With the closure of gyms owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people have gravitated to the outdoors – like the seawalls, the National Park or D’Urban Park – to exercise.
While this is a step in the right direction for health and fitness, outdoor workouts have exposed what I believe is the improper hydration of many. I have noticed that most people are either without water bottles or share a water bottle with their workout partner.
In this week’s column, I want to point out the great importance of proper hydration when it comes to health and fitness and achieving fitness goals.
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, water is the most essential nutrient for our body. Water makes up over 50 per cent of our body’s cells. We use water through every movement that we make.
Water is essential for every bodily function so we can see why staying hydrated all day long 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. This is why drinking water both 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, but 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 BCAAs 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.
It is usually posited that we should all drink about 3 litres of water a day but actually the amount of water intake varies from person to person, depending on their size in weight and muscle. How much they perspire is among the things that also have to be taken into account. So generally, for someone who exercises daily, it is usually more than 3 litres.
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 always remember to drink our water. So, 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. Having this water will make you want to drink it and when it’s done, refill and let the process continue. Stay hydrated my friends.
