Keeping your body hydrated is a very essential part of the process of sports nutrition. Your body needs fuel in the form of fluids. It is a very essential part of your well being and life in general.
If you do not have enough water in your body at any given time, your body will ultimately suffer. It is a fact of life that can not be denied.
As an athlete, not providing yourself with the necessary amount of water, or limiting it, can cause you to have numerous problems including the risk of serious health complications.
On top of that, your game will suffer without the right amount of water.
Without taking you too far back to science class, think about the serious job that water has in your life and in your body.
Can you live without water? No. When it comes to sports nutrition, it is nothing short of essential. How water helps in sports nutrition is important for you to know and to practice.
When your body burns energy, it produces heat. That heat races through your body.
If you think of your body as a car, if the engine gets too hot, it can not perform as it should. Therefore, you will find a way to keep your engine cool, water is a necessity.
Additionally, your body needs to have these fluids to allow you to carry all the nutrients throughout your body. Since you are working on developing muscles, enhancing your physical characteristics, you realize that your body needs those nutrients to get where they need to go.
For that, they need water to push them through.
Water helps your body to grow, but also helps you to repair cells as you work hard at achieving your goals.
If you lose 2% of your body’s fluid, your overall performance will considerably drop.
If you lose 5% of your body’s fluid, you can find yourself facing heat exhaustion, which is not good. Now, you are barely moving.
If you lose 10% of your body’s fluid, you are at risk for heat stroke and even death through dehydration. In other words, game over.
Do you think you can just drink a glass of water when you are thirsty? Thirst is actually the first sign of dehydration.
If you get to the point of being thirsty, you have already lost at least one percent of your body’s fluids and are already putting your body at risk.
There is not too much, drink more than enough to quench your thirst. Do not stop when you are no longer thirsty either.
It is essential that you are always keeping those fluids moving in your body, pumping energy to your cells so that you can perform.
There are plenty of misconceptions out there about how much water is enough water for you to have in your body.
The fact is that your body should not be restricted during your practice, your warm up or during your game.
Your body needs water consistently throughout.
This is a poor attitude to have. When your body tells you it is in need of fluid, it’s too far gone to keep performance up. Instead, your mind needs to think, “I need water soon.”
Now, if you are a conditioned athlete, well on your way to success, your body will need additional water than that of someone that is, well, farther behind.
Here are some basic things that you need to keep in mind when it comes to water.
Remember, small, more often.
This will help to get rid of the heat in your body but will not sit heavily in your stomach.
Therefore, you need to insure that you follow good hydration steps even when weighing in is important.
Drinks like this include any type of sports drink that has caffeine as well as things like soda pop, teas, coffee and even foods with high amounts of caffeine.
It should be fairly clear and there should be a good amount of it.
As you can see, we really have pushed the word water here. That’s because water is the best type of fluid for you to consume.
Yet, there are many various sports drinks on the market that claim they too can help you.
When considering whether or not you need to drink sports drinks, you need to consider what your practice has been and what your body needs.
To Drink Water: Most of the times you will only need to drink water. Your body does not need fuel from the fluid you drink.
You should drink water whenever you are enjoying a standard workout or game.
Generally, if your physical activity is that of fewer than 90 minutes at a time, you should only need to drink water.
To Drink Sports Drinks: Now, if your body will have to go for a longer period of time, or you have to compete quite often (several games in just a short amount of time) then you need to consider sports drinks.
When drinking sports drinks, you want to insure that you find those that contain carbohydrates and electrolytes. Your body will need these in these stressful situations.
The sports drink you choose should have less than eight percent in total solids which includes both carbohydrates as well as electrolytes.
If you go with something that has more, it is not easily absorbed into your body, delaying any benefit it may have. Dilute sports drinks by 50% if they contain over this amount.
Avoid fructose sports drinks. Look at the label. If you see it has fructose as the only source of carbohydrates, then you will want to avoid it. It will take your body longer to use these products and delay results even further.
You can use juices at the same time that you would use the sports drinks, only during long, hard sessions of endurance.
If you do use these products to help you to gain back some of your body’s necessary power, you will want to dilute them. To do this, dilute an equal about of fruit juice to the same amount of water.
You will do this because standard fruit juices have a high concentration of carbohydrates. This amount is far too much for your body to use easily.
You should consider fruit juices such as orange juice to refuel on.
When you use these tips to help you keep your body fueled, you will find yourself completely ready to perform at a high level. It is necessary to insure you provide optimum levels of hydration as it applies to sports nutrition.
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