Proper hydration is a serious problem in people of all walks of life.  However, it is often overlooked.  Any athlete or person involved in regular exercises almost surely needs to keep an even closer eye on proper hydration than the average person.

You will see or hear “suggested” amounts of water that all of us need for drink daily.  I’ve even seen plastic bottles in stores that supposedly contain an entire day’s supply of water.  Then there is the classic “8 glasses per day.”  These concepts are essentially meaningless.  For one, what is a glass?  I mean how much is in it?  But more importantly, how can anyone suggest how much water a person needs without having any clue on how much water they have used in a day?  These arbitrary suggestions are about as useful as the 2000 calorie diet suggestions and recommended daily requirements of fat, protein, and carbohydrate that one can find on any nutrition label.  What works for one won’t work for another.  Because we all do different things and expend different amounts of energy and even utilize different amounts of particular vitamins and minerals during the day, our diets and our water consumption must be customized for us to succeed and remain healthy.

Knowing this, now we need to consider how important water really is to us and how dangerous and unhealthy it can be if we don’t get enough.  It’s possible we can actually consume too much, but the body deals with this easily.  Too little water can be disastrous and even deadly.  And having imbalances in the substances that help control your hydration can be disastrous as well.  Even water in the wrong places can be bad – you can consume foods and beverages that will move water around in your body to places that ultimately confuse and can harm your body and surely will throw your proper hydration off because you have confused the body’s means of controlling thirst.

If you have participated in team sports such as football, and even more importantly if you are like me and have gone through 2-a-day practices in 100 degree August heat, you should have a good idea of the amazing amount of water that one’s body can loose in a short period.  You should also realize this if you are involved in aerobics or any number of other activities.  At these times when you have poured out sweat profusely, your body’s baroreceptors do a great job of informing your brain to drink water and drink a lot of it and drink it fast.  But there are so many other factors involved that I will discuss further.  A non-athlete needs to be just as concerned as a professional athlete.

First I want to discuss some signs and effects of improper hydration.  Dehydration can be undetectable or it may show itself through dizziness and disorientation.  Even light-headedness to the extent that one must lie down to avoid passing out.  Strangely enough, the stress of dehydration can actually make you sweat, making matters worse.  Your temperature is likely to rise, you can risk heat stroke, and your energy levels will go down.  Your ability to remove toxins is greatly compromised.  Your muscles will lack fullness, look flat, and the “pump” that so many guys in the gym look for will be diminished.  Your workouts will DEFINITELY suffer.

First remember that our bodies, especially our muscles, are primarily composed of water.  And next you need to understand perhaps the most important things that will determine how your body manages water – electrolytes.  I’ll go into just a bit of detail but be brief.  In short, electrolytes include substances such as Sodium, Potassium, and Chloride, among others.  The balance of these substances can drastically effect how you manage water.  If you are a bodybuilder or a model, you know how important it is to manipulate your electrolytes before a show or a shoot.  You get sodium down and potassium up, etc.  This can only be done in the extreme on a short term basis for optimal health.  For the rest of you, know that there is a delicate balance between sodium and potassium.  Too much sodium will pull water to the surface to make you look puffy, bloated, and soft.  Increasing Potassium will remedy this.  You MUST watch your diet.  The American diet is waaaaaay too high in sodium.  And too low in potassium.  Not only will high sodium make you look bad, but also it can have effects such as raising blood pressure and making your heart work overtime.  Clearly not good for anyone. 

Now back to baroreceptors.  These are receptors that tell you when you are thirsty.  In the presence of high sodium or imbalanced electrolytes, they will not function optimally.  In a football player who just poured out a gallon of water with all electrolytres following the water, they work well.  But if you are a typical American who consumes 5 to 10 times as much sodium as you need, everything is thrown off.  We all need to be reading nutrition labels.  If you do you will likely be shocked.  It is beyond the scope of this article, so you need to investigate what types of foods contain high or low salt, etc.  Then you need to watch your diet DAILY and use your common sense to make god diet judgments with the realization that by making an effort to maintain proper hydration, will avoid or diminish the negative side effects we have talked about.  You will look better, feel better, and be much more successful in your training.

Just like protein, I prefer to keep water levels pretty constant.  We have discussed a lot of chemicals here, but water is the most important one.  If you think you have drank enough, you likely haven’t.  Do not limit water unless you are in a pre-contest or pre-photo shoot mode.  The rest of us should drink up!!  Personally, I’m a waterholic and drink it all day, and drink little else.  I drink water before, during, and after my exercise.  I drink it all day so that my body never gets thirsty.  I must do this while still thinking of my electrolyte consumption and expenditures however. 

In bodybuilding many things are counterintuitive.  Some examples are eating fat to loose fat.  Another is drinking more water to decrease water (More specifically to decrease bloating and looking soft).  The extra water you drink flushes out the excess sodium and restores balance.  Your body likes balance and it feels and looks better when balanced.

Another thing to consider is your diet.  Our good friends at Gatorade want us to realize that carbohydrates play a role in rehydrating an athlete, and this is entirely true.  Even so-called “bad” carbs can help best in certain situations.  In short, water absorption results from the interstitial absorption of fructose and glucose along with electrolytes.  Here there is an osmotic gradient and water follows down it.  So these simple sugars will help to replenish water stores in an athlete.  Hence the reason Gatorade is so useful WHEN TRAINING.  If not used during and after rigorous exercise, the simple sugars can become “bad” carbs depending on your consumption, your goals, and your situation.

Here are some quick notes about diuretics.  A diuretic is something that causes you to unnaturally loose water.  They can be as mild as caffeine, alcohol, or a various number of herbs.  Or they can be prescription medicines such as LASIX.  Watch those mild diuretics – if you consume more, then consume more pure water later.  But Lasix – avoid this stuff please.   It is popular with bodybuilders.  It is a powerful unnatural medicine.  As a young and stupid teen bodybuilder I used it once, only once.  Then I learned about it and never used it again.    This board in no way condones the use of anabolic steroids or any other illegal drug.  I do want to point out that in the midst of the current controversies over anabolic steroids, there is no known case of a bodybuilder dieing onstage from steroids.  On the contrary, there are many such tragic deaths resulting from dehydration due to use of diuretics.  The latest I know of was an amateur this season in New York.  I can think of a Pro who collapsed and lived, but another who died onstage.  This is serious stuff. 

At later dates we will cover supplementation strategies and ways to stay on track, Here I want you to understand the importance and effects of proper hydration.  After all, when your body is made mostly of water, getting rid of too much water can be insane and deadly. At the least it will effect the well being and appearance of an average person, a weight lifter, or anyone.  Read nutrition labels, keep sodium lower and potassium higher. Drink more water than “they” say, and be smart enough to know that if you sweat a lot you have lost both water and electrolytes and you MUST replace them quickly.  Watch the foods and beverages you eat – soft drinks, lattes, potato chips, tomato sauce, etc.  Think of how these affect you and make adjustments.

Finally……DRINK MORE PURE WATER!!