TO WATER OR NOT TO WATER

In the midst of training hard and eating lots of carb, it's too easy to forget about the humble water and cousins - sports drinks both hypotonic and isotonic.

There are 3 main areas to look at - why to drink, when to drink and what to drink.

Why to drink?

You may have noticed that when you train, you get warmer and sweat ! This is because about 75% of the energy your muscles generate when you work out is turned into heat and lost through sweat. Each liter of sweat carries with it about 600kcal of heat energy. To put that in perspective, an hour exercise in a cold climate will result in about 1 liter of sweat (an hour kicking pads in a Thai gym? unknown quantities but possibly as much as 2 liters) so a full work out is a fairly substantial liquid loss for your body. As the rate of sweat will vary from person to person and from situation to situation, you should weigh yourself before and after training to estimate your own loss - 1 kg loss is roughly equal to 1 liter of liquid. If you don't replace this loss, you will suffer from dehydration and possibly heat stroke. See figures below for details. Heat stroke is caused when your body is losing so much fluid that there is not enough liquid to both carry blood to the muscles and the surface of the skin. Reduced sweating results in increased heat and tiredness + heat stroke. But dehydration is not always a dramatic event - its not just the marathon runner collapsing on the road or the boxer falling over the ropes. This situation can build up over a period of days, from one training session to another. Symptoms: tiredness (more than usual during and after a session) , headaches, eating less, feeling like vomiting and a general lightheadedness. And the most obvious, the color of your urine - a concentrated dark-yellow color is a danger sign and should be heeded.

When to drink?

To use an old adage, prevention is better than cure. Think about your training session during the day and hydrate yourself accordingly. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM ) recommend about ? liter 2 hours before exercise and a filter 125-250 mls immediately before training. During training, you will have to experiment with how much you can take - for a session involving sparring and full contact, a full stomach is not a good idea whereas a weights session will be of less-impact. There is no point in simple drinking a liter of liquid right before a session as you will simply sweat or urinate the excess.

Make it easier for you to sip during training by keeping drinks cool (not iced), in a container, which is easy, to open and accessible (not locked away in your gym bag, up the stairs in the changing room). Feeling ill when drinking during or immediately after exercise can be a sign of dehydration – your stomach movements will be out of synch with only 2% dehydration so you will feel bloated and nauseous.

After the session, you should aim to drink about 1.5 times what you have lost though sweat. But not straight away, maybe 0.5 liter when changing and the rest as you make your way home.

During the day, you need to balance the food intake and fluid so that you stay hydrated.

What to drink?

Water with solid food ( not a mars bar unless you are desperate) is more than adequate but as carbohydrate is beneficial, a sports drink which gives about 1 gram of carb/per kg of body weight is also a good option.

There are 2 types of sports drink – those designed to simply replace fluid and those, which will increase energy levels also. Read the labels. Studies have shown that sports drinks containing about 6-gm/100 ml are the most effective for sports such as Muaythai in improving performance and fluid replacement. Whether you drink “fizzy “ (carbonated) or still drinks is really a matter of preference.

Regular soft drinks such as Sprite or Pepsi should be avoided as they increase dehydration! You may think you need the sugar but actually your body as to produce water to dilute this liquid therefore you are worse off than before (and they are incredible fattening anyhow). Diet versions are worse than useless as they contain so little sodium – though they are better than nothing if you are really stuck.

Caffeine drinks? Well, this is an interesting area. Yes, the IOC has banned caffeine as a stimulant but you would need about 8 cups of coffee or 16 cans of cola to be at this level. The caffeine will raise your performance to a certain extent and also your alertness for that end of the week training session. It does this by (simply put) improving fatty acid oxidation and lessening glycogen use. Reasons not to use it - it’s a diuretic so you will lose fluid so therefore you need to drink more water or other liquid as you train. In many people it causes anxiety and faster heartbeat – and as your heart is pounding fast enough during a sparring session anyhow, maybe you don’t need this too. Many canned drinks contain significant amounts of caffeine so check the labels carefully. As a guideline, a cup of “real” coffee will have 80-90 mgs/caffeine per cup, Nescafe (etc) will have 60 and a can of cola can have 40 or more.

Training in Thailand (and other humid countries)

Both temperature and wind speed can affect your performance so when in Thailand where there is lots of one and none of the other, you need to take extra precautions. Fast and rapid fluid replacement must be your priority.

Making sports drinks - you should dilute the mixture and make sure you drink more as you will clearly be sweating a lot more than usual. You will be losing vital minerals which have to be replace, water is not enough in these conditions. Be very careful with caffeine drinks in these circumstances.

If you don’t have powder for mixing your own in Thailand, try M-Sport, Gatorade or look in the chemists for re-hydration powders, which will work well after training. The sodium in these drinks sparks a thirst reaction in your body and makes you more aware of your needs.

This may sound obvious but avoid taking salt tablets. This is not a correct response to the excess sweat, as they will produce excess sodium in your stomach, which will slow down your re-hydration and recovery.

Alcohol and MUAYTHAI training

Should you drink alcohol before training – no. ‘nuff said. Drinking on non-training days (or after training once you are fully hydrated that is except for those old trainers you see in Thailand who seem to function wholly on whiskey-coke) is totally a personal choice. If you are training seriously for a fight, then avoiding it or drastically cutting down is the best option, if you are training to lose weight then beer will not help this goal at all. We all know that a little of what you like is good for you so … For those making weight for a fight, calorie counts for alcohol range from 200 for a pint of beer, 100 for a glass of wine, 50 for spirits before you add the cola and between 75-100 for liqueurs.

As a guide to measuring your intake, your liver can only process 1 unit of alcohol per hour (? pint beer, 1 glass wine). When you do have too much, a ? liter of sports drink before bed will help the morning situation as it begins the re-hydration process.

Training with a hangover is pretty much a bad idea. You are already dehydrated so staying in with lots of water and re-hydration liquids is a better idea. A walk will stimulate the process – and lessen your guilt about missing training. People talk about “sweating it out “ but its really not so smart.

BY NIAMH GRIFFIN