How Much Sodium Does a Soccer Player Lose During a Match?
We talk a lot about sweat in soccer. We don't talk nearly as much about what's actually in it.
The 88th minute. You know this moment…
Your shirt is soaked. Your legs are heavy. You grab a quick calf stretch when the ball goes out of bounds.
You've been sweating for nearly two hours.
But what have you actually lost?
It's a question we spent a lot of time thinking about when we started developing PARC.
And the answer surprised us.
It's more than water.
When we sweat, we lose water.
We also lose electrolytes.
Sodium. Potassium. Magnesium. Calcium.
Of those, sodium is lost in the greatest amount.
And over the course of a soccer match, that amount can become significant.
One study looked at professional players during a competitive match in England. The conditions weren't particularly demanding. It was cool — around 43°F — and the players weren't dealing with the kind of heat we'd normally associate with serious sweat loss.
They still lost an average of 1.68 liters of sweat.
And with it:
2.4 grams of sodium.
That's 2,400mg.
During one match.
In cool weather.
And that's only an average.
This is where things get interesting.
There isn't really a universal number for how much a soccer player sweats.
Some players sweat a lot.
Some don't (we all have that teammate who never seems to sweat).
Some lose significantly more sodium in their sweat than the player standing next to them.
Temperature matters. Humidity matters. How hard you're working matters. Your body matters.
Another study followed Premier League players through a 90-minute preseason training session in warmer conditions.
Average sweat loss was just over two liters.
But even within a group of elite players doing essentially the same training session, there was considerable variation from player to player.
That's one of the things we kept coming across when researching hydration.
There isn't one kind of soccer player.
And there isn't one kind of soccer day.
A Tuesday training session isn't a tournament Saturday.
This distinction matters to us.
Because soccer doesn't happen in a laboratory.
It happens at 8am on field 17.
Then again at 2pm.
It happens in August.
It happens in Florida and Arizona and Southern California.
It happens after a three-hour drive, a flight the night before or a week of training.
It happens for 90 minutes and sometimes 120.
And sometimes you have to do it all again tomorrow.
The American College of Sports Medicine specifically calls out soccer players competing in hot-weather tournaments as athletes who may need to pay closer attention to fluid and electrolyte balance.
That's the game we thought about when we built PARC.
Not just one match. Or one training session.
Everything around it.
So why sodium?
Because replacing water is only part of the equation.
Sodium plays an important role in maintaining fluid balance in the body and helps the body retain the fluid you drink.
It plays an important role in maintaining fluid balance in the body and helps the body retain the fluid you drink.
That's an important distinction.
Hydration isn't simply about how much water you put into your body.
It's also about what happens to that water once it's there.
Sports-medicine guidance has long recognized that beverages containing electrolytes can be useful during longer periods of exercise, and that fluid-replacement strategies should account for the enormous differences in sweat rate and electrolyte loss from one athlete to another.
Which brings us to another question.
If players in one study lost an average of 2,400mg of sodium, why does PARC have 432mg?
Because we aren't trying to replace an entire match's sodium loss with one packet.
That was never the idea.
You eat before you play.
You drink throughout the day.
You recover afterward.
There is sodium in food. There may be sodium in other things you drink. And the amount you lose through sweat can be dramatically different from the amount your teammate loses.
Trying to replace every milligram lost with an identical milligram consumed misunderstands the problem.
Hydration is a system.
PARC is one part of it.
432mg of sodium was a deliberate decision.
Enough to meaningfully contribute to replacing what is lost through sweat. And designed to work around the way soccer is actually played.Before a match.
Between matches.
After training.
During a tournament weekend.
Not as a sodium bomb.
As a tool.
The game dictated the formula.
We've said that since we launched PARC.
But it's more than a line or advertising copy.
We started with the game and worked backwards.
What does a player lose?
What does the sport demand?
What changes when one match becomes three?
What happens when the temperature climbs?
Those questions are why PARC contains sodium.
They're why it contains potassium, magnesium and calcium.
And they're why we don't believe hydration for soccer should simply be whatever happened to already exist on the shelf.
The game has its own demands.
We think what players put back into their bodies should reflect them.
Built from the game.
Take care,
PARC