The Hydration Playbook

It depends on how much you sweat and for how long. As a working range, hard training costs 500–700 mg of sodium, 150–300 mg of potassium and 30–60 mg of magnesium per hour, with 16–24 oz of fluid. A CrossFit WOD runs 32–64 oz of sweat an hour; football in pads in August can hit the same per hour but for three hours; a desk day costs almost nothing until the afternoon. The Playbook gives the measured cost and an exact before/during/after protocol for each of 46 activities, so you are not guessing from a general rule.

Forty-six, in six sections. The gym and the floor: CrossFit, HYROX, group fitness, powerlifting, bodybuilding, Olympic weightlifting, strongman, calisthenics. Endurance: running, marathon, ultra and trail, road cycling, mountain biking, triathlon, swimming, rowing, Spartan and OCR, DEKA. Field and court: soccer, football, basketball, baseball and softball, lacrosse, hockey, rugby, volleyball, tennis, pickleball, golf. Mat and ring: boxing and MMA, jiu-jitsu and wrestling, hot yoga and pilates, dance. Outdoors: hiking, skiing, surfing, climbing, hunting and fishing. Work, heat and everyday: trades and job sites, military and first responders, the desk and the 3 pm dip, travel and flights, sauna and cold plunge, the night out, youth sports and masters athletes.

One before the race with breakfast, one per hour on the course, and one with the first bottle after you finish — five to six for most runners over a full marathon. The reason is the sodium bill: a marathon can cost over 3,000 mg of sodium, and water alone past mile 14 dilutes what is left, which is what the wall usually is. The Playbook has the full mile-by-mile version, plus the carbohydrate timing that goes with it.

No. Every protocol states the target in milligrams and ounces, so you can hit it with any electrolyte that carries a real sodium dose. One EN stick in 16 oz supplies 600 mg sodium, 188 mg potassium and 34 mg magnesium, which is named as one way to hit the first column. The guide also covers carbohydrate, gels, protein, creatine, caffeine, collagen and magnesium — most of which Engineered Nutrition does not sell.

Both. Six of the 46 sections are non-training: the desk and the 3 pm dip, travel and flights, sauna and cold plunge, the night out and the morning after, trades and job sites, and military and first-responder shifts. Most of the water you lose leaves on ordinary days, so those pages use daily targets — roughly 1,500–2,300 mg of sodium a day, mostly from food — rather than per-hour training targets.

Fluid and sodium ranges come from the ACSM and NATA position stands on fluid replacement and from published sweat-composition research (Maughan and Shirreffs, 2008; Baker, 2017). Sources are listed at the back of the book. Individual sweat rate and sodium concentration vary widely, so the guide teaches three self-tests — the scale test, the salt-mark test and the urine-colour test — for finding your own numbers rather than relying on an average.

A 111-page PDF: a 14-page chapter on what your body loses and why, then two pages for each of the 46 activities, plus a mixing guide, a 7-day tracker and the source list. It is a digital download — nothing ships. It is also included free with any Engineered Nutrition Starter Kit.

Not always, and the guide is direct about that. A cramp in the first ten minutes is usually a warm-up or pacing problem. A cramp that turns up past minute 40, in the heat, in the same muscle every time, is the pattern that tends to track minerals. Each sport page lists the specific signs for that activity so you can tell the difference. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA; this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.