Women’s different hydration needs haven’t been recognized until now because while women’s participation in sports has increased significantly over the last several decades, research on women in sports has lagged. Until very recently, most of the data collected in case studies regarding nutrition and training were conducted largely on men. Women were deemed “too difficult” to be included because of female hormone fluctuations.

Women have an altered energy metabolism during exercise, which impacts how they recover. Their recovery window is smaller and they have a predisposition to become overtrained if they go for too much intensity at different parts of their periods.

During the high hormone phase, estrogen reduces the availability of carbohydrate and increases the amount of fat used for fuel; thus women have problems hitting intensities. Elevated progesterone increases women’s core temperature by ~0.5’C, it increases their total body sodium losses, and increases women’s muscle breakdown—at the same time, reducing a woman’s ability to synthesize muscle. The combination of elevated estrogen and progesterone drops a woman’s available plasma volume by ~8%, and with concurrent shifts in baseline thresholds, makes females more predisposed to hyponatremia, abnormally low blood sodium.

Finally, the recovery window for men and women is different. Women have 30 minutes for acute recovery and only 3 hours to eat a balanced meal for glycogen recovery. So—your girlfriend, wife or daughter may not just being unjustifiably moody when you take her on that five hour mountain-bike ride. She may not have the juice because her hormones are wreaking havoc with her ability to perform.

Is it good for dumping on people like gatorade?