Global wellness
Finally, answer the following questions:
- What factors can increase an individual’s chance of becoming dehydrated?
- What impact can dehydration have on performance?
- What methods require few resources and could be used to help an athlete with their hydration if there is no access to a lab?
- What strategies did Tim suggest Ben could use in the future to help his hydration status?
Discussion
- The environment is the obvious factor, with heat increasing our sweat loss. However, the number of training sessions the individual has conducted in the heat will dictate how accustomed they are to the environment. The individual’s drinking behaviours can also play a significant role in their risk of becoming dehydrated. If they rely on thirst rather than a drinking strategy that is personalised to their fluid needs, they will often not drink enough.
- Dehydration can impact on motivation, neuromuscular control, accuracy, power, strength, muscular endurance and overall performance. With the next two units in mind, it is crucial that, when we begin to analyse technique using biomechanical methods, the athlete is hydrated prior to and during testing.
- As with other monitoring tools, there are a large number of methods to choose from, ranging from the more complex to the relatively simple. More sophisticated methods of hydration assessment you read about in the module book and saw in the video included the measurement of urine specific gravity and the use of a sweat patch to analyse sweat sodium content. However, simpler hydration assessments that are accessible to everyone include observing urine colour as an indicator of hydration status and measuring body mass pre- and post-exercise to assess sweat loss and drinking behaviour.
- Tim suggested a couple of different strategies to replace the fluid and electrolytes Ben was losing during his tennis sessions. One strategy involved just fluids and the other involved food alongside fluids to help replace the sodium and fluid lost.
