Electrolytes for Savage Performance: Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium
Electrolytes for Savage Performance: Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium
You ever feel like your workout just doesn’t hit? We’re not talking about motivation or your Spotify playlist—we’re talking about those sessions where your body just isn’t firing. You’re flat, crampy, or tapped out halfway through your warm-up.
Before you start blaming your training block or jumping to another program (again), here’s a thought: maybe it’s not your split. Maybe it’s your electrolytes.
Performance requires fuel, sleep, training, recovery—all the essentials. And electrolytes? They’re the grease in the engine. Without ‘em, you stall.
Let’s break down the three amigos that can make or break your training session: sodium, potassium, and magnesium.
Sodium – The Ignition Switch
Sodium gets a bad rap from the nutrition crowd who still think red meat gives you heart attacks. Ignore them.
If you're sweating, training hard, or actually pushing intensity—not just hopping on a stair stepper—you need sodium. Why?
Hydration: Sodium regulates fluid balance so you don’t gas out early.
Blood volume: Helps get oxygen and nutrients to your muscles faster.
Pumps: Sodium draws water into muscle cells. Full muscle = powerful muscle.
Focus and drive: Low sodium = flat CNS = weak effort.
Pro tip: Salt your dang food and throw a pinch in your preworkout. Somewhere between 500–1,000 mg pre-lift, depending on how much you’re sweating.
Potassium – The Muscle Whisperer
Potassium doesn’t get the spotlight, but it’s working behind the scenes every time your muscles fire. It's the yin to sodium's yang.
Controls muscle contractions.
Supports nerve signals and carb transport into cells.
Helps maintain fluid balance so your cells don’t shrivel like raisins mid-session.
Deficiency shows up as fatigue, cramps, and feeling like your muscles forgot how to work. Fix that.
Stack idea: 200–400 mg around training.
Magnesium – The Closer
Sodium gets you going, potassium keeps you sharp, magnesium lets you finish strong and recover faster.
Critical for ATP production (aka the currency of performance).
Relaxes your muscles post-lift.
Calms your nervous system so you’re not revving too high for too long.
You’ve got a full day ahead after you train? Magnesium helps keep your body from crashing post-lift. 50–100 mg post-workout or before bed. Use glycinate or malate—skip the cheap oxide forms unless you enjoy bathroom emergencies.
Fuel the Machine – Don’t Complicate It
Drink it before or during your session. You’ll feel the difference—more drive, better pumps, fewer cramps, and less post-workout brain fog.
You can lift like an animal, eat clean, and track your macros to the gram—but if you’re running on low electrolytes, you’re a high-performance machine with no oil in the engine.
Fix the basics first. Sodium. Potassium. Magnesium.
Then go smash some weight.