Few things impact health and performance as much as hydration. Whatever the weather, hydration should be at the top of every athlete’s priority list, and that’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive OTE guide to answer the most important questions about hydration and outline how you should hydrate before, during, and after your workouts.
Why is Hydration Important? More Than Just Quenching Thirst
First things first, let’s cover why hydration is so important. As kids, we’re all taught that drinking water is essential for keeping us alive and healthy, but what makes it so impactful on athletic performance?
When we’re running, climbing, or going hard at the gym, our body’s heat production is 15-20 times greater than at rest. To maintain a body temperature of 37°C during this exertion, while also accounting for additional factors like weather and clothing, our thermoregulatory system has to kick into action. Its solution? To dissipate the heat via the evaporation of sweat!
So, the body cools itself by sweating – how does this affect performance? While we might sweat without a single thought, the process of sweating isn’t without its expenses. During intense exercise, blood flow must accommodate our working muscles and our sweating skin, reducing blood volume to each. The impact of this is that the heart has to work much harder to deliver oxygen to our muscles, which takes a toll on athletic performance.
Staying hydrated is vital for athletic performance because it helps the body maintain stronger blood volume levels, decreasing the demand on the heart so muscles can get more oxygen. Hydration also replenishes the body’s fluid levels, ensuring it has the moisture to continue regulating its temperature.
The Science of Sweat: Why Water Alone Isn't Always Enough
Sweating doesn’t just remove water from the body. It also removes electrolytes, primarily sodium and chloride, but also smaller amounts of magnesium, potassium and calcium.
What do electrolytes matter if the body gets rid of them? Well, sodium, for example, is really important for maintaining the body’s extracellular fluid volumes, which affects blood volume and pressure, factors we’ve already learnt play a big part in athletic performance.
The importance of hydration in the body, therefore, also lies in replenishing these electrolytes. Water alone can’t meet the deficit created by sweating, so here is where specially crafted drinks from OTE come in. Packed with electrolytes and formulated to be absorbed much faster than water, these drinks hydrate more effectively, supporting performance.
How Long Does It Take to Rehydrate?
As we’ve covered, hydration is a lot more complex than just quenching thirst, so how long does it take to rehydrate? While it takes only a few minutes to feel hydrated, it can actually take a few hours to rehydrate the body sufficiently on the cellular level.
For this reason, it’s pivotal to hydrate before, during, and after your workout to ensure your body has the fluids and electrolytes it needs to function not just during your exercise, but all day! For how to do this, let’s move on to our top tips for how to hydrate quickly throughout your workout!
How to Hydrate Quickly Before, During, and After Your Workout
Before Exercise
Effective pre-exercise hydration starts well in advance of your session! It can take between 8 and 12 hours for normal food and drink consumption to fully hydrate the body, so ensure you keep well hydrated all day, especially if training twice in a day!
If you are short on time or have lost a lot of fluid through sweat already, we recommend using OTE Hydro Tabs to add essential electrolytes to your drink. Sip this approximately 4 hours before your exercise.
During Exercise
Due to the huge variation between sports, it’s tricky to know exactly how much fluid you need to consume during exercise. Athletes can also sweat at different rates during exercise, so it’s important that everyone curates a hydration plan that suits their needs.A top tip for identifying how much you need to hydrate is to weigh yourself before and after a training session. The difference in weight can give you a good idea of how much liquid you need to consume during exercise. For cyclists, heading out on a one-hour ride may not be practical, so consider doing an intense hour on an exercise bike instead.Thirst levels are another good indicator of how much you need to drink. As a general rule, we recommend trying to stay just ahead of the feeling of thirst. As for what to drink, you can’t go wrong with OTE energy drinks and Hydro Tabs. These electrolyte-rich drinks will aid the absorption of fluid, making them more beneficial than plain water.
After Exercise
Post-exercise hydration is just as important for recovery as the consumption of protein and carbohydrates. For the average person, fluid balance is usually well regulated by the thirst mechanism, but the stress that athletes put on their bodies affects this, meaning they’re often in a dehydrated state at the end of an event or training session.It can take between 4 and 24 hours to fully rehydrate, so athletes should aim to consume 1.5L of fluid for every kilogram of body weight lost during exercise. Consuming OTE recovery drinks that are rich in electrolytes will help with fluid retention by minimising urine losses.
Perfect Your Hydration Here at OTE Sports
Hydration is much more than just satisfying thirst, and a smart hydration strategy requires more than a timer to remind you to sip some water. Hydration is integral for athletic performance, and at OTE, we have the expertise and products to help you take the guesswork out of effective hydration.
Are you ready to take your hydration seriously? At OTE Sports, we’ve got the product range you’ve been looking for, plus everything you need to keep your body in tip-top shape. From energy chews to protein bars, find what you need at OTE Sports.