The Benefits of Water When Training

Basic Information about Water and Health

Water is the most abundant natural resource on the planet. Over two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered with some form of water. The amazing thing is the amount of drinkable water is very small in comparison to the overall water supply in the world. It is estimated that less than 1% of the Earth’s overall water supply is considered drinkable. With such a small percentage of drinkable water on the Earth many have led panics that eventually the population will run out of viable fresh water supplies. While there is reason and cause for many people to be concerned about the polluting of a fresh water streams, there is no immediate signs that the Earth will stop having drinkable water in the immediate future.

The water cycle is the manner in which water travels throughout the ecosystem. A person watching the water cycle would soon realize that water reaching the ocean, and turning from fresh water into salt water is not permanently gone from the possibility of ever being drinkable again. Through the formation of clouds, salt water is changed into drinkable water, and is then deposited back onto land. Through rain and snow water is stored and reaches fresh water sources, and the water cycle continues. While the water cycle will continue to provide fresh water for a person’s use, it is important that we guard against practices which might interrupt or destroy the water cycle. Certain forms of mining which have hazardous tailings can cause large amounts of harm to massive subterranean water supplies. Dumping of waste into rivers and streams can deposit harmful byproducts into drinking water which will affect the health of those living downstream. The polluting of coastal ocean waters also has a harmful effect on the rain water which is produced and transported onto land. The fear of acid rain is also very destructive to the continuity and health of the drinkable water supply.

The first best way to augment a person’s health through the liquids they drink is to first help to maintain the integrity of the water cycle. This will help a person to have fresh clean water to drink and replenish their bodies. The number of dirty water related illnesses and long term disorders are always rising, and can really destroy any health goals which any person might have.

Using Water While Training

Thanks in large parts to large marketing budget from major corporations many people think they need to buy some kind of sports drink in order to stay hydrated. The simple truth is most people who are working out do not need anything more than water in order to replenish the fluids their bodies have lost. In fact, there is research indicating that traditional sports drinks might not be as effective as water in helping a person’s athletic performance.

There has been a new study published in which water was compared to sports drinks on the performance of endurance athletes. In one of the more standardized studies a woman’s cycling team was given both water and sports drinks to see which team was able to maintain a stronger overall performance over time. What the researchers found was the cold water was the best liquid to drink to gain the maximum performance. While there were some benefits to sports drinks being used after a workout to help the body recover after an extremely long workout, about what the cycling team would do every day, the sports drinks actually had a detrimental effect on the athletes while they were actually performing. The cyclists who would take a small amount of cold water at incremental periods were better able o maintain a lower heart rate and have higher muscle performance. They were also able to have a lower overall body temperature. This lowering of the body temperature led to less perspiration and that meant that the cyclists needed fewer liquids than those riders using sports beverages.

For those people training in the United States there is little to no reason to add additional sodium to the body. When the body sweats a large amount then the body’s sodium levels will also fall. This decreasing of sodium leads to a lowering of muscle performance, and it will also have a negative performance on an athlete’s ability to compete. Yet, the average American’s diet is well over the recommended daily amount for sodium. The increase of sodium from a sports drink can really take a person well over the upper limits of how much sodium they should have in their system. The amount of sodium that the average American sweats out of their body will be replenished easily through the meals they partake of each and every day. The only other drink which has been shown to have profitable effect on the human body is milk. There were some studies which showed those people who would drink water while they were training, and then milk after a workout would recover faster and perform better compared with those individuals who would just use sports drinks.

Things to Consider About Hydration

Staying hydrated is one of the best things a person can do for the overall health of the human body. With so much clean water available for consumption it really shouldn’t be a terribly difficult thing for a person to maintain adequate levels of water hydration. There is some new information a person should consider about the vitamin levels in their body.

Many of the essential vitamins in the body are water soluble. This means the body has a great amount of difficulty in storing these vitamins in the body, and the body needs to replenish its supplies of water soluble vitamins nearly daily. Increasing the amount of water a person drinks can influence the amount of water soluble vitamins in the body. Water is used to flush out excess from the body. This means that as a person increases the amount of water they drink, it also decrease the amount of water soluble vitamins the body is able to retain. Some studies have shown that an increase in the amount of water a person drinks can actually have a detrimental effect on the total amounts of vitamins in the body. The solution to this problem according to many studies is to increase the total amounts of vitamins in the body.

The best way to augment the body’s vitamin levels is to take a good healthy daily multivitamin. A daily multivitamin will increase the levels of water soluble vitamins in the body. In this way the body will be able to gain the benefits of drinking an adequate amount of water, and also maintain a healthy level of vitamins and minerals which the body also needs for health.