Hydration for exercise

Knowing how to hydrate for exercise is always important for your best performance and quickest recovery, but now that the heat of summer is here, it's important for safety as well.

Dehydration stresses the body. It causes your body temperature to rise, causes your heart to beat faster, burns more glycogen(your body's energy source), makes it harder to concentrate, and make exercise feel harder.

A water deficit with an electrolyte deficit can also increase the chance that you will cramp during or after exercise.

If you find yourself getting dizzy when you stand from a sitting or lying position later in the day after vigorous exercise, this could be another sign of dehydration. Water is the main component of your blood, and if your blood volume drops from dehydration, your blood pressure can also drop. Drink more water to replenish your blood volume and get your blood pressure back to normal.

Hydration starts before you exercise. Try drinking a couple of glasses of water in the 4 hour leading up to exercise. The goal would be to finish early enough so that the excess fluid has time to pass through your body so you can "dispose" of it. Pre exercise drink can be water or a caffeinated beverage. The caffeine can make the exercise session feel easier.

The easiest rule to follow for drinking during exercise is to follow your thirst. Drink when you are thirsty. For exercise lasting up to 60 minutes or in air conditioning, that is probably all you need to know. But if you would like, it can get somewhat scientific.

To be sure you are getting the best results from your hydration program, you need to find your sweat loss. This will tell you what your water deficiency is during exercise. If you are drinking 10 ounces of water during an hour of exercise, but losing 25 ounces through sweat, you have a deficiency of 15 ounces.

Finding out your sweat loss is actually pretty easy and something you won't need a sports lab to do. Start by stripping down to your chonies and stepping on the scale. Write down your weight, you'll need this number later. Next, do your normal exercise. If you want to find out what your sweat loss is, don't have anything to drink during or after your exercise. If you want to find out if you are drinking enough to avoid a water loss, it's okay to drink as much as you normally would during exercise. After exercise, strip down to your chonies again and weigh yourself once more.

A pound of water weighs about 8 pounds. Since there are 8 pints in a gallon of water, each pound you lost during exercise is equal to 1 pint of sweat loss if you didn't drink, or 1 pint of water deficiency if you did drink.

So as an example, if you weighed 165 pounds before your exercise, and weighed 163 pounds after exercising, you lost 2 pints, or one quart of water through sweat. Your goal would be to drink this amount of fluid during exercise.

Running in he afternoon during the summer, I have measured as much as a half gallon of sweat loss during an hour run. That's a lot of water to try drinking during a run(64 ounces) and unfortunately is probably not possible. We are are limited by our body's ability to absorb fluids. Our bodies can only absorb about 30 ounces of fluid per hour. So if your sweat loss is greater than that, you will be fighting a losing battle with any hydration program. Fortunately, you will only see water loss like that during intense exercise or in intense heat. If it's that hot, you might be better of just staying inside and running on the treadmill.

For exercise lasting less than 45 minutes, I think you will be okay just drinking water. For longer exercise sessions, you need to focus on replenishing more that just water. You will need to replace some sodium (this will also help stimulate thirst if you have trouble remembering to drink), some potassium to replace what is lost in sweat, and carbohydrates (sugar) for energy. Sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade have these ingredients already included. If you are like me and your stomach doesn't do well drinking these sugary drinks during exercise, another option is to drink water only, and have a gel every 45 minutes during exercise. Gels such as Gu and Clif Shots have the carbs and electrolytes built in and are easy to carry if you are running or cycling.

One caution about sports drinks. They are for sports only! They are good to have during and right after exercise, but they are not healthy alternatives to soft drinks. The calories you would get from drinking these drinks throughout the day are just as bad as drinks from soda. They offer no nutrition outside of exercise.

If you drink so much during exercise that you have water sloshing around in your stomach, you are drinking too much too fast. All this will do is make you uncomfortable at best, and nauseous at worst.

One more note about drinking during exercise: as a rule, drink to hydrate, pour to cool. Drinking water to cool yourself doesn't have much of an effect. Pouring water on your head, on your back, and over your shoulders has a much greater effect on cooling you off.

When exercise is over, it's time to start rehydrating for your next exercise session. If you know what your water deficiency is, you should concentrate on drinking 50% more fluid than you lost. You need the extra fluid to account for what will be lost in your urine. If you lose lots of water, you will need to be more aggressive to replace your water. If you start your next workout with a hydration deficit, you will be starting with a disadvantage and more likely to feel the ill effects of dehydration. Sipping fluids over time maximizes fluid retention over drinking a large amount at one sitting. The other things you lose in sweat such as sodium can be made up through your normal meals, fruits, and vegetables. The carbs can be replace with a diet of whole grains.

Finally, don't forget that the body has it's own way of letting you know if you drinking enough. If your urine is dark, you are dehydrated. If it is clear or a light yellow color, you are probably properly hydrated.

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