The human body is made up of 60 percent water, and proper hydration is crucial to making sure your body can function the way it’s supposed to. When you’re physically pushing yourself to your limits—especially in hot conditions—having enough water on board is even more important.
Considering all this, could topping off your fluid stores before a big fitness event be a cheat code for better performance? Proponents of “hyperhydrating” think yes.
Hyperhydrating is “when you drink with the intention of increasing your total body water above and beyond normal values,” says Lindsey Baker, PhD, a director at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. Basically, the goal is to fill your fluid stores to the brink—your body maxes out at about one extra liter, or approximately a 1.5 percent increase in body weight, she adds. The thinking is that the fluid overload can help mitigate the negative effects of dehydration on performance—including fatigue, cramps, a higher heart rate, and more—which can start as soon as you start exercising. Here’s a breakdown of how it works.
Hyperhydrating isn’t just about chugging plain water.
If you do that, you’re going to end up visiting the bathroom every 15 minutes. “This fluid has to contain sodium, too,” says Amy West, MD, a sports medicine physiatrist at the Northwell Health Orthopaedic Institute. Think: chicken broth or miso soup, or anything with a substantial amount of electrolytes.
Meet the experts: Lindsey Baker, PhD, is a director at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. Amy West, MD, is a sports medicine physiatrist at the Northwell Health Orthopaedic Institute.
“[The sodium element] is an important distinction, because if it’s just water, it can lead to a condition called hyponatremia, where the level of sodium in the blood is significantly lower than normal—and that can lead to symptoms like nausea and vomiting; muscle weakness, spasms or cramps; seizures, and even death,” explains Dr. West. Sodium helps regulate the amount of water that’s in and around your cells, so when it becomes too diluted, your body’s water levels rise and your cells begin to swell, and that can cause problems.
Pre-exercise hyperhydration with sodium or glycerol—another compound that promotes fluid balance that’s found naturally in food, used as an sweetener and thickening agent, and sometimes sold as a sports supp—may improve exercise capacity during endurance events due to a reduced heart rate and core temperature, stemming from the acute increase in your blood volume, a 2023 scientific review in the journal Sports Medicine found.
“Plasma volume is basically the amount of water in your blood plasma,” explains Baker. “When you’re exercising, especially in the heat, there’s a high demand for your blood flow to go to your muscles to support performance and to your skin to regulate temperature. Having extra water in your blood makes it easier for that blood to circulate.”
How much sodium is needed in water for hyperhydration is also not a one-size-fits-all answer. Research suggests that a concentration of 2,990 to 3,772 milligrams of sodium per liter of water does the trick. But it ultimately depends on the person, the endurance event, and their experience with hyperhydrating. It’s really not meant for everyone (and we’ll get into that!).
What’s more, the context here is typically endurance exercise, Baker notes. If you’re gearing up for a marathon, this may be helpful; if you’ve got a big lifting session on deck, not so much. And may is the key word. “Some of the studies show an increase in time to exhaustion, and some improvement in time trials,” says Dr. West. “But it wasn’t a universal thing.”
There are a lot of caveats in the research, though.
First, “the overwhelming majority of the participants were males, so there’s no evidence that these effects can be extrapolated to women,” says Dr. West. In fact, an older, smaller review published in the Journal of Applied Physiology confirmed that “…the limited evidence suggests that sex-based differences exist in thermoregulatory and cardiac strain associated with exercise-induced dehydration, and this warrants future investigations.” Read: Men and women *might* experience dehydration differently during exercise, and we need more research to know for sure. Dr. West also notes that fluid loss for women varies at different times of the month.
Plus, there can be downsides. First, there’s the matter of inconvenience—if you’re not consuming enough sodium with your fluids, you’re going to end up peeing the excess out, says Dr. West. “A lot of the studies show that people experience gastrointestinal discomfort from this,” she adds. And, not to be dramatic, but there is the minor (albeit rare!) issue of death as a result of hyponatremia.
The takeaway here: Researchers are only just beginning to understand hyperhydration, and results will vary.
“It’s really for when an athlete is anticipating large sweat losses in a hot environment or during a long duration activity with limited access to fluids,” says Baker. “It’s not for the casual runner or someone who’s doing a one-time event,” adds Dr. West. “It’s really for someone who’s fine-tuning a very high level of training.” And if you’re considering it, it’s definitely something you want to try out before a shorter event—ideally with guidance from a sports nutritionist—before your goal event.
Cheat code or not, most everyday exercisers don’t need to hyperhydrate. Most healthy people meet their daily hydration needs by letting thirst be their guide, according to the latest nutrient recommendations from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Women who appear to be adequately hydrated consume an average of approximately 2.7 liters (91 ounces) of total water—from all beverages and foods—each day. Athletes would likely need a little more than that, because they need to replace the fluids they lose through sweat during exercise (you can weigh yourself before and after exercise and then convert that amount to ounces to find out how much fluid you lost during the workout).
You can still be proactive about hydrating before an event, but you don’t have to go overboard.
Hyperhydration isn’t like carb-loading; you don’t have to start it several days before an event. “It’s more like within the two to four hours beforehand,” says Dr. West. The amount is based on body weight, adds Baker. “It’s five to seven milliliters per kilogram of body weight, starting four hours before exercise—so, between 12 and 16 ounces for a 150-pound person—and three to five milliliters per kilogram of body weight two hours before exercise, or seven to 12 ounces.”
The goal is to start with your hydration levels above baseline, “which effectively delays the point at which you become dehydrated, which might impact your thermoregulatory function or decrease performance,” says Baker.
Dehydration reduced exercise endurance time from 121 minutes to 55 minutes, older research found, and has a negative impact on physical performance for any activity lasting more than 30 minutes, according to a 2015 scientific review in the Journal of Sport and Health Science.
But “the best and most practical advice is to focus on starting your exercise in a well-hydrated state,” says Baker. “It’s a combination of following the guidelines, but then also realizing that you’re an individual and your needs might vary above or below those guidelines and paying attention to your body, how often you’re using the bathroom, and the color of your urine.”
Ashley Mateo is a writer, editor, and UESCA- and RRCA-certified running coach who has contributed to Runner’s World, Bicycling, Women’s Health, Health, Shape, Self, and more. She’ll go anywhere in the world once—even if it’s just for a good story. Also into: good pizza, good beer, and good photos.
This article was originally published by a www.womenshealthmag.com . Read the Original article here. .