Unlock Your Recovery: Hydration

Hey Just Tri babes!

Let's continue "The Controllables" mini series with another post and shift our focus to hydration.

If you missed the first post, you definitely want to catch up and read "Unlock Your Recovery: Sleep".

Quick recap, this blog series dissects the nine (9) fundamental pillars of performance and recovery: sleep, hydration, nutrition, exercise, stress management, immune function, environment, mindset, and the menstrual cycle. Applying these simple tips and tricks to boost recovery will ultimately lead to increases in your performance potential. So if you're looking to get 1% better everyday, get locked in because you're in control!

Did you know!?

During exercise, women (compared to men) heat up quicker, sweat less, and have fluctuating hormones that impact their body's cooling systems.

So hopefully it isn't a surprise when you read how powerful your hydration status is on every system of your body.

Time for School...

An average male's body is made up of ~60% water. An average female's body is made up of ~55%. These percentages shift based on your body's percent of lean body mass - the more lean muscle (i.e. less fat tissue) your body contains, the more water you can store.

As your working muscles generate heat during exercise, in order to cool down your body uses water to release heat via sweating (aka evaporative cooling). Every drop of sweat comes directly from your bloodstream. The cooling process involves your blood circulating to those active muscles to first deliver nutrients and oxygen, then it takes up CO2 and heat to get rid of those byproducts via your lungs and skin. When you're in a properly hydrated state, the body is highly efficient.

In order to keep the evaporative cooling process going, your body needs available fluids. Your body has built in protective measures - maintaining certain blood volume levels - and it'll force you to slow you down in an effort to preserve itself. This is why your hydration status before going into exercise, competition, a sauna, etc. is so important. When there is less water in your circulating blood, it thickens and places more strain on your heart (forcing it to pump more frequently and work harder). Increasing your heart rate. Decreasing power output. Increasing your core body temperature. Increasing fatigue. Decreasing performance.

Hydration Needs for Females

Yep, your needs are different than men (shocker, I know)... You're hydration is highly specific so it's important to continue to track your cycle and commit to a few hydration strategies (especially the luteal phase, you'll learn why below).

But, what you should know, first:

1. Because women sweat less, they experience more strain from heat at the onset of exercise and their core body temperatures increase almost twice as fast compared to men.

2. Because women have closer to 50-55% of total body water (~5-10% less than men), that means women have lower blood volumes and less fluids available for sweat production. This leaves women more vulnerable to experiencing cardiovascular and heat-related stress from higher core body temperatures and heart rates.

3. Women's core body temperatures begin rising as early as 30 minutes into a training session, where men's core temperatures have a more delayed onset (closer to an hour).

Women have increased core temperatures and produce less sweat at earlier stages of working out, where men's core temperatures don't increase until about an hour into the same workout and they sweat almost 3x more than women.

4. Women show an increase in core body temperatures during intermittent exercise too, men don't. And yet, both sexes experience the same amount of water loss aka dehydration (via sweating). 

5. Female sex hormones impact core body temperatures at rest and during exercise. During the luteal phase, a woman's core body temperature increases 0.3 to 0.5 degrees.

Note: The mechanism that drives thirst and feeling thirsty isn't as reliable during the luteal phase. So your body may be in a dehydrated state but you're less inclined to feel dehydrated or thirsty and won't correct it until it's too late. Timing your fluid intake during your luteal phase is a great way to combat this faulty mechanism.

Hydration Strategies

1. Always drink to thirst (unless you're in your luteal phase - fluid timing and fluid intake measurements will keep you on track). Listen to your body and use common sense. Remember, everyone's fluid needs are highly individual so don't go off general guidelines or what your teammates are doing.

2. Avoid weighing yourself before training - in an attempt to measure total fluid loss during exercise. Women are more susceptible to over-drinking (and exercise-associated hyponatremia) compared to men. The scale doesn't account for bodyweight loss from muscle glycogen use or residual fluids and food still in your gut that were consumed during the workout.

3. Fluid intake recommendations:

- In temperatures 75 degrees and below, consume fluids at a rate of 0.12 ounces per pound of body weight (that's 15 ounces for a 125-pound woman) per hour of working out.

- In temperatures 75 degrees and above, consume 0.16 ounces per pound of body weight (20 ounces of for the same 125-pound woman) per hour.

4. Prehydrating is crucial. Start hydrating early. The night before a big training session or competition (especially during the luteal phase), drink sodium-rich fluids like chicken broth or a broth based soup (i.e. miso soup). There are also hyper-hydration drink mixes like Liquid I.V. and Nuun Hydration. 

Now that you know you're more susceptible to heat-related illnesses while you're exercising, it's important to adopt these strategies to help you perform at your best. You'll be shocked to know just how much your hydration status can impact your performance efforts. Show up for yourself, listen to your body, and be intentional with your hydration habits (especially during the luteal phase). Accept the ownership because it's all within your control!

Thank you for taking time to read my blog!

Have a great week, drink up, and as always, Just Tri!! Cheers!!

Yours in Sport,

Lindsay

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