The hot summer temperatures are finally over in my area and now my morning bike rides start at around 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 C). A few months ago when the heat index was running near 100 degrees (38 C) I was looking for ways to stay cool and prevent dehydration. Back in July, while I was watching the Tour de France, I saw Robbie Ventura interview Ben Caprom of Osmo Nutrition about their line of hydration products for athletes—the product that intrigued me the most was the Osma Preload Hydration Mix.
Osmo PreLoad Hydration Mix
The Osmo PreLoad Hydration Mix is a pre-hydration drink designed for endurance athletes who exercise in hot conditions and is intended to reduce muscle fatigue and cramping. This product is a powder that you mix with water and drink thirty minutes before you exercise (some athletes also drink it the night before a big event). For the average man (150 pounds or more) you mix 2.5 scoops of the powder with 20-ounces of water. The “Pineapple & Lemon” flavor is rather mild and you can definitely taste the high sodium content of the mix—but if you make sure the product is served cold it doesn’t taste bad at all.
I used this product on many occasions this past summer on long bike rides on really hot days—and even though this is very subjective, I believe it helped me a lot. Not only did I not suffer the effects of dehydration that I would have expected from riding in such conditions, but I seemed to recover faster as well. Osmo PreLoad Hydration mix is not intended for daily use—it is for endurance events in hot weather.
I thought about trying to explain how pre-hydration works, but I couldn’t come up with anything better than the description on the Osmo Nutrition website. “Exercise, particularly exercise in the heat, places large demands upon the circulatory system. Concurrently, fluid and electrolyte losses and limited or inappropriate replacement during exercise further compromises performance; a 2% body water loss can equate to ~11% decrease in VO2max. Pre-hydration with a high-sodium fluid has been shown to decrease cardiovascular and thermal strain, and enhance exercise capacity by several mechanisms: a) increased plasma volume—by the nature of increasing the amount of fluid available for circulation AND sweating/thermoregulation, a core temperature rise is impeded; b) the sodium+water combination reduces an osmoreceptor feedback mechanism, which further reduces core temperature rise.”
The ingredients list for the Osmo PreLoad Hydration Mix is fairly simple: Trisodium Citrate, D-Glucose, Sodium Bicarbonate, Sucrose, OsmoPL™ Beverage Base Blend (Sucrose, D-Glucose, Trisodium Citrate, Sodium Bicarbonate), Potassium Bicarbonate, Citric Acid, Magnesium Citrate, Organic Compliant Flavor, Lemon Juice Powder, Lemon Oil, Monk Fruit Extract, and Organic Pineapple Powder. All Osmo Nutrition products are made with natural and organic ingredients—and all ingredients are both GMO and gluten-free.
A 9.2 ounce container of Osmo PreLoad Hydration mix retails for $25 (enough for twenty 8-ounce servings, or eight 20-ounce servings). For me this is a little over $3 a serving and I am not going to complain one bit! A few dollars for a product that will lower core temperature and increase exercise capacity is certainly worth it! You can order this product from the Osmo Nutrition online store or Amazon.com.
