Why Your Muscles Need Most of Your Potassium

So today we're gonna talk about why your muscles need most of your potassium .

Now what's very unique about potassium is that it's 1 mineral that we need a tremendous amount of .

We need 47 100 milligrams .

And out of all the tissues in the body , 80% is needed by your muscles mainly .

Question is why do we eat so much , and why is it going to the muscles ?

But before I explain that , I need to explain something called the sodium potassium pump .

K ?

You have billions of these little pumps , and what they do is they keep potassium on the ends of the cell , and they keep sodium outside the cell .

So that's their main purpose .

And the reason for that is anytime you have 2 different minerals that are held apart like that by a pump and by a membrane , the cell wall , you create a battery , which is this .

You have positive , negative , held apart .

That flow of electrons , that current generates a certain amount of energy that is stored in the battery .

Well , your cells are mini batteries .

In fact , your brain has about 80 , 000 , 000 , 000 mini battery cells .

Potassium is needed as a raw material to make sure this pump works .

In fact , 30% of all the energy that you have in your body is allocated to this 1 little pump .

And because this pump allows 2 potassium in and 3 sodium out , and that difference creates a voltage .

If we're talking about the muscle , we're talking about 90 millivolts .

In a nerve , it's about 70 millivolts .

In the skin it's about 50 millivolts .

The volt is just the power of this battery created by the difference between these 2 minerals held apart .

And another term for that is called membrane potential because when it's at rest , it's like a battery , but then it gets activated and it starts releasing the this electrical charge that then causes the muscle to contract .

And it creates nerve impulses , and it causes glands to secrete like hormones or even like sweat glands .

The same principle happens in the thunderstorm where you have these clouds that have a positive charge , and the earth is negative .

And when those clouds start building up moisture at a certain humidity , you start generating a tremendous amount of electrostatic energy .

And when that electrical field gets to a certain point , it'll discharge the energy as a thunderbolt giving off 3 , 000 , 000 volts per meter .

So that's a tremendous amount of energy that is discharged .

The same thing in the cell .

You have the cell wall .

On the outside you have positive .

The inside you have negative .

You have a very very thin membrane .

Okay ?

It's like 5 nanometers .

Of course this is a very large distance right here .

This is very very tiny .

But the cell wall or membrane is 2 layers of lipids or fats that keep these 2 minerals apart .

And once the muscle is activated to contract or the nerve is activated to send an impulse , you lose potassium .

The more exercise you're doing , the more you're sweating , the more you're losing these electrolytes .

If you're injured or go through a surgery or trauma , you will lose potassium .

When the thyroid works , it's a gland , you'll lose more potassium .

And also when you consume more refined sugar , you will also lose potassium as well .

The other question is are we losing as much sodium ?

No .

Not necessarily because sodium has a tendency to be retained in the body , but we do lose way more potassium .

And this is why this is a requirement right here .

As far as the sodium requirement , it's about half what we need as far as potassium .

When you do fasting , your body will have a tendency to retain more potassium just as a survival mechanism .

So that's 1 of the biggest reasons why we have most of our potassium , 80% , in the muscles .

And then when our potassium becomes low , the muscles become weak .

You get tired .

You don't have the endurance anymore when especially when you exercise , and your muscles start to cramp .

If you haven't seen my other videos on potassium , I put them up right here .

Check it out .