There is nothing more important to good health, especially when exercising, than to ensure that you drink sufficient water regularly so that your body remains fully hydrated and able to function optimally at all times.
It is extremely important that you drink water even more regularly when performing any type of physical activities in high temperatures or at higher elevations.
The Importance of Hydration in Exercise
In order to understand the importance of drinking water regularly, it is vital that one first understands exactly what dehydration is and how it impacts on the body as well as the importance of drinking pure water:
What is Dehydration?
Dehydration is not merely the loss of water and other fluids; it includes the loss of many other nutrients that the body needs in order to function optimally and which it gets from drinking water, including blood salts and potassium. Without these vital nutrients your brain kidneys, and heart will not be able to operate at peak efficiency until you rehydrate.
How the Body Protects Itself
The human body is a wonderful piece of technology that maintains its own core body temperature by sweating when the temperature gets hotter; this sweat cools on the skin and in turn cools the body down. Unfortunately sweating also draws precious fluids out of the body, which need to be regularly replaced and this can only be done by drinking water regularly.
Drinking Water Before Exercise
It is important to hydrate adequately before you start exercising, and to do this you should drink around 500ml about two hours before exercising and another 500ml about 15 minutes before exercising. Drink around 100ml to 150ml every 15 minutes during sustained exercise.
Why Water as Opposed to Other Drinks?
Alcohol and coffee are diuretics, which means that they actually dehydrate you more; carbonated drinks may hydrate you for a while but they can also make the body take longer to absorb fluids. The best way to stay hydrated is to drink more water, as it not only hydrates you but also provides the body with vital nutrients.
The best way to ensure that you drink sufficient water is to have an easily accessible source of clean, hygienic, filtered chilled water at hand and from which you can fill a sports bottle when going out to work in the heat or to exercise, and that is by investing in a water cooler.
Rent water dispensers and buy water coolers in London. Get short term water cooler or natural spring water from Living-Water.
