Category: Sports

Exercise: How much water should you drink?

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Want to pump more weights, run a longer distance or be a better soccer player?

“Practice makes perfect” is one of the best pieces of advice out there for anyone looking to improve their performance, but there’s another habit that all athletes follow – drinking cold water while exercising. It’s simple advice that’s sometimes forgotten.

The warmth you feel while working out is your body working harder, which raises your core body temperature above its normal 37°C. To regulate your body temperature, you sweat. But when you sweat profusely, your body sheds water and electrolytes and once you lose more than two per cent of your body weight, you’re dehydrated and your performance takes a hit.

The warmer your body temperature, the harder it is to focus and combat fatigue. Ignoring the symptoms can result in heat stroke, which is more likely if you’re exercising on a hot day or in a humid environment.

One study discovered that taking sips of cold water before and after your workout improves your endurance by about 23 per cent since less heat accumulates in your body. If you’ve watched the Olympics, you know how much of a difference one or two seconds can make in speed skating event, a 100-kilometre race or a hockey game.

Like many things, moderation is key. Drink too much and your stomach cramps. Drink too little and your body loses its ability to function properly.

The amount of water you drink varies based on many different factors, such as how much a person sweats and how much electrolytes they’ve lost, the type of exercise, the length of exercise time, the weather, the equipment used, metabolism and heat acclimatization.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, if a 154 pound (70 kg) person does moderate exercise, such as a brisk walk or slow jog, they should drink about 0.6 litres of water per hour.

If you take it up a notch with high intensity exercise, you’ll need to monitor your fluid intake before, during and after your exercise.

Pre-workout: You should be drinking liquids hours before you lift your first dumbbell since this helps your body absorb fluids and retain normal urine levels. Don’t feel thirsty? Eat a small meal or salty snack to encourage your thirst.

How much water should you drink? Before exercising, drink five to ten millilitres (mL) of water for one kilogram of your body weight. This means someone who’s 154 pounds should drink 350 to 700 mL at least four hours before working out.

During workout: Each person loses water at a different rate. To figure out the amount of water you should be drinking, weigh yourself before and after you exercise and replenish your body’s fluids with drinks packed with electrolytes. Carbohydrates will also help balance your electrolytes and boost your performance.

How much water should you drink? Drink six to twelve mL of liquids for one kilogram of your body weight for each hour of exercise. A 154-pound person should drink 400 to 800 mL per hour, which is about three to four servings.

Post-workout: Restore your body’s hydration faster by ingesting drinks and snacks with sodium.

How much water should you drink? For every one kilogram of body mass lost after exercising, drink 1.5 litres of fluid, unless you’ve been working out for hours and replenishing your fluids at the same time.

Don’t worry about having enough hot or cold water stored away with the right water cooler solution. You’ll be saving money and helping the environment too by regularly refilling your water bottle.

Why water is important to World Cup players

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The World Cup showcased soccer at its finest with teams duking it out in matches in Brazil over the last four weeks.

The event happens every four years, but before it begins, athletes participate in rigorous preparation. Soccer players focus much of their training on their dribbling and mental prep, but come game time their food and water regimen goes a long way.

Water breaks for the first time

History was made at this year’s World Cup when a water break was imposed for the first time ever during a match. According to ABC News, temperatures soared to a blistering 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius) with a humidity index of 70 per cent during the game between US and Portugal, making it difficult for players on both sides who were sweating within minutes of the match’s start. A one-minute water break was called 40 minutes into the game to allow players to rehydrate and cool off before continuing to play.

FIFA was ordered by the Brazilian Court to implement water breaks within 30 minutes of each half when the temperature climbed higher than 32 degrees Celsius on the Wet Bulb Globe temperature index, which measures the amount of heat stress. Although FIFA has its own guidelines related to water breaks, the court felt the ruling was necessary to ensure they followed through. If they didn’t, FIFA organizers would pay the price with a hefty 200,000 Reals ($96,738 CAD) fine for each match.

What causes cramping?

England’s players saw firsthand how not drinking enough water can hurt their game. It was a shame to watch players suffering from cramps during the country’s match up against Italy where the intense humidity in Manaus, a city within the Amazon rainforest, forced them to tone down their playing intensity. The English team’s manager, Roy Hodgson, admitted that players cramped during the second half from lack of hydration. “We’ve worked very hard on that (hydration). We still did cramp up quite a lot,” Hodgson told MLSSoccer.com. “But the tempo of the game was quite fast … It was played at the proper tempo and the heat and humidity did take its toll.”

It’s a little known fact, but it’s common for athletes to be dehydrated, says a Kinesiology professor at the University of Connecticut. If you’ve lost one or two per cent of your body weight to dehydration, it isn’t a big deal, but more than that and your performance takes a hit. England served as an unfortunate example of that.

When dehydrated, the body works harder than it needs to; the heart has to work harder to pump blood to the brain, skin and muscles, and the more weight lost to dehydration, the higher the body’s temperature will rise. For every one per cent of weight lost, the body heats up by 0.15 to 0.20 degrees Celsius; and that’s something you don’t want.

For sports such as track and field or baseball, it’s easier to take a break and drink water, but the same can’t be said about the faster-paced soccer. Also, if you’re from a country that isn’t as humid, the situation is only exacerbated, which was the case for players from dryer/more arid European countries.

A study published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine found that during a 90-minute soccer match, the average amount of sweat ranged from 1,672 to 3,138 ml, but soccer players only replenished about (about 30 ml) of fluid for each pound of body weight a day to keep their bodies in tip top shape.

Proper hydration can make or break a team in any sport; once muscle cramps set in, it’s difficult to recover quickly. After the match, athletes need to take part in contrast bathing, which is when they alternate between bathing in warm water and then cold water for short periods of time to relieve pain and reduce muscle damage. Rest is also a must on the agenda in order to give their bodies the necessary time to recuperate; but this reduces their time to prep for the next match, a disadvantage most players can’t afford.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget the importance of drinking water, especially when you’re competing to win. If you don’t enjoy water’s taste, you’re not alone; why not try a few ways to make it a little bit more bearable? Liquid water enhancers with fun flavours like iced tea or fruit punch will take plain ol’ H2O to the next level and there are also natural ways that pack a flavourful punch and deliver some needed nutrients.

How to avoid dehydration this summer

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Many people aren’t drinking enough water during a day and they may not realize the effects it has on them.

Recently, Miami Heat’s LeBron James had to be carried off the court during  an NBA finals game due to muscle cramping. The air conditioner broke down during the first game and temperatures climbed above 32.2 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit). After James was pulled off the court, the Miami Heat lost the game. The NBA superstar suffered from dehydration, which led to the painful muscle cramps that left him immobilized. According to the Miami Herald, after the game, his body needed to be hooked up to two bags of fluids, along with taking salt tablets and potassium pills to restore his electrolyte balance.

“My body just shut down,” James told the Miami Herald. “Basically my body said, ‘OK, enough jumping for you for tonight. You’ve had enough.’ Nothing I could do about it.”

What’s dehydration?

Dehydration occurs when the fluids in the body aren’t replenished as quickly as they are lost. When exercising or spending time outdoors in warm weather, people are more likely to experience this since they lose fluids faster through sweat, which is what happened with James. When a person sweats, they are losing more than water, they’re also using electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium and chloride.

Athletes are more likely to experience muscle cramps from dehydration, which leaves the person in excruciating pain and, at times, temporarily unable to use the cramped muscle.

Symptoms of dehydration differ based on its severity. If you have a mild dehydration, some symptoms you’ll notice include sleepiness, exhaustion, thirst,  headache, constipation, dizzy or light-headedness. If you have a more severe case, symptoms can include extreme thirst, sunken eyes,  fever, shriveled skin, low blood pressure, rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat and very little urination when you use the bathroom.

How much water do you need?

Most people are familiar with the age old advice recommending that we drink eight cups of water a day. While that’s close to how much you need, both men and women require a different amount of fluids to stay hydrated. According to the Institute of Medicine, Men should drink about 3.7 litres, while women should drink about 2.7 litres each day.

Note, however, that this is only the recommended amount and things like physical exertion, age, height and weight, among other factors, play into how much water you should be drinking on a daily basis. For example, if you’re exercising or out in the heat you’ll need to drink more liquids since you’ll be losing your water at a faster rate. But, to avoid cramping during a workout, take small sips more frequently.

The easiest way to gauge how hydrated you are is to look at the colour of your urine when you go to the washroom; the lighter it is the more hydrate you are. Dr. Michael Farber explains to MSN Health & Fitness that if your urine comes out colourless similar to how water looks, it means that you’ve been staying hydrated. Whereas, if your urine comes out in a yellow-brown colour similar to the colour of iced tea, this means you’re not drinking enough since your urine is more concentrated.

The majority of a person’s fluids (80 per cent) comes from water or other beverages, while only 20 per cent of it comes from food. Stay hydrated and wherever you go this summer, make sure you pack some water with you.

Strauss Water Canada’s WaterBar is an easy solution for convenient and clean drinking water this summer. Our triple water filtration and purification process kills 99.9% of micro-organisms and bacteria and absorbs the chlorine that can impair the taste of water. Our WaterBars use an activated carbon filter, a micro-mesh filter and ultra violet light to deliver safe, great tasting water, all the while maintaining essential mineral elements including calcium and magnesium.