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Dehydration

Dehydration can have a detrimental impact on performance in elite athletes.  Athletes should try to limit dehydration levels to no more than 2% loss of body weight, especially during endurance events in the heat.

Along with changes in physiological performance, dehydration affects skill, judgement, concentration, reaction and coordination – assets vital to many sports. Even in sports that you wouldn’t normally consider dehydration to be a major factor, for example target shooting, dehydration has been proved to affect accuracy and performance.

The message is to take in adequate fluid. But in elite sport, that advice needs to be precise about the amounts, timing and type of fluids consumed. Choice of beverage primarily depend on intensity and duration of exercise.  Water is fine for low-to-moderate intensity exercise that lasts less than an hour, with carbohydrate-electrolyte sports drinks becoming important as the intensity and duration increases.

Similarly, it would be inadvisable to overload on fluids, so it’s important that athletes take responsibility by educating themselves as to their optimal hydration levels according to EIS Lead Nutritionist Dr Sam Stear

“Each athlete is individual – one athlete may sweat more than another - so it’s about educating them as to their individual sweat-loss levels. We monitor them, but we get the athlete to take responsibility for themselves and teach them how to measure their body mass change during training, so that they get used to replacing the correct amount of fluid,” she said.

Top hydration tips

• Start each training session well hydrated
• Calculate sweat losses by measuring body weight before and after training sessions to determine how much fluid you need
• Limit fluid losses to less than 1-2% of body weight
• Don’t drink so much that you actually gain body weight during exercise
• After exercise aim to drink about 1.2-1.5 litres of fluid for each kg of body weight lost during training and competition
• Sports drinks provide both carbohydrate and fluid and are useful for intense exercise that lasts longer than about an hour
• Plan and practise drinking strategies during training sessions