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Blog

Performance Hydration

10/23/2016

5 Comments

 
Article by Tim Leeming. Exercise Nutritionist. BAppSci (Hons)

Hydration in exercise; we’ve been doing it all wrong!  Have you ever heard the phrase “if you’re thirsty, it’s too late”?  Sure you have, it has been the bottom line of advice for race hydration since the 80s!  Sports nutritionists have been preaching to athletes of all ages and abilities that they should stay ahead of thirst.  Wretchedly, this advice is not only erroneous, but can be dangerous in some situations.  Why and how have we had it so wrong?
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Regrettably, the answer lies in an all-too-common story of profit-fueled misguidance and misinformation.  In the 1980s the fast-growing sports drink industry were able to create and dramatise an ailment that “threatened” the health of anyone partaking in cardiorespiratory exercise.  You may have heard of this condition; titled “dehydration”.  That’s right, the money wheel began to spin as sugary sports drinks hit the market with their equally sweet advertising campaigns.  Weekend warriors right through to elite athletes around the world were force-fed the idea that they must drink enough to never get thirsty, in order to avoid this perilous, performance-breaking disease.

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Decades on and the damage has been done.  What we are actually seeing now is that individuals setting foot in endurance events, such as half-marathons, are drinking too much!  This phenomenon of over-hydrating has lead us to an arguably more life-threatening condition, exercise associated hyponatremia (EAH).  EAH is basically a state of being drunk on water.  It occurs when too much fluid is consumed and the electrolytes in our blood become diluted to harmfully low concentrations.  This truly can be a dangerous state of affairs, with the worst-case scenario resulting in brain swelling, followed quite abruptly by death. 
 
The reason I say that EAH is more hazardous to athletes than dehydration is because it is now significantly more common at endurance events around the world than the latter.  In his recent book, here’s what world-renowned Professor of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, Timothy Noakes, has to say about it:
 
"Between 1981 and 1984, as more and more cases of exercise associated hyponatremia surfaced, I was witnessing firsthand the factual evidence proving that it is possible for athletes to drink too much during exercise, to the point that this practice could ultimately be fatal. All of my studies after 1981 led me to the conclusion that athletes should drink according to thirst. ... There is also no evidence to suggest that fluid ingestion at such high rates (250ml per 15 minutes) – that is, drinking ‘ahead’ of thirst – does anything other than impair performance. Instead, all the evidence now shows that it is never necessary to replace all the fluid or weight that is lost during exercise. The only proven effect of drinking more is the development of exercise associated hyponatremia due to water intoxication."
- Challenging Beliefs: Memoirs of a Career (published 2012) 

That’s right – we should actually be using our thirst as the indicator.  The body is a very intelligent system, so we should trust what it tells us.  Drinking to thirst is not only safe, but evidence suggests it also boosts performance.  The faster finishing runners in the field are those who have lost more weight during the race.  This weight loss is primarily a result of sweating to keep cool, and is completely safe if thirst during the race is answered by drinking and the lost weight is replaced in the hours succeeding the race.

Of course there is much more to be said about hydration before, during and after an event.  If you have any questions about your race hydration or nutrition, register for our upcoming Eat To Run Webinar.

Click here to make sure you don't miss these handy training tips, and that they come direct to your inbox.
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5 Comments
Dion
10/24/2016 12:07:04 pm

Thanks for a sensible article on hydration. Noakes book "Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports" is also great. He reminds us that we only need to drink to thirst, and salt/electrolytes aren't needed, we get enough in our diet. As a new runner, I thought I needed to drink on pretty much every run of more that 40 minutes. His book gave me the confidence that that was not necessary.

Reply
James Kuegler link
10/26/2016 08:34:13 am

Dion. Glad to read that you enjoyed the article. You should consider yourself quite fortunate that you read waterlogged in the early stages of running rather than feeling like you needed (as we are constantly told) that you needed to be drinking every 40min.

Reply
Harley Klinac
10/25/2016 10:10:30 am

Would be interested in your thoughts of hydrating during endurance events with the use of electrolytes James. I have just been asked this by a client. I understand the phenomenon of EAH, but does this condition more commonly relate to a scenario whereby a person is drinking water without the added salts which are depleted with endurance exercise, thus ultimately upsetting the electrolyte balance further?

Reply
Dion
10/25/2016 10:33:43 am

Tim Noakes, who James quotes above says that electrolyte drink wont help. Tim says that salt/electrolyte loss from sweat has no impact on health or performance. Apparently the amount we lose is inconsequential when compared with the amount we get through food and our hidden sodium store in the body. The essence being that our diet replaces everything we loose in exercise. Noakes quotes a great study, where it took 3 days of sweating with NO salt intake in diet for there to be any measurable effect. So... no salt/electrolyte/sodium in our drink will help prevent EAH because hyponatremia is a problem of excess hypotonic fluid intake, not too little sodium or sodium loss. It happens as excess water builds up in the body and makes cells break apart through swelling. The solution when things go wrong is a concentrated IV solution which is way more concentrated than any sports drink. No sports drink will prevent EAH, only drinking less, ie drinking to thirst will prevent it.

Reply
James Kuegler link
10/26/2016 08:51:23 am

Harley.
In simple terms, no.
Dion's comment below hits the nail on the head.
The concentration of electrolytes in sports drinks is not sufficient to make any significant positive change at a cellular level during exercise.

Reply



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