Hydration

Your body depends on water to survive. Every cell, tissue, and organ in your body needs water to work properly. For example, your body uses water to maintain its temperature, remove waste, and lubricate your joints. Water is needed for overall good health.?

Therefore, you must maintain good hydration levels. If you’re dehydrated by -2% of your body mass, your performance is impaired by an average of 6.5% (Murry, 2007). This was discovered in a trial where they had two groups, one where they replaced 80% of sweat loss and one where they didn’t. It was discovered that insufficient hydration levels could increase run times by 3.1% (Murry 2007).?

During physical activity, be it sport or a gym session, can lead you to be dehydrated by 1-8% of your body mass (Murry 2007). This 1-8% dehydration of your body mass can lead to dehydration-related injuries, including fatigue, cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke (Oppliger 2002). These dehydrated-related injuries can result in losing 1% of your match or practice time (Oppliger 2002). The salt loss itself does not have a direct impact on physical performance. However, adequately replacing your sodium chloride levels during physical activity can help encourage voluntary fluid intake, protect plasma volume, and reduce urine production, all of which promote hydration (Murry 2007).?

Body water is contained within the fat-free mass compartment. This percentage of body water increases as the percentage of body fat increases (Opplinger 2002).?

You should aim to commence exercise and competition in a fully hydrated state to minimise the potential side effects of fluid loss during exercise. Although there are no specific guidelines on achieving a fully hydrated state, all athletes should assess any potential signs of dehydration and correct these before exercise/ competition. To do this, the ‘WUT’ method below can be used to assess the three main tell-tale signs of dehydration. If signs of dehydration are present, consuming approximately 500 ml of water with an additional 200-300 mg of sodium will begin the rehydration process before exercise.

WEIGHT

As athletes are typically able to maintain day-to-day stable body weight, body mass loss greater than 1% may be a sign of dehydration as this weight loss goes beyond normal day-to-day variations in total body water. If your body weight upon waking is unusually low, this may be a potential sign of dehydration.

URINE COLOUR

As urine is comprised of water and various other substances, dehydration results in urine becoming more concentrated and of a darker colour. As a result, urine colour can be used as a helpful indicator of hydration status, whereby dark-coloured urine correlates favourably with dehydration.

THIRST

Although the absence of thirst does not indicate adequate hydration, the desire for water does coincide with dehydration. It should be combined with body weight and urine to indicate your hydration status.