Ever since I started running, all I know is that I need to drink a sh*t ton of electrolytes. But I would like to understand why on a physiological level.
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There are a lot of great answers here, but a lot of them aren’t really ELI5.
Most of the things your body does require different types of salt for them to work. Your kidneys can tell how much salt is in your blood, and will make the blood more or less salty by changing the amount you pee.
Your sweat contains both water and salt. If you sweat a lot, you’re going to get thirsty because you don’t have enough water in your system. When you take in water without any salt in it, it makes it so that you have too much water and not enough salt in your blood. This makes your kidneys freak out a bit, and you pee out the extra water. This peeing stops you from re-hydrating.
Normally, our diet has enough salt in it to stop this from happening. However, when you excersize a lot and sweat a lot, you need to replace a lot of water. If you replace a lot of water without eating any salts, you don’t re-hydrate.
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