Salt, or sodium, gets a bad rap in nutrition culture — maybe for good reason. A diet too high in sodium from processed foods can contribute to health problems like high blood pressure.
But salt also plays an important role in hydration and muscle functions. Athletes who exercise regularly may be able to use it to their advantage. Whether you’re thinking about maximizing your endurance and blood flow, or just staying hydrated during intense workouts, salt might be an invaluable trick up your sleeve.
Does that mean you should be using salt as a pre-workout? First, let’s dive into the science behind salt, pre-workouts, and the potential benefits of combining them before your training session.
Editor’s Note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. When starting a new training regimen and/or diet, it is always a good idea to consult with a trusted medical professional. We are not a medical resource. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional.
- What Is Pre-Workout?
- What Is Salt?
- How Does Salt Affect Your Body?
- Potential Benefits of Salt Pre-Workout
- How to Consume Salt Pre-Workout
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Pre-Workout?
Pre-workout is a powdered supplement that you can mix with water to give you a boost of power and focus before your training session. It’s meant to improve your exercise performance while increasing energy and reducing fatigue. (1)
Pre-workout supplements generally contain a variety of ingredients including caffeine and creatine, and amino acids like beta-alanine, L-citrulline, and taurine. (2) If you aren’t into supplements, you can alternatively get a pre-workout boost of energy by combining nutrients through whole foods and beverages.
There are many brands of pre-workout supplements, so the ingredients will vary. However, sodium is not found in high amounts in most pre-workouts. There is often little to no salt in pre-workout supplements. (2) Should there be? Is salt good for pre-workout?
What Is Salt?
To consider if you should have salt pre-workout, let’s first look at the science behind salt. Salt, or sodium chloride, is a physiologically essential nutrient. (3) It’s a mineral that exists in your body and that you also get from foods and beverages. Salt is also an electrolyte that works with potassium to maintain fluid balance in your cells. (3)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that most Americans consume too much sodium. Too much sodium can increase your blood pressure and put you at risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke. (4)
However, some sodium is needed for your body to function, and it can have an impact on your workouts as well. Does it then make sense to have sodium pre-workout?
How Does Salt Affect Your Body?
Although having too much sodium in your overall diet can cause health risks, salt is still needed to perform essential bodily functions. It serves to conduct nerves, plays into muscle contraction and relaxation, and helps to maintain a balance of water, electrolytes, and other minerals. (3)
How Does Salt Affect Workouts?
Excess sodium can be detrimental, but context matters. If you work out regularly, you’re used to sweating a lot. When you sweat during your workout, you can lose from half a liter to four liters of water. That amount of water can contain up to 1000 milligrams (mg) of sodium. (5)
So, any pre-workout salt you consume may be lost when you sweat, and wouldn’t necessarily contribute to overconsuming sodium. In addition to hydration, salt also plays into blood flow, muscle contraction, and relaxation. Let’s look at some potential benefits of timing your salt intake before you hit the gym.
Potential Benefits of Salt Pre-Workout
Is salt a good pre-workout? An effective pre-workout will contain several nutrients to help boost training performance. Solely consuming salt as pre-workout may not do much, but including salt with your pre-workout may have several benefits.
May Help You Stay Hydrated
Sodium is an electrolyte that helps maintain fluid balance. (3) When you sweat during a workout, you lose water, electrolytes, and sodium. Having salt before your workout can help you keep your energy levels balanced while you train, rather than feeling depleted at the end of your session.
Sweating also reduces your plasma volume, which can cause reductions in performance. (6) One study showed that ingesting sodium pre-exercise can expand your plasma volume, which leads to improved performance, measured by time to exhaustion. (6)
Ingesting salt pre-workout has been shown to enhance electrolyte balance and stimulate water retention in the body. (7) This benefit is the key to understanding further benefits to using salt as pre-workout — including muscle contraction and exercise performance.
May Improve Exercise Performance
Research repeatedly hails pre-workout salt ingestion as an ergogenic — intended to enhance physical performance — aid to exercise. (6)
Ingesting salt pre-workout may improve your exercise performance over time. It can help you stay hydrated, get your blood pumping, and work out longer. With all of these changes, the overall quality of your work can improve over time. But, more research is needed on direct links between pre-workout salt consumption and strength gains.
May Increase Endurance
Adding salt to pre-workout may increase your endurance. Studies show that a positive effect of pre-exercise sodium intake is a reduction of physical fatigue in endurance sports caused by enhanced electrolyte balance. (7)
You may be able to push a little harder and longer in your sessions if you have adequate sodium in your system.
These benefits may be only available to people who are less trained, however. A study on highly trained endurance athletes showed that high sodium supplementation did not have a significant effect on the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) or time to exhaustion. (8)
May Increase Blood Flow
Sodium in your bloodstream fills your blood cells with water, which increases blood volume, and then blood pressure. (9) That’s why you often hear that too much sodium can cause high blood pressure.
But, you can use it to your advantage if you’re taking in salt before your workout. Higher blood volume increases blood flow, which helps deliver blood and oxygen to your muscles. This can come in handy when your muscles need all the nutrients and oxygen they can get during a tough workout.
May Improve Muscle Contraction
Increased blood flow leads to improved muscle contractions. Salt plays a direct role in telling your muscles to contract and relax. Taking salt pre-workout may help you feel your muscles contract more, so you can squeeze the most out of every rep.
Better muscle contraction in more sessions over time can help you reach your goals and get the gains you’re training for.
May Give You A Bigger Pump
Some lifters associate salt with a better pump during those biceps curls and triceps pushdowns. That’s because of the extra water that sodium floods into your bloodstream. (9) Maintaining intracellular water retention leads to bigger pumps.
The temporary increase in your muscle size, or pump, may be caused by the increased blood flow. Research shows that vasodilation — or increased dilation of the blood vessels — allows for more blood flow to the skeletal muscles, which creates your pumps. (10) Since sodium increases blood flow, bodybuilders may use salt for pre-workout to fuel that satisfaction.
How to Consume Salt Pre-Workout
If you want to try out the benefits of consuming salt pre-workout, you may be wondering what kind of salt to use and what to do with it. Remember that a good pre-workout includes multiple nutrients to give you energy and reduce fatigue, so solely using salt as pre-workout probably won’t give you the effects you desire.
Let’s take a look at potential ways to consume salt pre-workout.
Himalayan Pink Salt vs. Table Salt
Can you simply eat something with salt with pre-workout? You might be wondering about the salt content of your food if you’ve ever seen someone on social media showing off a pink Himalayan salt pre-workout recipe. If you’ve contemplated what the difference is between regular (or table) salt and pink salt pre-workout, it comes down to processing.
Table salt is highly processed, has any other nutrients removed in its refining process, and may include additives. Pink Himalayan salt, which comes from the Khwera Salt Mines in Pakistan, is said to include many other vitamins and minerals.
However, there haven’t been any studies reporting more benefits of pink salt versus table salt as pre-workout. If you tend to prefer more natural, unprocessed foods, then having pink Himalayan salt pre-workout may be a better choice than table salt for you.
How Much Salt Pre-Workout?
How much salt you should put in your pre-workout depends on a few factors — how much are you sweating, what is the temperature in your environment, and how long you are exercising. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends a sodium intake of 1.7-2.9 g (0.3-0.5 of a teaspoon) of salt for prolonged exercise over two hours. (7)
You’ll also want to consider the pre-existing sodium levels of the pre-workout mix you use. Most pre-workouts contain little to no salt. But if you do happen to be drinking a mix that contains sodium, it might not make sense to be putting salt in pre-workout.
It may be best to start small and experiment — you can begin with a quarter teaspoon of salt and assess how it makes you feel in and after your workout, before working your way up to a full gram.
Mix in Pre-Workout
How much salt is in your pre-workout? If you have a favorite pre-workout supplement, check the ingredients. It’s likely not much. You can try mixing in a quarter teaspoon of salt into your pre-workout, and see how it makes you feel.
Mix With Water
Does it work to have salt with water as pre-workout? If you don’t do pre-workout supplements and prefer to get your pre-exercise nutrition through food and beverages, you can try mixing salt and water pre-workout to reap the potential benefits of salt. Solely having salt water as pre-workout probably won’t give you the full boost, but having it along with a pre-workout meal or snack can help.
Let’s Get Salty
Though sodium is often linked with high blood pressure and cardiovascular health risks, there’s another side to the story. If you’re an athlete who likes to train intensely and for long periods, there are potential benefits to having a small amount of salt with your pre-workout. It may get your blood flowing and muscles pumping, keep you hydrated, and help you train longer.
If you tend to work out for less than an hour or don’t sweat much, or if you’re someone with higher blood pressure, extra salt pre-workout may not benefit you. It’s best to always be specific about your own needs and body — and consult with a doctor — before incorporating a new pre-workout variable.
FAQs
Still have questions on consuming salt pre-workout? Let’s take a closer look.
Is it safe to take salt pre-workout with high blood pressure?
If you have hypertension (high blood pressure), pre-hypertension, or have been advised by a doctor to consume a lower sodium diet, it’s probably not advisable to consume more salt pre-workout. If you have a medical condition — or even if you don’t — it’s always best to consult with a physician about your health and needs.
Is salt a good pre-workout for less intense exercise, like a walk?
The amount of water — and sodium — that you lose while sweating depends on how intense and long your workout is. The more salt you are losing, the more it makes sense to have salt with your pre-workout. While a low-intensity walk is a great exercise on its own, having extra salt before may not provide any benefits.
Is having one gram of salt pre-workout sufficient?
It’s great to start slowly — but one gram of salt is one-sixth of a teaspoon, which is a little bit less than the recommended starting amount of one-quarter teaspoon. So, you may want to add a little more.
References
- Tinsley GM, Hamm MA, Hurtado AK, Cross AG, Pineda JG, Martin AY, Uribe VA, Palmer TB. Effects of two pre-workout supplements on concentric and eccentric force production during lower body resistance exercise in males and females: a counterbalanced, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017 Nov 28;14:46.
- Jagim AR, Harty PS, Camic CL. Common Ingredient Profiles of Multi-Ingredient Pre-Workout Supplements. Nutrients. 2019 Jan 24;11(2):254.
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Food and Nutrition Board; Committee to Review the Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium; Oria M, Harrison M, Stallings VA, editors. Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2019 Mar 5. 8, Sodium: Dietary Reference Intakes for Adequacy.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sodium and Food Sources. https://www.cdc.gov/salt/food.htm
- Turner MJ, Avolio AP. Does Replacing Sodium Excreted in Sweat Attenuate the Health Benefits of Physical Activity? Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2016 Aug;26(4):377-89.
- Mora-Rodriguez R, Hamouti N. Salt and fluid loading: effects on blood volume and exercise performance. Med Sport Sci. 2012;59:113-119.
- Veniamakis E, Kaplanis G, Voulgaris P, Nikolaidis PT. Effects of Sodium Intake on Health and Performance in Endurance and Ultra-Endurance Sports. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Mar 19;19(6):3651.
- Earhart EL, Weiss EP, Rahman R, Kelly PV. Effects of oral sodium supplementation on indices of thermoregulation in trained, endurance athletes. J Sports Sci Med. 2015 Mar 1;14(1):172-8.
- Sodium (2022) www.heart.org. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/sodium/
- Hamann JJ, Valic Z, Buckwalter JB, Clifford PS. Muscle pump does not enhance blood flow in exercising skeletal muscle. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2003 Jan;94(1):6-10.
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