Staying Hydrated

Fighters usually train hard for hours at a time, leaving behind puddles of sweat, a drenched Gi, soaking wet head gear and hand wraps, and a locker room stench that is embedded into your clothes ; All signs of ones body being stripped of vital fluids and essential electrolytes. Unless you are cutting weight for a fight or a tournament you should learn how to rehydrate and replenish your body with electrolytes and fluids lost after a hard sweat. In extreme conditions fighters can lose up to 8 to 10 pounds of sweat in one training session.

Let me try to paint a clearer picture of how much one can sweat. For each pound a person sweats it is equivalent to about 450ml of fluid lost. So in other words if you lose four pounds, you have sweated almost as much as a 2 liter bottle of coke. Eight pounds is almost equivalent to two, 2 liter bottles. When one loses that much fluid their body losses its ability to maintain its ideal core body temperature, muscle strength, muscle endurance, and increases chances for injury.

So, what can we do? Try to drink frequently through out the day and through out your workout. What to drink? Water is easily absorbed and is readily available. However for intense training try to consume something that will replace all the electrolytes that have been lost. There are many new products out there but the one that has surpassed the test of time and was formulated to be readily absorbed by the body is Pedialyte, “Yes!” The stuff they use when babies become dehydrated. It has significantly less sugar and has a greater quantity of magnesium, sodium and three times more potassium than those leading sport drinks. Eight ounces of Pedialyte has 187 mg of potassium while Gatorade has only 30 mg in its concentrated form.

Now bear with me as I try to simplify the physiology behind all this, the body fluid has an osmolarity, or concentration, of 300 milliosmoles per liter, the drink you choice should have an osmolarity or a concentration less then that of your body’s fluid. If your hydration drink has a higher concentration than that of your body fluid then your body would have to pull fluid from the muscles and blood stream into the digestive tract to lower the drink’s concentration so it can be absorbed into the bloodstream and muscles. That is the exact opposite of what a hydration drink should do. Some people will reduce the concentration of the Gatorade by diluting it with half water, but keep in mind diluting the drink you will also dilute the electrolytes as well. So the 30 mg of potassium in eight ounces of Gatorade has just been diluted to now only 15 mg.

“Drinking a concentrated beverage to rehydrate yourself is kind of like using water to put out a grease fire; it seems like it would work but it actually just makes the problem worse.” So throw some pedialyte and bottles of water in the duffle bag, train hard and remember “Suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret!”