I can’t emphasize enough the importance of staying hydrated. This is particularly true when you’re training, practicing or playing sports.
You’ll remember we talked about The 7 Commandments of Nutrition for Athletes a few days ago. As a reminder, here are a few points related to staying hydrated…
Drink at least 3 litres of WATER every day
Proper hydration will increase your energy levels and improve your overall health and body composition.
Buy and use a BIG water bottle. The less often you have to refill it the more likely you are to be successful.
You can flavour the water with lemon juice, slices of fruit, cucumber or cinnamon sticks.
Avoid drinks with added sugar
Water is always good.
Fruit juices often contain a lot of sugar. You can always water them down.
Biosteel recovery drinks use stevia instead of sugar as a sweetener.
Have a post-workout recovery shake
If you want your muscles to grow, it is important that you give them the fuel them up immediately after you deplete their energy stores. The best way to do this is a shake, since solid foods can take a few hours to digest.
Chocolate milk is a good option.
There are many good recovery shakes: Biosteel and BeachBody are just two. Try for a 2:1 ration of carbs (30-40g) to protein (15-20g).
You can also mix your own by combining a 500ml bottle of Gatorade with a typical scoop of whey protein. Obviously a good recovery shake includes water to help you rehydrate after your workout.
Are You Drinking Enough Water?
Today’s Assignment:
- Complete today’s workout on the TeamBuildr app. Be sure to mark each exercise complete as you finish it. Depending on your schedule (other sports, work, etc.) it is okay to complete the exercises on another day or even substitute an alternate workout provided that the difficultly level is similar. Please make note of any substitutions or switches as part of the daily check in item in the TeamBuildr app.
- Try this exercise the next time that you have a game, practice or training session:
- Weigh yourself BEFORE you exercise.
- Keep track of how much you drink while you are exercising.
- Weigh yourself again AFTER you exercise.
- Calculate the difference and drink that much more the next time. Ideally we wouldn’t want to lose any water weight.
- Post ONE idea from the infographic above that you thought was interesting to the team WhatsApp group.