically like what I said, potassium is very much regulating muscle, muscular relaxation, whereas sodium is regulating muscular contraction and recruitment of motor units. You're only going to recruit as many motor units as you can successfully contract, or you'll be held back. So sodium is driving high velocity and maximal force contractions.

Potassium is offsetting that with muscular relaxation so you don't cramp. And then magnesium is the mineral that's regulating the two. So hold on. Electrolytes aren't a real thing. It's those three things together? Those are electrolytes. Oh, there we go. So you didn't say the word. What word? The electrolyte word. I actually didn't know that i didn't know that electrolytes were those three things okay i'm sorry i assume things sometimes yes you got too

far ahead of me i'm sorry potassium people want to hear the word including okay all right i made a mistake i'm sorry there's six episode in and i'm still making mistakes yeah you're right that's you gotta speak to the lowest level brain in the room um you know from like a practical perspective like how for someone who's not doing labs and they're not looking at their urine specific gravity and whatever else like how do you know for the regular normal person you work out a couple days a week you got you got wife and kids like you did you're a normal person how much water drink, how much salt to add to your foods, do you need to take any, any supplements for magnesium or whatever else, like, what are like some basic standards that the regular person can can adopt? Great, awesome. Okay, so first off, even regular people can

calculate their serum osmolarity that is done on the most basic lab. So that's the greatest value I think you can pull from this podcast. The second thing that people can do is simply just look at the color of the urine. If you're peeing five times per day and twice post-workout and they are slightly yellow and maybe a bit clear, there's a good chance that you're hydrated. You don't want it too clear and you don't want it too yellow. So between, you know, say seven to nine urinations per day, as in combination with getting your serum osmolarity calculated, those are two huge things you can do. Another rule I like is a half an ounce of water per pound of body weight per day, not including training. So if somebody is 200 pounds, they would have 100 ounces of water per

day, not including training. And then you would have your training fluids on top of that. So even on a non-training day, you want half an ounce of water per pound of body weight per day. That's a great rule for people to have in combination with the others that I've said. If somebody is taking in electrolytes and water and they're still cramping a lot, it's undeniable in the research that taurine reduces

cramps. And I do not know the mechanism. And I'm not sure if anybody knows the mechanism. But the amino acid L-taurine at two grams during training has been demonstrated to reduce cramps many times over. And so it's very effective if somebody is just has these unexplained cramps, having some taurine would help. Despite popular belief, creatine is hydrating. It is not dehydrating. So if somebody is continuing to cramp, there's actually a study out there. There's this process called hemodialysis, where in a hospital, they'll actually take your blood out, clean it, and then put it back in you. If there is an issue, typically if the kidneys aren't

filtering the blood, they'll clean your blood and then put it back in you. But by taking that blood out, you throw off concentration gradients so bad that people cramp like they're frozen, like they're absolutely frozen. Creatine supplementation during hemodialysis reduced cramps by 60%. 6-0. And creatine supplementation also, this is done in NCAA football players, reduced their cramps as well. So creatine is not only not dehydrating, it's actually pro-hydrating and will help reduce cramps.

So all of those, between half an ounce of water per pound of body weight per day, um, slightly yellow urine throughout the, throughout the whole day with seven to nine urinations throughout the day. Um, creatine supplementation, taurine supplementation. These are all things that people can do. I said in the beginning of the podcast that a pre and post weigh-in, I think is a good idea to do as well. Uh, as far as a pre-workout weigh-in and a post-workout weigh-in, you don't have to be like a crazy person and do that for every single workout.

But I think if you did it for like maybe one strength workout and then one conditioning workout, because you all have different sweat rates, I think that that would give you a good insight as to what you can do to really help with overall hydration. And then I think... No, wait, actually, sorry, for that piece, earlier in the podcast, you said if you lose a pound,

you gotta rehydrate with a pound and a half of water. So people probably heard that. If you lose a kilo, if you lose 2.2 pounds, you have to replenish with 1.5 liters. And that's because they're weight equated. Right, but it's 1.5X. 1.5 liters for 2.2 pounds? A liter is gonna weigh 2.2 pounds.. 1.5 liters for 2.2 pounds. A liter is going to weigh 2.2 pounds.

So 1.5 liters, if you lose a kilo of water, you have to rehydrate with a kilo and a half of water. So why isn't it one-to-one is the question for the audience here. I don't know. I don't know. That was in sports science literature that I came across. So I wouldn't be able to answer that at the moment. In addition to that, I would also say that the water from your protein shakes does count towards actual water. And that coffee, you can actually count 50% of coffee as hydration. Because although it creates urine, it creates your body's ability to increase urination, you actually don't have a net dehydration effect. So if somebody had eight ounces of coffee, it won't dehydrate you, but it will increase urination. So you're supposed to count half of that intake as water. So eight ounces of coffee would be four ounces of hydrating water. And I think between all of those tips, that was probably like 10 plus tips right there.

I think that they've got a lot to work with. For sure. They're good. Dan Garner, where can people find you? At Dan Garner Nutrition on Instagram. There it is. Doug Larson. Doug Larson on Instagram.

I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. Make sure you get over to DieselDadMentorship.com where all the busy dads are getting strong, lean, and athletic. And make sure you get over to the performance nutrition section in Walmart.

And if you do not see my face in the store at the pharmacy, guess what? You need to go to Walmart next door because we are in 2200 stores. Three products on the shelf. Shred, burn, zone. Shred, pump, zone.

Friends, see you guys next week.