Catalyst — Cellular Hydration & Electrolyte Powder
What makes this different
Every other electrolyte works on the water around your cells. This one works on the water inside them.
Salt moves water into the space around a cell. That is what a stick pack does, and that is all it does. Getting water across the membrane and holding it there takes three things almost nobody in this category carries: magnesium at a real dose, osmolytes, and bicarbonate. Catalyst has all three, in a scoop that costs less than the stick pack you are drinking now.
01 · The power supply
200 mg of chelated magnesium
Two to four times what a typical hydration powder carries, as TRAACS bisglycinate rather than cheap oxide. Magnesium supports normal muscle contraction and relaxation, normal nerve signaling and energy production. It is the mineral most people are actually short on.
02 · The missing ingredient
2 full grams of osmolytes
A gram of taurine and a gram of glycine. Osmolytes are what a cell uses to pull water in and hold it. Salt cannot do this job, which is why the rest of the category has nothing in this row at all.
03 · The better carrier
Bicarbonate, not chloride
The same sodium and potassium, delivered in the form your body buffers with instead of the form that just adds chloride. Supports acid-base balance during and after hard training, with malic acid feeding the energy cycle.
04 · The part you feel in your wallet
60 servings, under a dollar each
Two months in the container instead of one, at a lower cost per serving than the premium stick packs that reset your reorder every thirty days. The math is in the next section.
The math on a stick pack
The expensive part of hydration is the packaging
Single-serve stick packs are convenient and they are priced like it. Here is the daily cost, side by side, at one serving a day.
60Servings per container. Two months of daily use, not one.
200Milligrams of elemental magnesium per scoop, as TRAACS bisglycinate chelate.
2 gOf dosed cellular osmolytes — 1 g taurine, 1 g glycine — which is the piece stick packs do not carry at all.
How we got these numbers: 60 servings per container at one scoop a day, divided into the current Catalyst price and subscription price. The stick-pack range reflects published direct-to-consumer pricing for the leading premium electrolyte brands as of August 2026, not a discounted club or bulk price. Buy sticks in a warehouse-club bundle and the gap narrows. We are not naming brands, and we would encourage you to run the arithmetic on whatever is in your cabinet rather than take ours.
Pre-hydration
You cannot fix hydration on the way to the gym
Sodium fills the space around your cells, and it does that fast. Magnesium and osmolytes do not work that way. Those are built with consistent intake over days and weeks, which means the cellular half of hydration is either already in place when you start your workout or it is not there at all. This is why Catalyst is a daily scoop and not a race-day packet.
Catch-up
Fixing it in the parking lot
Show up depleted, tear open a high-sodium stick, and try to solve it in the twenty minutes before you train. You will move fluid volume, which is real and useful. You will not have moved magnesium status, and you will not have loaded taurine into muscle tissue, because neither of those happens on that timescale.
Stay loaded
Starting the workout already there
One scoop a day, every day, so the magnesium and the osmolytes are already on board before you need them — training, a hot afternoon outside, a long travel day, whatever it is. Then, if you are genuinely sweating hard, add sodium during the session itself. That is the whole protocol, and it is why this container holds sixty servings instead of thirty.
The short version
Catalyst in four boxes
What it is
A physician-formulated electrolyte and cellular hydration powder. 200 mg of chelated magnesium, 2 grams of osmolyte amino acids, bicarbonate buffering, boron and methylated B12 in one 6.56 g scoop. Sixty servings per container.
What it does
Supports intracellular fluid balance, normal muscle and nerve function, acid-base buffering, restful sleep and normal recovery. This is the mineral work most people are quietly short on every single day.
Who it's for
Adults who want a daily mineral foundation rather than a race-day salt bomb. Especially if you train consistently, live somewhere hot, sleep poorly, cramp at night, or already salt your food generously.
How to use it
One scoop in 12 to 20 oz of cold water, daily. Stay loaded rather than catching up. Add sodium separately during heavy sweat. Full protocols further down this page.
The difference
Two very different ideas of what an electrolyte drink is for
The category spent the last five years competing on one number: how much sodium fits in a stick pack. That number is easy to market and easy to beat. It is also only half of the physiology.
The industry standard
Built around the sodium number
- Sodium and chloride do the heavy lifting; everything else is a garnish
- Magnesium at 50 to 100 mg, if it appears at all
- Cheap mineral forms chosen for cost and shelf stability
- Long trace mineral lists where the actual amounts are negligible
- Sugar, sugar alcohols, or a stack of sweeteners to cover the salt
- 30 servings in single-serve packaging, priced to force a monthly reorder
The IOH standard
Built around what happens inside the cell
- 200 mg of elemental magnesium as TRAACS bisglycinate chelate
- 1 g taurine and 1 g glycine, dosed as real osmolytes, not label decoration
- Bicarbonate rather than chloride, for acid-base buffering
- Boron to support how your body handles magnesium and calcium
- Stevia only. No sugar, no sugar alcohols, no artificial colors
- 60 servings in a tub. Two months, at under a dollar a scoop
Why it's built this way
Four decisions that define this formula
Every ingredient in Catalyst had to earn its place at a meaningful dose. Nothing is in here to lengthen the label.
01
Magnesium at a dose that matters
200 mg of elemental magnesium, delivered as TRAACS magnesium bisglycinate chelate — roughly double what most hydration powders carry, in a chelated form chosen for absorption and stomach comfort. Magnesium supports normal muscle contraction and relaxation, nerve signaling and energy production, and it is one of the most commonly under-consumed minerals in the American diet.
02
Osmolytes, not just salt
Taurine and glycine at a full gram each. Both are organic osmolytes, meaning your cells use them to regulate their own volume and hold water where it belongs. Taurine also supports normal cardiovascular function and calcium handling inside the cell. Glycine supports glutathione production, restful sleep and connective tissue. You will not find either at these amounts in a stick pack.
03
Bicarbonate instead of chloride
The sodium and potassium in Catalyst are delivered as bicarbonates, with malic acid as the bicarbonate reactor. That is a deliberate choice: bicarbonate is the body's primary buffering system, and malic acid feeds directly into the Krebs cycle. Together they support acid-base balance and normal energy production rather than simply adding salt to water.
04
Boron and B12 to finish the job
3 mg of boron as Albion bororganic glycine, because boron influences how your body retains and uses magnesium and calcium, which matters for bone and mineral status over the long run. Plus 50 mcg of methylated B12, the active form your body can use without conversion.
The mechanism
How water actually gets into a cell
This is the part the category skips, and it is the entire reason Catalyst is formulated the way it is. Water is not pumped anywhere. It moves down osmotic gradients, through water channels, toward wherever the dissolved particles are. Which means the only way to get water into a cell is to give the cell something to hold it with.
01Outside
Sodium's job
Sodium fills the space around the cell
Sodium is the dominant particle in the fluid outside your cells, and it is very good at holding water there. That is why a high-sodium drink raises blood volume quickly and why it works so well for acute sweat losses.
Here is the part that gets left out: your cells spend energy actively pushing sodium back out, all day, every day. Sodium is not meant to be inside the cell. So sodium can fill the tank around the cell, but it cannot carry water across the membrane. It stops at the door.
02Across
Where osmolytes come in
The cell has to pull water in itself
Cells regulate their own volume using organic osmolytes — small compounds a cell can accumulate internally to raise its own particle concentration, which draws water in through its water channels and holds it there.
The reason cells use osmolytes rather than more sodium or potassium is elegant: osmolytes let a cell increase its water content without disturbing the electrical and ionic balance it needs to function. Taurine and glycine are two of the most important ones, and taurine is among the most abundant free amino acids in skeletal muscle for exactly this reason.
Catalyst carries a full gram of each. That is the difference between a drink that raises the water level around your cells and a drink that gives your cells the means to take it in.
03Powered
Why the magnesium dose matters
None of it happens without magnesium
Every gradient described above is maintained by the sodium-potassium pump, and that pump runs on ATP bound to magnesium. Magnesium is the cofactor that makes the energy usable. It is also involved in moving taurine and other osmolytes into cells and keeping potassium where it belongs, on the inside.
This is why 200 mg of chelated magnesium is not a garnish on this label. It is the power supply for the whole system. A formula with 50 mg of magnesium oxide is asking the machinery to run on a fraction of what it needs.
04Held
Why bicarbonate, not chloride
The internal environment has to be stable
Cells hold water best in a stable acid-base environment. Hard work, heat and metabolic stress all push in the other direction. Delivering the sodium and potassium as bicarbonates rather than chlorides means the same electrolytes arrive carrying buffering capacity instead of extra chloride load, with malic acid feeding the energy cycle at the same time.
So here is the honest summary of the difference
Salt-based formulas do step one very well and nothing else. Catalyst does steps two, three and four, which is where water crosses into the cell and stays there. That is not a marketing distinction. It is two different halves of the same physiology, and most people have only ever been sold the first one.
Full transparency
Every ingredient, every dose, on the label
No proprietary blends. No hiding an ineffective dose behind a blend name. Here is exactly what is in a scoop.
Supplement Facts
| Amount Per Serving | |
|---|---|
| Vitamin B12 (as Methylcobalamin) | 50 mcg |
| Magnesium (as Magnesium Bisglycinate Chelate) (TRAACS™) |
200 mg |
| Sodium (from Sodium Bicarbonate) | 43 mg |
| Potassium (from Potassium Bicarbonate) | 63 mg |
| L-Taurine | 1000 mg |
| L-Glycine USP | 1000 mg |
| Sodium Bicarbonate | 160 mg |
| Potassium Bicarbonate | 180 mg |
| Boron (as Bororganic Glycine) (Albion™) | 3 mg |
* Daily Value (DV) not established
Other Ingredients: Natural Flavoring (No MSG), Malic Acid (as bicarbonate reactor) and Stevia Extract (Leaf).
Panel reproduced from the printed container label, which is also shown in the product images above.
200 MG ELEMENTAL
Magnesium bisglycinate chelate
Magnesium bound to two glycine molecules, which is why it absorbs well and tends to be gentle on the stomach compared with magnesium oxide or citrate. Supports normal muscle function, nerve signaling and a normal heart rhythm.
1,000 MG
L-Taurine
A conditionally essential amino acid that acts as a cellular osmolyte, helping cells regulate their own water content. Taurine also supports normal cardiac function and calcium handling within the cell.
1,000 MG
L-Glycine USP
The simplest amino acid and one of the most useful. Glycine supports glutathione synthesis, collagen and connective tissue, restful sleep, and your body's ability to absorb and use magnesium.
160 MG / 180 MG
Sodium & potassium bicarbonate
Electrolytes delivered in their buffering form. Bicarbonate is the body's front-line pH buffer, supporting acid-base balance during and after hard training rather than simply adding chloride to your water.
BICARBONATE REACTOR
Malic acid
Does two jobs here. It reacts with the bicarbonates so the powder mixes cleanly, and as a Krebs cycle intermediate it participates directly in cellular energy production.
3 MG
Boron as bororganic glycine
A trace mineral that influences how your body uses magnesium, calcium and phosphorus. Small dose, real job: it helps the other minerals in this formula do what you took them for.
Taste & mixability
You have to actually want to drink it
A formula you avoid is a formula that does nothing. Catalyst is light, lightly tart and naturally flavored, with stevia as the only sweetener.
Light natural berry
Clean and slightly tart from the malic acid, without the heavy salty finish that comes with high-sodium formulas. No sugar, no sugar alcohols, no artificial colors.
Dissolves fast
The bicarbonate and malic acid react as it hits water, so it goes into solution quickly with a short stir or a few shakes. No grit at the bottom of the bottle.
Dilutes well
One scoop is designed for 12 to 20 oz, but it holds up stretched into a 32 oz bottle if you want something to sip all afternoon. Customers do this regularly.
How to use it
Load first, then top off
Everything above comes down to this. Catalyst is the product you use to arrive already loaded, and then you handle acute sodium losses separately when there are any.
Daily · the foundation
The loading phase that never ends
One scoop in 12 to 20 oz of water, every day, regardless of what is on the calendar.
Osmolyte content and magnesium status are built over days and weeks, not minutes. You cannot acutely load taurine into muscle or move magnesium status on the drive to the gym. Daily use is what puts the cellular side in place before the workout, the heat, or the long day ever starts. Everything below is a variation on this.
During heavy sweat · the pairing
Add sodium, keep the scoop
One scoop plus about a quarter teaspoon of quality salt in the bottle — roughly 500 to 575 mg of sodium, with everything else intact.
This is the complete answer for a two-hour ride in August, and it costs pennies. You are not choosing between the two approaches, you are stacking them: Catalyst handles the cellular side, the salt handles the volume you are actively losing.
Hot climate · year round
Living somewhere that takes it out of you
One scoop daily. Consider a second scoop on days you are outside for hours.
If you live in Florida, Texas, Arizona or anywhere the humidity does the work for you, magnesium and potassium go out in sweat right alongside the sodium everyone talks about. Daily use in a hot climate is not the exception to this product. It is the primary case for it.
Travel, training and long days
The days routine falls apart
One scoop the day before, the day of, and on arrival. Around training, before or after, or in the evening.
Pressurized cabin air is extremely dry and travel days strip routine along with hydration. On training days, taurine, glycine and magnesium support the recovery side as much as the performance side. Layer it under the Peak Performance Pre-Workout without any overlap worth worrying about.
One thing to be clear about
The loading logic here follows from the mechanism: osmolyte and magnesium status are built with consistent intake, so consistent intake is what puts the cellular side in place ahead of demand. We are describing how the formula is designed to be used and what we see in practice, not claiming a measured performance outcome for a specific event. Use it daily, pair it with sodium when you are sweating hard, and judge it over weeks rather than minutes.
Honest expectations
What the first 90 days actually look like
Minerals are not a stimulant. Nothing here is going to hit you in twenty minutes. What follows is what we see clinically, and we would rather tell you now than have you quit in week one.
Week 1
Mostly it just tastes good
Some people notice they are drinking more water, and some notice they fall asleep faster from the glycine and magnesium. Many notice nothing yet, and that is normal. Repletion takes time.
Weeks 2 to 6
The small stuff starts changing
This is where night cramps, twitchy calves and afternoon flatness commonly ease up. Sleep quality is the most frequently reported change, followed by recovery between hard training sessions.
Weeks 6 to 12
It becomes infrastructure
Magnesium status is built over months, not days. By this point most people stop thinking about it and just notice they feel steadier through long days. That is what a foundation is supposed to feel like.
Read the label first
What to look for in any electrolyte powder
Use this on us, and use it on whatever is currently in your cabinet. A good formula survives the comparison.
| What to check | Catalyst | Typical off-the-shelf electrolyte |
|---|---|---|
| Magnesium dose and form | 200 mg elemental, TRAACS bisglycinate chelate | 0 to 100 mg, often oxide or citrate, sometimes absent entirely |
| Cellular osmolytes | 1 g taurine plus 1 g glycine | None, or trace amounts too small to matter |
| Anion delivered | Bicarbonate, for acid-base buffering | Chloride, from salt or potassium chloride |
| Sweetener system | Stevia leaf extract only | Sugar, sugar alcohols, allulose, or a stack of three or more sweeteners |
| Colorants | None | Added colorants, natural or synthetic |
| Proprietary blends | None. Every dose is disclosed | Common, which hides how little of the expensive ingredients you get |
| Trace mineral claims | We do not make them. What is on the panel is what is in the scoop | "70+ trace minerals" at amounts too small to disclose individually |
| Servings per container | 60 — about two months of daily use | 30, which conveniently resets the reorder every month |
| Cost per serving | Under a dollar a scoop, and lower still on subscription | Commonly $1.00 to $1.50 per stick at direct-to-consumer pricing |
One honest note on this table: Catalyst is intentionally low in sodium at 43 mg per scoop. If you are doing long sessions in real heat, this is not your sodium source, and the section below tells you exactly what to do about that.
Honest limits
What Catalyst is not for
Most product pages will not write this section. We would rather you know the boundary up front than find it out in week three and blame the formula.
-
It is not a standalone sodium source during heavy sweat
At 43 mg of sodium per scoop, Catalyst is not what replaces the sodium pouring out of you during a two-hour ride in August. That is a pairing, not a disqualification: one scoop plus about a quarter teaspoon of quality salt covers both halves for pennies, and you arrive already loaded on the cellular side.
-
It is not a stimulant and it will not feel like one
There is no caffeine here and nothing designed to give you a hit in twenty minutes. Magnesium status is built over weeks. If you want acute training-day energy, that is what a pre-workout is for, and we make one.
-
It does not replace a mineral panel
We can tell you this formula addresses the gaps we see most often. We cannot tell you what your magnesium, potassium or sodium status actually is without measuring it. If you want the specific answer rather than the general one, get the lab work.
How it's made
Manufacturing and standardization
The part of the page that matters after you have decided the formula makes sense.
Catalyst Electrolyte Complex
SKU F343IOH · 60 servings
How this powder is made, in plain terms.
FacilityManufactured in a US FDA-registered facility
StandardGMP compliant production
TestingTesting performed at multiple stages of production
Raw materialsBranded, traceable mineral chelates — not generic oxide
The full Supplement Facts panel appears above, reproduced from the printed container label.
Proof, not promises
What we will and will not claim
- Every active dose is printed on the panel. No proprietary blends anywhere in this formula.
- Branded, traceable mineral chelates from Albion, not commodity oxide.
- Manufactured in a US FDA-registered, GMP-compliant facility with testing at multiple stages of production.
- Stevia only. No sugar, no sugar alcohols, no artificial sweeteners, no added colors.
- We will not tell you this replaces heavy sweat losses. It is not built for that, and we say so on this page.
- We will not tell you it works in twenty minutes. Mineral repletion is measured in weeks.
Works well with
Where Catalyst fits in the rest of your routine
Catalyst is the mineral and hydration layer. These three sit on top of it cleanly.
Pure Creatine
Creatine pulls water into muscle tissue, which is exactly the job Catalyst supports from the mineral side. The two belong together for anyone training seriously.
View Pure Creatine →Peak Performance Pre-Workout
For training-day output and acute energy. Catalyst is the daily foundation; the pre-workout is what you reach for on the days you are going hard.
View Pre-Workout →MitoHealth
Cellular energy production at the mitochondrial level. Catalyst handles the mineral environment those pathways run in. They reinforce each other.
View MitoHealth →
"The category argues about sodium because sodium is easy to argue about. It is one number, it fits on a packet, and you can always add more of it than the other guy. Meanwhile the pattern I see in lab work year after year is not a sodium problem. It is magnesium. It is recovery. It is sleep. It is mineral status nobody bothered to measure. Catalyst will not win a milligram contest, and it was never built to. We built it to close the gap the contest ignores, and it is what I mix every evening."
Dr. Andreas Boettcher, B.S., D.C., C.F.M.P.
Founder · It's Only Halftime
Ironman Triathlete · Master's Men's Physique Competitor · Medication-Free at 56 · 33 Years of Clinical Practice
Questions, answered
Straight answers
Why is the sodium so low compared to other electrolyte brands?
Because we built this for daily mineral support, not for replacing heavy sweat losses. Most people reading this already consume plenty of sodium and are short on magnesium. Adding another 500 to 1,000 mg of sodium to their day solves a problem they do not have while ignoring the one they do.
If you want the higher-sodium approach for a specific hard session, that is a legitimate use case. It just is not what this formula was designed to be.
What if I am training long in the heat and sweating heavily?
Two parts. First, use it daily in the days leading up so you go in already loaded on the cellular side, because that is the part you cannot fix on the spot. Second, during the session itself, add sodium: about a quarter teaspoon of quality salt in the bottle alongside your scoop gives you roughly 500 to 575 mg of sodium plus everything in this formula, for pennies.
We would rather tell you that than pretend 43 mg of sodium covers a two-hour ride in August. For endurance work in real heat, sodium needs are individual and can be substantial, and no single powder answers that for everyone.
Is it really cheaper than the stick packs I'm buying now?
At one serving a day, yes, by a meaningful margin against direct-to-consumer stick-pack pricing — the arithmetic is laid out near the top of this page. Two things to be straight about: if you buy sticks in a warehouse-club bundle, the gap narrows considerably, and Catalyst is a tub with a scoop, so it trades the convenience of a single-serve packet for the price and the servings count.
Run the numbers on whatever you are buying now. Divide the price by the servings. That is the only comparison that matters.
Is there a loading phase?
In a sense the whole thing is a loading phase. There is no separate high-dose front-load period the way there is with creatine, but the formula only does its job if the osmolytes and magnesium are already on board when you need them. That means daily use is the loading protocol.
If you have a specific event coming, run your normal scoop for the two to three days prior plus one the morning of, then add sodium during the event itself.
Can I take two scoops in a day?
Yes, and on a long day outdoors in real heat that is reasonable. Two scoops puts you at 400 mg of magnesium, which is within a normal daily intake range for most adults but is enough that you should pay attention to how you tolerate it. Spread them out rather than taking both at once.
If you have reduced kidney function or take medication that affects potassium or magnesium handling, talk to your physician before doubling anything.
When is the best time to take it?
There is no wrong time, but many people prefer late afternoon or evening. Magnesium bisglycinate and glycine both support relaxation and restful sleep, so the back half of the day is where the formula does some of its best work. If you train in the morning, taking it around your session is also fine.
Will 200 mg of magnesium upset my stomach?
Bisglycinate is the chelated form specifically chosen because it is well tolerated. It does not have the laxative reputation that magnesium oxide and magnesium citrate have earned at similar doses.
That said, tolerance is individual. If you are sensitive to magnesium, start with a half scoop for a week and work up.
Does it contain sugar or artificial sweeteners?
Neither. Stevia leaf extract is the only sweetener. There is no sugar, no sucralose, no acesulfame potassium, no sugar alcohols and no added colors of any kind.
Will it break a fast?
It depends on how strict your definition is. There are two grams of free amino acids in a scoop, and amino acids are not metabolically inert. For most people practicing time-restricted eating, that is a non-issue. For a strict fasting protocol, take it in your eating window.
I take blood pressure or kidney medication. Is this appropriate for me?
Talk to your prescribing physician first. The potassium content here is modest at 63 mg per serving, well below what a single banana provides, but if you take potassium-sparing diuretics, ACE inhibitors or ARBs, or if you have reduced kidney function, your doctor should be the one making that call.
The same applies to magnesium if you have impaired kidney function. Magnesium can also interfere with the absorption of certain antibiotics, including tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones, and with bisphosphonates, so separate those medications from your scoop by a few hours and confirm the timing with your pharmacist.
Can I use it alongside your pre-workout or creatine?
Yes, and they complement each other well. Catalyst is the daily mineral layer underneath everything else. If you also take the Peak Performance Pre-Workout, note that it contains its own sodium, magnesium and potassium, so on training days you are stacking the two, not doubling up on anything problematic.
The bottom line
Stop paying stick-pack prices for half the physiology.
You can keep buying the powder with the biggest number on the front of the packet, at a dollar-fifty a serving, thirty at a time. Or you can put the mineral most people are actually short on into your day, in the form that absorbs, at a dose that works, for under a dollar a scoop. Sixty servings. Two months. One decision, and you stop thinking about hydration.
It's only halftime. Start hydrating like the second half matters.
TRAACS™ and Albion™ are registered trademarks of Balchem Corporation (Albion Laboratories, Inc.).
Manufactured in the United States in an FDA-registered, GMP-compliant facility. Pricing and cost-per-serving figures shown on this page reflect current listed pricing and are subject to change.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Consult your physician before beginning any new supplement, particularly if you are pregnant, nursing, taking prescription medication, or managing a diagnosed health condition.
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