Most exercisers go to the fitness room with a big bottle of mineral water. It’s common sense of drinking water is critical during exercise, cause most energy such as body fluids and electrolytes would go away during that time. The proportion of the fluid inside the body is different between all ages: 70%~80% for the baby, 60%~70% for the grown men, 50%~60% for the grown women, and around 45% for the old. So it’s especially important to supplement sufficient water.
How much should the exercisers drink?
The observations showed that athlete’s sweat output each hour is more than 2L, or even 3L~4L in a short time. Before the 2003 Boston Marathon, the USA Track and Field Association announced a guide of fluid supplement to advise the athletes to drink enough fluids as a 100% loss amount in case of the reduction of hyponatremia.
Under the normal temperature, the athlete, the farmer, the soldier, and the builder who have many physical movements should pay more attention to fluid supplements, some experts make it clear.
What kind of fluid should they drink?
A bitter joke from the fitness enthusiasts: ”A fitness guy has been lost in the desert for 3 days without water. However, when you give him a bottle of drink, he will first check the nutrition facts”. From this joke, we can understand how important it is to drink the correct fluid for a fitness person.
Besides the fluid, sweat output would also make the body lose electrolytes, whose major component is the minerals including Ca, Na, K, Mg, etc. The principle is to supplement what is lost.
Pure water
Drinking pure water can increase the fluid but without any electrolytes. Even worse, an experiment from the papers published by WHO showed pure water would lead to two consequences:
- Drinking more water leads to more urine, more extracellular fluid, and more lost electrolytes, which makes the physical condition be under an imbalanced state. That’s why some people think the more thirsty drink.
- This experiment works on mice. It shows the bones were reduced for the mice that drank pure water only, under the same dietary standard. Cause it can’t get enough Ca from the pure water.
Later, the result of the human trial is the same as the animal experiment. The German Nutrition Association got a similar result and alert people not to drink pure water often. The annual average amount of drinking mineral water per person is 170 liters in 2019, which is the second of all over the world. All the above, most researches have shown that pure water is not suitable for long-term and large-scale use.
So what on earth kind of water should we drink?
Self-discipline athletes usually choose mineral water as their only drink. The premium mineral water comes from nature, which has lots of trace elements, minerals, and without sugar or calories.
Meanwhile, some energy drinks become the new darling of athletes. So which is better to drink during exercise? The INCA advises the mineral water is workable to get back enough fluids during exercise and the energy drinks help with activity greater than an hour.
How to drink correctly?
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Be care of dehydration if drinking less
How to measure and check if you have sufficient water? Some people drink water once they feel thirsty. When the thirst center gives the command, that means the physical body is under a severe water shortage. But the thirst center would become insensitive as people grow older. Be careful if you have those symptoms: thirsty, dark yellow urine, dry lips, and headache.
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Be care of water intoxication if drinking excessively
Excessive water would reduce the solubility of gastric juice. This would weaken the sterilization function of gastric acid, which is not good for digestion. A good gastrointestinal function is critical for a fitness person.
During the marathon race, the related leader always reminds the athletes to avoid excessive drinking. Otherwise, the athletes would lose more electrolytes, which cause cramp to increase the burden on the heart.
- Try to supplement the fluids per 10 minutes.
Frequently, but with a low amount. Drink water as your schedule, don’t wait until you feel thirsty. One hour before exercise, do remember to drink moderate water. The most important is that we need to develop a good habit of drinking water actively.
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