We are getting into the hotter months of the year which means your sweat rate will increase by a fair bit which also means you need to stay on top of your hydration and replenishment. We are going to discuss pre, intra, & post workout hydration and also replenishing a very important electrolyte that gets heavily depleted through our sweat.
Making sure we are drinking enough water throughout the day is important to ensure we keep ourselves in a well balanced hydrated state but also water is important for nutrient distribution, removing toxins, temperature regulation and lubrication for our joints. Lets start with pre-exercise hydration; throughout the day you should be consuming fluids and a good starting point is drinking between 2-3L of water per day or until your urine is coming out clear.
Once you find that hydrated state make sure during your workouts you have water to sip on to slowly replenish a little bit of what you are losing in sweat. Post workout to me is very important as this is when we can fully replenish what we lost in our workout; now without knowing exactly how much water we lost in sweat we can do a rough estimation. If you exceeded a 45mins high intensity workout with a high sweat rate its safe to say you should replenish with atleast 750ml-1L of water (maybe even more if you still feel dehydrated)
A very important electrolyte that gets lost in high amounts through our sweat is sodium. Its an important electrolyte that is used for muscle contraction, nerve conduction, and fluid balance. Throughout the day you should be salting your foods to keep
your levels at an adequate level giving yourself the best chance at a solid workout. If you would like to take it a step further my advice is to start implementing a salt supplement in a separate bottle of water. A good starting point would be a Nuun Active Tablet (1-1.5 tablets) and sip throughout your workouts; once you are comfortable with that then move up to a higher dose of a sodium supplement which is an LMNT electrolyte pack in a 1L or 1.5L
bottle of water. Sip throughout the workout then finish off the rest post workout as this will ultimately provide you with the sodium you have lost and making sure you arent getting hit with low levels of fatigue post workout and also helping your body in the recovery process. For those of you that go to my gym or live close I sell the LMNT electrolyte packs so be sure to message me for details.
Main takeaways:
Ensure proper hydration throughout the day leading into your workout
Sipping on water and/or electrolyte drink will assist in replenishment
Ingesting proper amounts of water/sodium post workout will ensure you have replenished enough for recovery and will decrease levels of fatigue and increase levels of recovery.