I wanted to talk about the topic of dehydration because I got a little dehydrated myself this past Thursday night. I play on a flag football team and we ended up playing 3 consecutive games this past Thursday and the temp was around 85 degrees. I thought I drank enough, but I didn't because 30 minutes after our game, I was starting to cramp up in my hamstrings and calves. So, what I'm going to do today is talk about my experiences with hydration and then on Thursday discuss the technical side of hydration and what you need to do to maintain proper hydration.
Way back when in high school, when I was a budding track star (if only in my mind), I remember my track coach telling me that you have to drink water constantly throughout the day if you have a late afternoon meet. He said, even though we were just sitting in class during the day that we were losing water and needed to continue to drink to keep those levels up. If we start drinking water before we compete, then it was too late and we were trying to make up ground on where our hydration needed to be at and it could affect our performance.
So, flash forward to a few years ago on Father's day. I was playing in our flag football playoffs late morning. It was sunny and pretty hot, so I was sweating a lot. I tried to drink water the night before and during the morning, but I don't think it was enough. I also brought a 32 ounce thing of water and a couple 16 ounce containers of Advocare's Rehydrate, for my money, the best replenisher out there.
I played two games and that was it (we lost the second game). I was starting to feel light headed and my body was aching. I rested for about 10 minutes then stumbled to my car. I don't think I felt sick, I just felt weak. I only lived 15 minutes from the field, but as I started driving, my concentration was starting to lag. I was really having a tough time avoiding passing out. So I pulled over to a Speedway and purchased two 32 ounce bottles of Powerade (it was on sale). I sucked both of those bottles down in a span of 10 minutes.
I immediately felt a heck of a lot better and drove on home. You ask me to drink 2- 32 ounce bottles of Powerade when I feel perfectly fine, I guarantee it will take longer than 10 minutes. If I do get it down, I'll probably feel bloated. But, at that time, once those bottles were in my body, I felt great and probably could have had another one.
My body on the other hand didn't recuperate so fast. I had a few strains and aches in my body and after talking to an athletic trainer friend of mine, he felt that the big reason I got those aches was because I didn't replenish my body quick enough. I was losing sodium and electrolytes quicker than I could get them in my body. He said that there was a lot of research out there suggesting that aches and cramping are caused by those sudden losses.
That is my tale in regards to hydration. Just gives you an example how quick it can change for you, but how fast you can suddenly get your senses back when properly hydrated. My next newsletter, I'll discuss research about what happens when you don't hydrate properly (not just my wonderful experience) and what you need to do to prepare for your competitions with good hydration.
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