Thread: Pre-contest Sodium

I googled this because I am addicted to pickles, salted cucumbers, and diet soda.....I found this on canadabodybuilding.com:

Here is an article written by a fellow KingKong. It is very well put together and will give you a very good understanding of sodiums role to us competitive bodybuilders and how to use it to our advantage.

Sodium, I am sure many of you have heard of this troubling mineral. From everything of it being the worst foe leading up to contest to the infamous "sodium loading" which some have tried only to become a water logged buffalo. So what is sodium? Can it be used? Should it be avoided? WEll lets take a look and see.

Sodium is the major extra cellular cat ion that causes balance of water between the intracellular(subQ, Muscle,) and extra cellular(Vascular System) compartments. If you have ever been prepped by an old schooler they probably had you avoid it like the plague. Besides playing a balancing role of the compartments of the body sodium also affects the hormone system aldosterone. Aldosterone is produced when the body senses low sodium levels. Im not gonna get into the whole renin angiotensin system as that is overkill. Basically it goes like this. When your body senses that it doesn't have enough sodium aldosterone levels raise causing the body to recirculation sodium instead of releasing it. And as most of you know where sodium goes WATER goes. So by Decreasing sodium leading up to contest once again people are trying to push and pull at the same time. Think about it the body is trying to retain sodium and what do most people do, HIT A DIURETIC. Then not only do they pull sodium from the vascular space, but also from the muscle, and BOOM they go flat as a pancake. Now many of you have heard about the infamous "Sodium" loading and are curious about what this involves. Unfortunately just like with all concepts people got ahold of this and everyone started using it in an overkill style, ended up watered down, and it has since got a bad rep. First lets look at sodium leading up to contest. As stated in the Contest Water we want the body to be in a “releasing” state therefore if we know that decreased sodium will increase Aldosterone levels which cause the body to recirculation sodium we know that upping sodium will Lower aldosterone levels and cause the body to be constantly ridding the body of sodium. Timed right we can cause the body to release sodium which as stated before water follows. So a general example might be raising sodium levels 7-10 days out from contest then a day before dropping sodium along with water and watching the body naturally kick out both. Now typically a diuretic is used as well and this is where I see the most confusion. You have to realize that most diuretics work by causing acting on the kidneys area of recirculation of sodium blocking its ability to reabsorb and hence causing excretion. As we know WHERE SODIUM GOES SO WATER FOLLOWS. But people get so caught up in getting rid of water they forget that sodium plays a VITAL role in keeping the body full and vascular. So what do you do?? YOU REPLACE LOST SODIUM. Lets look at it like this. You have depleted yourself and its Friday night. Your body looks flat, you have no vascularity, so what do you do? Most people will say to hit some grape juice or carbs right before a show to get the vascularity going and often times they get so caught up in trying to get that vascularity back they had two weeks ago they take in to many simple carbs. The problem is that lost vascularity is NOT A CARB ISSUE but rather a sodium issue. Think about it what causes vascularity,,, INCREASED BLOOD PRESSURE. Do carbs do this,, NO,, does salt,, YES. So the first thing that comes to mind is ADD SALT back into your diet. Now many people freak out over this cause they have been taught that sodium is bad, but what has been the constant theme throughout all this?? Sodium causes water to follow. So if your depleted of water YOU WON”T HAVE A PROBLEM. In fact I have had people the day of the show eating PIZZA, BACON, SAUSAGE, and other salty foods the morning of the contest and even back stage. One guy I had do this said that everyone was freaking out that he had half a pizza back stage eating it,, besides the fact that everyone else was looking at their Rice cakes and Jam LOL. I also have people take in about a tablespoon of pure salt before stage. Yea its nasty but it causes the blood pressure to sky rocket and the veins to POP out. Granted this is not a method to where you just go in and go gun ho on your salt. You have to feel it out. As with all of these methods the key to getting the results is being as lean as possible as well as trying a test run before hand. IT definitely takes some practice as well as knowing your body, but I will guarantee it works way better than relying on carbs to get your vascularity out. Anyway,, there is a lot more depth to this topic but I thought I would get the basics in for those interested.

Interesting since I plan on competing in June.