Drinking water is an indispensable part of your everyday life, especially when you are indulged in workouts of various types during which you sweat a lot and thus needs adequate hydration to restore energy and strength. Lack of adequate amount of hydration is expected to lower your exercising performance in the gym, triggering off dehydration when the situation becomes worse. Why? Because water takes a 70% of all muscle tissues and 8% of tissues of fatty, and even the slightest clue of dehydration brings about negative impacts on our bodies.
Getting hydrated before, during and after gym workouts can affect your exercising feelings, so it is a must for you to stay hydrated. Well, although hydration is beneficial to the body, drinking too much water will conversely slow down your body activities and even result in diseases such as vomiting. So here come the questions: How much do I have to drink? Should I consume 50 oz of water at one go? What exactly is the appropriate drinking volume for a day’s gym workout? In today’s article, Simple Flask will answer these questions and unveil more secrets of hydration for gym exercises.
Negative Effects of Dehydration
You may think that only serious dehydration is detrimental to the body as well as the exercising performance. Well, dehydration of high levels is bound to stir up terrible symptoms like headaches and comas, but the significance of a mild dehydration can never be underestimated as it is also harmful.
According to a research conducted by WHO, a mere 2% drops of body fluids is capable of lowering the body performance by 10 to 20%! In other words, you may feeling nothing strange when you are actually dehydrated. And when you do feel the change, things may have already become terrible.
So what are the hints of dehydration? The tell-tale symptoms of dehydration are basic the two: feeling thirsty and passing urine of the dark yellow color. Sometimes, digestive issues and a sudden feeling of hunger are results of dehydration, too. So if the above signs are observed, you are supposed to consume adequate water to restore a healthy hydration life.
Should You Drink Water During a Workout?
The answer of this question is undoubtedly “yes, you should”. When you are exercising in the gym , it is often the case that you sweat a lot due to hard and strenuous workouts. And you ought to stay hydrated thorough the training to replenish the water lost in sweats. According to the American Council on Exercise, an adult is advised to consume 5 to 10 oz of water every 20 minutes during workouts in the gym.
If you put yourself in the gym and keep exercising for more than 2 hours in a considerably muggy environment, you need more than water as the hardcore workouts drain you and greatly deplete glycogen supply in your body. When this happens, Simple Flask suggests you to drink energy drinks that contain much more sodium and carbs to better fuel yourself.
How Much Water Should You Consume During a Workout?
For one thing, the major purpose of consuming water throughout gym workouts is to minimize the occurrence of dehydration. For another, over-drinking water does harm to the human body, and should also thereby be avoided. In fact, there is an easy and convenient way to set your water consumption during workouts in the gym.
Before you start to build up your muscles, weigh yourself (with clothes are okay) and record that number, and after you have finished the training, weigh again. It should be noted that your wearing should be the same to better control the variables. Compare the two figures and if you find that your body weight has changed for over 2% of the weight got before the exercising, you are advised to consume more water in the future workouts. This way is quite simple and requires less standard drinking requirements, and you can adjust the drinking volume elastically.
If you want to seek for a standard and general drinking rule, consider the guide released by the American Council on Exercise. Here is what they suggest:
- drinking 15 to 20 oz of water at least 2 hours before an exercise;
- drinking 5 to 10 oz of water 30 minutes before an exercise;
- drinking 5 to 10 oz of water every 20 times during an exercise;
- drinking 20 to 30 oz of water after an exercise
How Much Water Should You Swill Before Workouts in the Gym?
Before starting to do workouts, an expert exerciser will drink water to fit in the training level in advance. However, this important preparation has always be ignored by many people who just take water to the gym and drink it during and after exercising.
Likewise, you should always drink water beforehand and cultivate such a healthy drinking habit. So in the morning you wake up and try to sip a cup of coffee to energize yourself. Well, stop doing that, a glass of water helps you better embrace a new day. By regularly drinking water, you will stand read to do workouts! Drinking water before workouts in the gym helps you to stay away from exercise-induced dehydration and provides you with a better pregame performance.
“What if I forget to consume water before exercising in the gym?”, you may ask. Simple Flask suggests you to set a timer to remind you of water intake in advance. This can be really helpful if you are going to compete in a enduring and tiring game, say, a marathon.
What Should I Drink During a Workout in the Gym?
Apart from water, there are other beverages and drinks that are suitable for hydration for workouts in the gym. Likewise, the exact adoption of some certain drinks depends on the training length as well as the intensity.
Water is the most common liquids adopted for hydration in the gym. It is applicable for low-intensity activities and exercises in a short duration.
Sports drinks or so-called energy drinks such as Gatorade and Red Bull are designed for hardcore and tiring workouts. These drinks are characterized by high contents of electrolytes, minerals that are in charge of regulating the water levels in human body. These electrolytes include potassium, sodium, chlorides and magnesium that help to restore energy and strength and that are always lost in sweats during exercising. If you prefer to do workouts of high-intensity in the gym, it is advised to take an insulated stainless steel water bottle filled with a sports drink with you so that you can replenish electrolytes during the training and enjoy an icy-cold taste, which also to some extend stimulates your exercising enthusiasm.
Also, coconut water is welcomed by sports fans who like its taste and capability of replenishing electrolytes. Coconut water is rich in electrolytes and tastes better than some energy drinks. It is also much more healthy as sports drinks always contain synthetic food additions.
What to Have and Drink After Workouts
Yes, the after-game hydration is of great importance and should not be underestimated, either. In this state, drinking water helps to bolster the recovery capacity of human body. Simple Flask suggests you to increase the frequency of hydration with small amounts for each sip instead of swilling liter after liter.
If you get bored drinking water, have some food that is high in water content is a great option. You can chew an apple, cut some cucumbers or eat a watermelon. It would be better if there is a juicer available.
Ways to Stop Dehydration During Workouts
Here Simple Flask provides you with 4 practical ways to avoid dehydration during workouts.
- Check Your Muscles
One signal of insufficient hydration is muscle cramps. If you find that your muscles are not in good conditions, say, cramps, you need to take a rest for hydration. Again, you ought to drink water sip by sip rather than guzzle it down in case of choke and bellyache. You can consume water every 10 minutes to see whether your muscles work well.
Once you have finished consuming water, take some low-intensity workouts before doing the heavy ones as it takes a while for muscles to recover.
- See If It Is a Dry Mouth
Another sign of dehydration is a dry mouth. In general, you should not have a dry mouth if you are well hydrated. So if that does happen, get a drink at once. Your body has told you to get hydrated, just follow it before things become serious. Stay hydrated in time can enhance your exercising performance.
- Pinch Your Skin
Pinch your skin is quite an easy and convenient approach to check out whether you are dehydrated. Normally, your skin will change shape and return to the original state in a second as it has high elasticity, which indicates a well-hydrated state. However, if you find that your skin fails to respond to that pinching swiftly, you may fall into the state of dehydration and should go for a swill. Sometimes this approach is not so universal due to the varied physical conditions, but it is still a good one.
- Find Yourself Feel Dizzy
If you feel giddy or lightheaded, stop doing workouts immediately as it is a significant indicator that points out a state of serious dehydration or symptoms of other diseases. When it comes to a dizzy brain, your brain is actually tell you that it needs much more oxygen to function well. Take a break and have some water is the most efficient approach to relieve such a symptom. If you insist on doing workouts, it will be considerably dangerous!
How Much Water Should You Consume a Day?
The amount of water people need to drink depends on a variety of variables. Factors like the level of activity, physical conditions and even the climate will affect the daily water intake correspondingly. For examples, yogis generally requires less water consumption compared to a professional weightlifter during workouts in the gym; people with diarrhea needs to sip more water to maintain a good water-salt balance; people dwelling in high latitude area like the Arctic drink less due to the freezing environment than reduce the evaporation of body fluids.
Here comes a general guide for your reference: An adult is advised to drink 2 to 4 liters of water on a daily basis. If you decide to do workouts on a certain day, you should drink more water (about 6 to 8 liters) to replenish the fluids lost in sweats.
Hydration Gear for Workouts in Gym
In order to stay hydrated before, during and after workouts, you can have an insulated stainless steel water bottle to hold your favorite drinks. Simple Flask water bottles are made by kitchen-grade stainless steel SUS304 (18/8) with a double-walled insulation structure to deliver outstanding heat-retaining performance. These bottles are entirely BPA-free and BPS-free, offering you a safe and an authentic flavor. Simple Flask water bottles can keep water cold for 24 hours or warm for up to 12 hours, adequate for a long-time exercise in the gym. In addition, the durability of our bottles makes sure that they will not break or leak when dropped on the ground by accident. Currently there are Simple Flask water bottles of 17 oz and of 25 oz, the smaller one is quite portable while the one with a bigger volume enables you to refill the bottle less frequently.
