Hydrating For Peak Performance by Renee Hunt NWS

We have all heard the importance of staying hydrated. The reasons are endless. A few of these reasons in the “health world” include improved digestion, glowing skin and an aide to weight loss. The world of athletics, particularly high performance athletics, also places high value on hydration. It is an area that is extremely important, but one that is overlooked even by seasoned players and coaches alike. When a players performance is sub-par, whether the athlete was “under-hydrated”, rarely comes into question. Instead, fingers are pointed toward lack of game preparation or having a head that “was not in the game.” Unbeknownst to most, these are classic signs of dehydration. Recent studies have shown that approximately half of athletes are dehydrated.

A few interesting water facts: 1. an adult body is approximately 60% water 2. a child’s body is approximately 75% water 3. our brain is approximately 75% water and 4. our muscles are approximately 75% water. 5. Depending on the activity level, we can lose 5-7 cups of water a day through sweating, breathing and other body processes.

Therefore, we need to be constantly replenishing this water for our bodies to function properly. As mentioned, if an athlete is dehydrated, performance suffers. At this point, it is important to understand “why”. The major factor here is our blood. It too is comprised of water. When we are dehydrated, the blood will actually become thicker. Imagine a can of tomato soup (which I hope you have very rarely as the sodium in a regular can of tomato soup will only add to your dehydration). When making the soup, if you add more than the amount of water as stated in the directions, the soup is watery. This is how we would like our blood to be. When it is in this state, it is very easy for the heart to push it through our blood vessels. Now if you make the soup thicker (as I use to do when I actually ate tomato soup), by adding less water than called for in the directions, you get a thick soup. Now imagine how much harder your heart will have to work to get that blood through the vessels. Much harder indeed.

Now lets consider a high intensity game situation where you are placing huge demands on your body. You need your heart to respond intently to meet the needs of your working muscles. If you are not well hydrated, your heart will have to work harder to do things that were normally easy for you.

A few signs of being dehydrated are:

• early on-set fatigue- meaning you tire out and need a rest much sooner than normal exertion is perceived to be more difficult-meaning you may feel like what the coach is asking you to do, or the demands of the game are much harder than they really are

• decrease in the attention span - meaning you have a hard time focusing on what the coach is asking you to do and or you make mistakes in the game that your normally would never do impaired ability of your body to properly regulate body temperature -meaning your body is unable to cool itself and you overheat which can be very dangerous

• increase in heart rate - studies have shown that for every litre of sweat lost, the heart will beat 8 times more per second meaning everything will feel much harder to do in a practice or game dark yellow/orange urine - keep an eye on the color of your urine. It should be the color of pale lemonade, not a dark orange color

Indeed, water is only one variable when it comes to game and practice preparation, but it is one variable that for most athletes is within their control. A water tap is never very far away. There are many recommendations about the amounts one should consume in a day. Keeping it simple is the best policy. The easy way to do this is to drink one-half of your body weight (using pounds) in ounces per day.

For example, if you weigh 100 pounds then 100/2= 50. Therefore, you should consume 50 ounces of water in a day. Not sure about ounces? There are 8 ounces in a cup, therefore 50/8= 6.25 cups. If you prefer to think in litres: 6.25 x 250 ml (there are 250 ml in one cup) = 1562 ml or 1.6 litres. To give you some idea, there are 4 L in one of those big milk jugs at the grocery store.

At first, these numbers seem quite high when just arbitrarily thrown out, but after some computation of the numbers, one generally sees that this water number is quite doable although it can be a test in remembrance. It may seem like one more thing that a busy athlete must remember to do, but with time and persistence it will become as natural as tying one’s skates.


Renee is the owner of Lustre Fitness and Lifestyle which provides fitness training and Nutrition counselling. Renee is the mother of Daemon Hunt on the BWK AA Peewee team.