Endurance Workouts: Clarification, Dehydration, And Gyration

"He was given a corn seed and told to plant it.

Just as the stalk was beginning to grow, the young warrior would jump over the small stalk many, many times.

Each day the stalk would grow; each day the child would jump.

Soon the stalk was higher than the child's head, but that wouldn't stop him.

Finally, if he failed to clear the stalk, he would be given a new seed and would begin over.

Eventually, there was no stalk that the young ninja could not leap over."

-- Peaceful Warrior

An endurance based workout,

is about constantly pushing your body to adapt and use energy reserves.

Endurance workouts,

are rooted in gradually increasing complexity.

If your exercise is always the same,

you can't say that you are increasing your endurance.

If you are choking yourself, crushing yourself with overwhelming weights,

you are not increasing your endurance efficiently.

Above all,

in a proper endurance workout...

You are always sweating,

and that means you are losing electrolytes.

You must replenish those,

or you will start getting dehydration headaches.

It is easier to prevent dehydration,

than to treat it.

According to Wikipedia sweat contains,

sodium (0.9 gram/liter), potassium (0.2 g/L), calcium (0.015 g/L), and magnesium (0.0013 g/L).

This will vary, some say greatly, and there are tests that you can perform,

by wearing a patch during a workout and then analyzing the minerals absorbed by the patch.

Search the internet for "The Gatorade Gx Sweat Patch was weird, neat, and ultimately kind of pointless",

and note that there are two more links on the bottom to the $200 LEVELEN™ Athlete Sweat Test Kit,

and the $1,000 MX3 Sweat Sodium Test.

I suspect that it would take several $50 patches to establish a decent baseline,

if you have a stable exercise, in a climate controlled gym.

If it gets warmer and/or more humid outside, you body will try to cool it self more,

if you push yourself harder everyday then your readings may fluctuate.

But you should be aware of Oral Rehydration Therapy,

and the fact that the use of homemade solutions has not been well studied.

And you have to be careful,

because Overhydration is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous than Dehydration.

You see there is no perfect formula here,

the only way to do this right is to have a competent professional monitor you daily to create a proper profile.

But, headaches are a sign that you are doing something wrong,

and the color of your urine may hint if you are dehydrated or not.

And drinking empty water,

is probably not optimal, you want to have some electrolytes in there, but not too much.

Keep track of how much water you lose during your exercise by weighting yourself before an after,

make sure to account for bathroom trips, water intake, wet clothes, and heavy shoes.

Then make sure to drink enough to replace that lost weight,

in a reasonable amount of time.

Be careful and wise,

as it is possible to get ill from exercise.

Endurance training is not just about triathlons,

it can be as unique as walking the Appalachian Trail and even the Western States 100 route, that Ultras run during a proper race.

It can be as unique as dancing,

your training must match where you are, without hurting or stopping you, and must help you become healthier.

Endurance training isn't about how far or fast you are going,

it is about whether or not it is helping your body become stronger and healthier.

An endurance race is a strange concept,

we should not push our bodies to a breaking point, we have to be kind to ourselves.

We need to *slowly* progress forward at our own natural pace,

there is no glory in becoming ill from exercise, being healthy is the only reward that truly mattes.

My personal recommendation is dancing at your local gym,

it is easy on the knees, and provides all the bored people pretending to work out with entertainment.

And I recommend shuffle dancing,

you'll never have a bad or boring workout, all shuffle dance workouts are pure joy and cheerfulness.

When people laugh they are not laughing at you,

they are either laughing at the strange world we live in, or are laughing with you.

Focus on gaining endurance,

and enjoy being cheerful and healthy.