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The importance of drinking water
Getting to training without drinking water has very negative effects on the whole body. Not only does the risk of losing focus and concentration quickly increase (which for example if you lift loads or perform difficult multi-joint exercises also becomes dangerous), but above all the heart suffers and not a little (a dehydration at 0.5% increases cardiac fatigue, while at 1% it reduces aerobic endurance). If you go up you get to figures like 3% all the muscle groups end up suffering while at 4% motor skills are really compromised and you are exposed to risk of cramps, momentary spasms that require you to stop in the execution of the movements.
If we reach 5% or 6% we are really on high percentages and in addition to cramps we risk one exhaustion important, a global fatigue. Skeletal muscles need water and joints must remain well lubricated through proper hydration, even better when combined with vitamin supplementation (magnesium for example prevents muscle fatigue). Not to go into the state of dehydration o hypohydration it is advisable to start drinking at least 1 or 2 hours before training begins. The way in which we eat is also very important: it is better not to season dishes too much and give up habits that compromise health such as smoking, sugar and alcohol, real “vitamin and water thieves”. Plan also with products based on flour and yeast. If you want to understand your personal hydration needs you can multiply each kilo of your weight by 30ml, the final result will be the water to be taken for proper daily hydration (example, if I weigh 60kg, my daily requirement will correspond to 180ml of water to be taken per day). The result of the calculation obviously it has an average value and does not take into account the calorie expenditure of each according to their training program, biotype and food plan.
How to drink while exercising
Before understanding how to drink during training, you must choose what kind of physical work you want to carry out. If we take the case of an aerobic work (tabata, zumba, choreographic step, multi-joint exercises choreographed with music), we go to consume a lot of energy and lose a lot of fluids. In the case of this type of training it is better not to “fill up with water” by drinking in excess to avoid a sense of nausea given by the stresses to which the stomach is subjected during the effort. You must be sure that you have been drinking up to 1 hour before training. Half an hour before training it is then advisable to take about 300 ml of water. You must then continue to drink up to 250 – 300 ml of water every 20 minutes for the 2 or 3 hours following the effort made. Before and after an intense workout you can choose to introduce dietary supplements based on amino acids and B vitamins.
If physical exertion does not belong to the purely aerobic category and falls into the anaerobic or mixed sector, it is advisable to continue drinking about 250 ml of water in small sips with regular intervals of 10-15 minutes to also recover the glycogen stores. Carrying your own water bottle allows you to safeguard the planet, maintain hygiene, save money and even create your own drink with diluted powdered supplements. Recall that drink water too cold it blocks the system, hurts the stomach and does not respect the thermoregulation of the body.
Trying to drink even after training guarantees you to continue to dispose of toxins, keeps the metabolism active, contributes to weight loss, guarantees the continuous transport of nutrients to the cells. Drinking when you feel the urge sometimes means being late on time, you should always stay hydrated, avoiding doing it when your mouth is dry and tired. A very important diagnostic test related to tissues and hydration: bioimpedance analysis. This test is used to measure changes in body composition in relation to sports training. The results highlight the state of hydration and soft tissues and allow you to understand how to continue in the training path and what kind of effort to prefer based on your fat, muscle and lean mass and on the basis of water needs. If we want to conduct a personal empirical verification we can see the state of the urine and their color. A good hydration guarantees a straw yellow color, if they are not too colored it means that you are drinking enough, but if the color is dark yellow the body signals a certain level of dehydration which must be remedied immediately. Drinking correctly and consistently also means eating less, feeling full and full earlier and gaining a lot of energy. If you drink water from plastic bottles, try to make sure they haven’t spent too much time in the sun, as the sun’s rays change the taste of the water and cause the plastic to release toxic substances.
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