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Friday, August 1, 2008
Performing Like the Pack
Raleigh Durham, NC
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Staying Hydrated: Don’t Let Thirst Spoil Your Game
As athletes begin their pre-season workouts in North Carolina’s heat and humidity, their performance can be severely affected by dehydration and heat related illness. Research shows that as little as a two percent drop in body weight, due to water loss through sweat, can have a dramatic impact on the performance of an athlete. For a 130-pound athlete, that is just two and a half pounds during a workout. This shows that making fluid intake a priority will not only protect your health in the hot humid weather, but will also maintain your performance levels. Don’t let all the hard work of your summer conditioning program go to waste because you forget to properly hydrate.
How does fluid loss affect performance?
When you work out, your body generates heat as a byproduct. Under normal conditions, your body throws heat out through your skin and sweat. The sweat on the surface of your skin cools your body and evaporates into the air. In effect, your body throws the heat to the environment.
When the weather heats up and the air becomes saturated with moisture during North Carolina’s summertime, the environment gets hotter and more saturated than the body. Because the body cannot throw heat effectively into the environment, it increases more fluid output in an attempt to make up for its inability to cool itself. If you continue to exert yourself, you will lose a great deal more water through sweat than you normally would in dryer, less humid conditions of the fall or spring. As I said earlier, even a two percent decrease in your body weight can have a dramatic impact on your performance, and obviously greater losses of fluid can result in heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
How do you know you are dehydrated?
Monitoring body weight and urine color can help you limit dehydration. Athletes should weigh in before practice and weigh out after practice. Remember, a loss of more than two percent of your body weight during a workout constitutes dehydration, and a 130-pound athlete with two and a half pounds lost during the workout would be dehydrated. The goal of all athletes during the hot humid weather should be to maintain their body weight throughout the workout by drinking plenty of fluids as you practice. A good rule of thumb is 24 ounces of fluid for every pound of weight lost.
Another simple step to avoid dehydration is to watch the color of your urine. The more dehydrated you are, the more water the body removes from the urine and the darker it will get. At N.C. State, we have charts in all of the bathrooms to remind our student athletes that their urine should be a light yellow “lemonade” color and not a dark “apple juice” color. If your urine remains light, you are keeping your body adequately hydrated.
When should you start worrying about being dehydrated?
Athletes participating in rigorous physical activity should be concerned about fluid intake anytime. Add the hot humid weather to the equation, and you can be sure that dehydration can become a problem. Beyond the obvious thirst, some other signs and symptoms of dehydration are:
• Irritability
• Decreased Performance
• Fatigue
• Weakness
• Nausea
• Headaches
• Muscle Cramping
Athletes who experience these signs and symptoms should drink fluids and talk to their athletic trainer.
Remember, dehydration can lead to serious medical conditions such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Take this seriously and communicate your concerns to your sports medicine professional. Your health and your performance depend on it.
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Karson Ratliff
Karson Ratliff is a sophomore at Wake Forest-Rolesville High School and serves as an Outside Hitter for the school's Volleyball...
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