Electrolytes are charged particles that enable nerve impulses and muscle contractions. Calcium contracts muscles, magnesium relaxes them, and potassium creates electrical fields inside cells. Endurance athletes like Comrades Marathon runners collapse from cramping when they drink plain water without replacing lost salts.
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Electrolytes. Why are they so important? Well, just me moving my arms like this, it's because of electrical impulses caused by my nerves which fires with the cells, and then the electrolytes are the little particles that have the electronic charge in them, and they go pop pop pop pop and it makes your muscles contract and relax. Like for instance, Your relaxing of your muscle would be caused by the magnesium. Your contracting of the muscle would be caused by calcium. So those are obviously very important. When you see guys running the Comrades Marathon and they're falling down and they have nothing left and they're cramping up, they've run out of electrolytes. They've been drinking too much water and not enough electrolytes. Now there are all sorts of electrolytes like potassium. Potassium is the most— supposed to be The most abundant electrolyte in the body. It works inside the cell with its own little electrical field. Outside the cell you have sodium chloride, which is salt, and that goes past that cell and pulls the waste product out while the potassium pulls the nutrients in, and that's how salt and potassium work. So electrolytes are absolutely needed for body health.
