Rehydration strategy before, during and after exercise

Photo by Maria Di Lorenzo

Originally Posted On: https://belloyoga.com/blogs/news/rehydration-strategy-before-during-and-after-exercise

Timely rehydration can help us maintain the goal of long-term exercise, improve exercise performance and maintain personal physical health. But how to drink water effectively??

Why hydrate?
It’s very simple, because we will adjust the surface temperature by sweating during exercise. The main component of sweat is 98-99% of water, and sodium chloride (ie: salt) is about 300 mg / 100 ml. In addition, 1 to 2% is a small amount of urea, lactic acid, fatty acids, etc. The main electrolytes in sweat are sodium and chloride ions, and a small amount of potassium and calcium.
If the body does not have enough water, it can affect our performance during exercise. Proper water supplementation will help:

Improve metabolism and exercise performance
Speed up the recovery of physiological functions after exercise
Maintains the body at optimal temperature
Assist the body to achieve optimal physical fitness
Helps sweat and detox

When do you need to rehydrate?
During the three stages of exercise, that is, before, during and after exercise must be hydrated.
The temperature of drinking water is preferably close to room temperature. Drinking ice water after intense exercise can easily stimulate the respiratory and digestive systems and affect the expansion of the body. And overheated water can easily burn the mouth, esophagus, and cause slow absorption in the stomach.

Before exercise

One of the simplest and most common methods is by feeling. If you feel obviously thirsty, you need to hydrate in advance. In addition to feeling, we can also judge by observing the color of urine. When the urine is pale yellow, it means that the body has enough water. When the urine color is dark, it means that there is insufficient water in the body. (Except for conditions that affect the color of urine, such as during medication) Urine color is the expression of metabolites in the body in the urine. If you drink less water, the metabolites will cause concentration and deepen urine color.

In motion

The body’s water is discharged with sweat. At this time, we often feel very thirsty and want to drink water. But remember that at this time, we should not drink too much at one time. Drinking too fast or too much may cause serious consequences such as cramps. Too much water can dilute the electrolytes in the blood and cause hyponatremia, which can cause cramps.

At this moment, beside drinking water, you can also drink some sports drinks appropriately. Under long-time exercise, the content of sodium is the largest in the sweat that is lost, and the loss of sodium and chloride ions will cause the body to fail to adjust the physiological changes such as body fluids and temperature in a timely manner. At this time, just replenishing water may not be sufficient to deal with electrolyte loss.

After exercise

15 minutes to 30 minutes after exercise, remember to take a break and rehydrate.
Once serious water shortage, feel muscle weakness, nausea and vomiting, you can add a half spoon of salt in drinking water to replace the loss of salt. The correct speed of drinking water should be small sip, small sip and slowly. In this way, the body can achieve good absorption effect.

For a small amount of sweat loss, the electrolyte stored in the body will be automatically released into the blood to maintain the constant electrolyte in the blood, so you only need to replenish water after a short period of exercise or sweating.

In addition to sports drinks containing electrolytes, ordinary fruits and juices are also foods with high sugar content, which are also very helpful for physical recovery after exercise and maintaining electrolyte levels. You don’t have to stick to sports drinks after losing sweat.

How much water is enough?
After exercising, our body lose a lot of sweat and body fluids. It is necessary to replenish the drinking water in a timely and appropriate manner so that the body can maintain the best normal operation. The ideal golden rule is to replenish 25% to 50% more drinking water than it is lost.

How to calculate that 25% -50%?
The difference in body weight before and after exercise is an estimate the amount of water and body fluids lost during exercise. The difference in weight multiplied by 1.25 or 1.5 is the recommended amount of water that needs to be replenished, that is, for every 1 kg of body weight lost, at least 1250-1500ml (1.25-1.5 liters) of fluid can be added to correct dehydration.

Generally, before exercising or before going out in summer, you can drink 200 ~ 400ml of liquid containing electrolyte. During exercise, we should replenish 150-250ml of electrolyte-containing sports drink every 15-20 minutes, until exercise or sweating stops. The rest of the rehydration can be done in 6 to 12 hours. At this time, rehydration should be based on drinking water.

Sports drinks contain a lot of glucose, electrolytes and water, so they can also be used as a substitute for drinking water. But it is not advisable to drink too much; when not exercising, it is best to drink less, because it contains more sugar, electrolytes and calories that the body does not need at this time.

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