GET YOUR FLUIDS

Think the pool is one place you can skip hydration? Think again!

By Terry Laughlin
Allan Benjamin of Long Island City, NY, wrote to ask me: "How important is it to drink water during workout? Of twenty swimmers at my 90-minute, 3000-5000 yard workouts, I'm the only one with a water bottle."

It's easy to assume that because you don't actually see sweat when you're swimming, you're not losing water. Not so. You not only sweat, but also sweat copiously, because your body generates lots of internal friction heat from the contractions of all those swimming muscle fibers. In fact, 75 percent of all the calories you burn in the pool are thrown off as waste heat.

Prove it by weighing yourself before and after workout. You've lost weight, and it's all water. Sweat losses of as little as 2 percent of body weight, or 3 pounds for a 150-pound swimmer, can dramatically hurt your practice performance.

In fact, dehydration is far more likely to slow you down than energy loss, making water loading far more important than carbo loading, not to mention being easier. Still, though plain water is the most important "nutrient" for achieving peak performance, it's not always considered to be the last word these days, according to recent research.

A study by Dr. Jack Wilmore, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas, has concluded that for workouts of less than an hour, nothing beats water. But if you're swimming for more than an hour, fluid replacement drinks with electrolytes are absorbed into the bloodstream more quickly than water, thus hastening recovery.

Sports drinks are easy enough to find, having made their way from health-food and sporting-goods stores to the corner grocery. Besides coming in a variety of brand names and flavors, their formulas are all slightly different, so I can only advise people to experiment among the brands. I settled on Gatorade, watered down to about half strength. I like the taste, which prompts me to drink more; I've had no digestive problems, and I've noticed a marked improvement during the latter half of a typical 75-minute workout.

Down a quart? Getting enough? Here are five ways to make sure.

1. You can sweat off 6 to 8 ounces of fluid every 15 minutes. At minimum that's a healthy swig from your water bottle every quarter hour.

2. Want to be more precise? Weigh yourself before and after a workout. Each pound lost is a pint (16 oz.) of water loss. Next time, bring that much in your water bottle.

3. Pre-hydrate. Drink two to three cups of water about 2 hours before swimming and another two cups 15 minutes before workout.

4. Drink before you're thirsty. The thirst response comes only after your body already needs water. (Older swimmers note: Past middle age, we get "less thirsty." Exercise that drives a younger person to drink probably doesn't send thirst signals to an older person; so your risk of dehydration is greater.)

5. Energy-replacement (carbo-loaded) drinks during workout? Not necessary for a 2-hour or less workout. But if, say, you're getting on your bike afterward, use them to tank up.