Exercising is important in life for health of mind and body, but there are also other things that are just as equally if not even more important. For example, the most essential nutrient for our body is water. It makes up over 50 percent of the body’s cells. We use water through every movement that we make.
Water is essential for all bodily functions, so we can see why staying hydrated day round is such an important health factor. Many people spend most of their day dehydrated and don’t even know it.
Do you ever have headaches randomly? Ever find that you’re tired even though you’ve had enough sleep the night before? Did you know that if you’re dehydrated then your body struggles to regulate its temperature? As a result, heat stroke as well as other health issues can occur. Having said this, it makes sense that drinking water pre, intra and post workout is very important.
Drinking water before exercising helps prevent muscle cramps and allows for better muscle contractions as well as gives you a boost for your exercise. You lose a lot of water during exercise so staying hydrated intra workout keeps you from dehydrating. Keeping hydrated after your workout helps bring your body’s temperature back to normal, and it also helps your muscles recover quicker as the water transports nutrients to the muscle.
While training, I would recommend using a branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) drink. This is due to the fact that BCAAs act as nitrogen oxide carriers, which assist the muscles in synthesizing other amino acids needed for anabolic muscle action. BCAAs stimulate production of insulin by circulating blood sugar to be taken up by the muscle cells and used as a source of energy.
BCAAs are both anabolic and anti-catabolic because of their ability to increase protein synthesis, facilitate the release of hormones and help maintain a favourable testosterone ratio. And to make things better you can mix your BCAA with your water allowing your body to get the best of both worlds. I take my BCAAs both intra and post workout for the best result.
Ideally, we should all drink about 3 litres of water a day but actually the amount of water intake varies on person to person, their size in weight and muscle, how much they perspire as well as other things all have to be taken into account. So generally, it is usually more than this amount. It is also not the healthiest choice to drink all the water in one go and wait for the next day. The best way is to continuously sip water throughout the entire day to keep the water levels in your body stable. But this is tricky, as we don’t all remember to drink our water. So, in closing, here is a tip to help.
Keep a bottle handy. Have a water bottle or a couple water bottles that are filled and ready to go for each day. Take them with you and keep them nearby like in your hand or on your desk; really close. Having water close by will remind you to drink it and when the bottle is empty, refill it and let the process continue.
