Our Testing Kit is self-administered, and provides us enough information to determine your unique hydration and electrolyte needs, down to the milligram.

Buy an Individual Sweat Test, and take your performance to the next LEVEL.

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Electrolytes are essentially salts that can carry an electrical charge. The cells in your body rely on electrolytes to control cell membrane stability and to carry the electrical charges needed for muscle contractions caused by nerve impulses. Without electrolytes, the cells in your body couldn’t communicate with each other or perform these essential functions.

Adequate function of the nervous, cardiac, digestive and muscular systems all depend on a proper balance of electrolyte levels. Both normal body function, and athletic performance, are severely compromised if adequate levels of electrolytes are not present, especially in the heat.

One of the most obvious (and painful) signs of electrolyte loss is muscle cramping. But, muscle cramping is usually a sign that you missed your chance to maintain a proper electrolyte balance. Cramping is one of your body’s last warnings that it cannot continue normal muscle function without electrolyte replenishment. By the time you feel cramping, your performance has already been diminished for some time.

The problem can get worse than just muscle cramping. When your muscles cramp, this is caused by over-excited positive power charges in muscle cells, struggling to do their job with depleted electrolytes, just like a light flickering before it burns out. Severe and sustained muscle contractions caused by these unpredictable power surges can cause muscle pulls or strains, as your muscles involuntarily contract. These severe, sustained and involuntary muscle contractions can not only result in muscle damage but will decrease performance or disrupt exercise entirely. Maintenance of your electrolyte balance can help avoid these potentially severe problems.

Maintaining proper electrolyte balance isn’t just for athletes who’ve suffered from debilitating muscle cramps or pulled muscles. You need to provide your body with an adequate supply of electrolytes to maintain specific bodily functions, so you can perform at your peak. To ensure peak performance, you need electrolytes sending a steady stream of energy to all the cells in your body, to keep your body performing smoothly, without interruption or decreased power. No serious athlete should wait until the final signs of severe electrolyte depletion before replenishing electrolytes. You need to get out in front of electrolyte loss and maintain it before it becomes a performance problem.

An Individual Sweat Test is one of the simplest ways to determine the concentration of electrolytes in your sweat, allowing you to customize your replenishment program.

Buy an Individual Sweat Test to determine your body’s specific hydration & electrolyte needs, and take your performance to the next LEVEL.

The post What Are Electrolytes? How Do They Help Me? appeared first on LEVELEN™.

Electrolytes are salts that help your body perform essential functions. As you sweat, your body tries to naturally regulate the balance of electrolytes. In some cases, your body does this very well. For instance, when you train or compete, your muscle fibers break down. When your muscle fibers break down, potassium is released into the body. Your body does this very efficiently, even at modest levels of activity. So, potassium is not an electrolyte you need to worry about replenishing. Your body does that for you. Many sport drinks and endurance products contain potassium, which is one of many ingredients you don’t need, even for endurance athletes and muscle crampers. In fact, abnormally elevated blood potassium (hyperkalemia) can be very dangerous, even fatal. We recommend avoiding any supplementation of potassium.

Your body is less efficient at balancing other electrolytes like sodium (Na+), chloride (Cl-), and magnesium (Mg+). These electrolytes can quickly be depleted as you train or compete, leading to performance issues or muscle cramping. These electrolytes are key ingredients in LEVELEN™, in just the right amounts for you. This ensures you maintain your peak performance by managing the most essential electrolytes, while avoiding those which are less beneficial, or even harmful.

Buy an Individual Sweat Test to determine your body’s specific hydration & electrolyte needs, and take your performance to the next LEVEL.

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The amount of sweat volume (rate of fluids lost) can vary greatly from one athlete to another, over a 37-fold difference. While sweat rate is slightly correlated to size (larger athletes typically sweat more) and gender (males sweat more than females), two athletes of similar size and gender can have very different sweat volumes. That is why sweat testing is critical for determining your exact fluid and electrolyte replenishment needs to maintain peak performance.

Sweat volume may vary considerably between sports, as well as between players in the same sport. When assessing sweat volume between runners and football players in identical conditions, our research revealed that football player sweat losses were over 9 liters per day compared to 3 liters per day for runners.

From the thousands of athletes tested, we have seen the following sweat rates:

AVERAGE: 1.68 liters per hour
MIN: 0.18 liters per hour
MAX: 6.70 liters per hour

ELECTROLYTE LOSSES

The graph below highlights electrolyte loss data from our research with the Philadelphia Flyers and the Philadelphia Eagles. As you can see, there was a dramatic variance in the overall amount of electrolytes lost (in this case sodium) from one athlete to another. Measured in milligrams per hour, there was over a 100-fold difference in electrolytes lost between athletes tested in our research.

From athlete to athlete, individual electrolyte loss varies much more than fluid loss. As electrolyte depletion begins, there can be a gradual and subtle loss of performance. As electrolyte depletion becomes more extreme, debilitating muscle cramps can suddenly set in. For every athlete, the point at which performance is impaired or muscle cramps start is different. Guesswork is not the answer for maintaining your electrolyte balance. One-size-fits-all electrolyte solutions are not the key to your peak performance.
Sweat testing is the only way to know exactly what you need, and The LEVELEN ERS™ is the only integrated solution of testing and LEVELEN™ electrolyte replenishment products customized to your individual needs.

Buy an Individual Sweat Test to determine your body’s specific hydration & electrolyte needs, and take your performance to the next LEVEL.

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Season to season: As the weather warms and cools, your body “acclimates” to new temperatures and humidity changes. In cooler weather, you typically sweat less with a higher concentration of electrolytes lost. In warmer weather, you tend to sweat more with a lower concentration of electrolytes. If you are a multi-season or multi-sport athlete, it is a good idea to perform several sweat tests per year to ensure you are replenishing the correct amount of electrolytes, based on the sport and/or weather conditions. For the serious athlete, this “fine tuning” dials in your hydration specifically to a workout, providing you with that extra edge.

Buy Multiple Sweat Tests (at a discount) to determine your body’s specific hydration & electrolyte needs, and take your performance to the next LEVEL.

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