Sport Drinks – Workout Hydrated

Sport Drinks – Workout Hydrated

Once we found out how much we sweat through our test, we can start looking into how to drink in preparation to the workout.
The daily amount of water intake is fairly personal, since it’s based on our body mass, diet, external environment (hot, cold, humid, dry, high altitude, low altitude etc). Diet can actually be of great aid, since a lot foods are actually water based, containing up to 96% of water!

Workout hydrated

Generally speaking for endurance sports the recommendations are to :
1. Drink half litre of water before you start (within 2 hours from the start of training)
2. Make sure to drink 250 ml every 15 minutes during the workout
3. Keep the intake up during the 30 to 90 minutes after the end of the workout (depending on the duration and the intensity of the workout)
To avoid any indigestion problems, don’t exceed water intake over 1.2 litres per hour.

Dehydrating drinks.

These guide lines can be completed by a few pointers about what to avoid..

Caffeine.
In 2014 a study (Sophie C. Killer,Andrew K. Blannin ,Asker E. Jeukendrup) conducted on free living population (i.e. not inside a lab) found that coffee and caffeine didn’t have a remarkable influence on hydration. The study was one of many confirming that with 24 hours the body doesn’t get affected by its intake. Though, it’s also common knowledge that caffeine does stimulate the bladder shortly after intake. It is reasonnable to suggest caution in heavy intakes before going for a long training sessions as this can easiliy result in water loss on short term period.

Alcool.
On this proofs are pretty univoque. Alcool does dehydrate and it does so in every form of intake, wether it’s beer or wine or spirits. The effect of the dehydration can be from mild to strong, depending on the dosages and on the dilution of the volumes.
In other words, it is strongly recommended to limit alcool intake, drink plenty of water with it and after it and limit high intensity cardio sessions after the big night out.

Eating like pigs. It’s not a drink, but it goes with what we were saying about water rich food. It’s not a coincidence that foods that comes in tins, boxes or animals (i dare you to eat uncooked meat) didn’t make it to the list. Eating dense, processed food requires the body to actually pull water into the digestive system in order to get the job done.
Bottom line, eat light and fruit/veg based if you want to maximize the workout.
No water gun fight for your this afternoon otherwise!

Keep an eye on the rest of our series!
Sport Drinks -Measure water loss