The human body is made up of around 70% water, present both in and around cells, tissue and blood vessels. When the body loses bodily fluids due to normal bodily functions and they are not replaced, it leads to dehydration, which can become really dangerous.
Why Your Muscles Need You to Drink Water
Your body needs sufficient water in order to remain hydrated and able to perform all the healthy functions required of its various systems, including the muscular functions.
When the human body is deprived of fluids and becomes dehydrated, it can lead to renal impairment, impaired cardiovascular efficiency and fatigue. Muscles are 79% water, and performing any type of strenuous physical activity in elevated temperatures and high levels of humidity can lead to a drop in body mass from sweating. A 15-20% loss of body mass would mean an approximate 20-30% of total body water loss, and this would almost certainly lead to death.
Water is muscle fuel – when you do not drink sufficient water, your muscles will get fatigued and will eventually stop working, which is why you need to drink sufficient water before committing to any physical exercise regimen, and also to drink sufficient water after to replace that which has been lost through sweating.
Mild dehydration can decrease the lactate threshold and increase stress on the cardiovascular system, leading to heart problems. One tends to forget that the heart is just on very large muscle, and as such also needs to be kept hydrated.
Basically, when we do the math, it becomes patently apparent that the need for water for our muscles far exceeds the need for any other nutrient. Dehydration can be easily avoided by matching your sweat rate with the amount of water intake; if you sweat profusely while training, you need to drink around 3.5-7 litres of water per day – the bulk of this needs to come from drinking water, while the rest can come from other liquids and water-rich fruit and vegetables.
Hydrate well before exercising and have a bottle of water or three on standby so that you can drink more when necessary. Drinking sports drinks containing electrolytes during exercising will help keep you well-hydrated and will help build muscle cell volume.
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