I am a major believer in the importance of hydration in all that we do. As a scuba diver, I have come to realise that dehydration is one of the biggest issues in decompression sickness, and over the past few years, the fact that dehydration is a factor in many other maladies (non-diving) has become clearer and clearer to me.
Over on the Men’s Health website there is a good short article on staying well hydrated, especially when exercising.
In short, I aim to drink around 3–4 litres of water per day, upping that to 4–5 litres on days when I’m training. I also work to the rule that any cup of coffee (or caffeinated soft drink) will “cost” me an additional 500ml of water. Coffee now is a once a week thing for me in general, and I also limit soft drinks to a single can per week of a diet variery. Apart from plain water, I drink mineral water (non–flavoured) and green tea, as well as protein shakes, and the odd fruit juice.
In the dojo, I allow, actually encourage, students to bring a bottle of water and keep it at the side of the room, and I give plenty of water breaks. In hot weather, the number of short water breaks increases.
Consider good hydration to be an important part of your training and nutrition strategies.
This reminds me of a bit of my training background. Tashi Peter used to allocate quite a number of stops for drink breaks during our 2 hour training sessions. So much so, that a Tae Kwon Do class in the next room called us “Water Buffalo”. During one of our warmer evenings we continued to have regular drink breaks prior to doing some cross training with our neighbors – What a suprise that they couldn’t keep up us!
Especially up where you are, I think the whole hydration thing is even more important in your tropical weather.
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