Simply put, 60-70% of your body is nothing but WATER – and this includes muscles, tendons, digestive system, everything.
You are constantly losing water through dehydration, sweating (especially if you train hard) and other bodily functions – and you need to make sure you replace the water lost regularly, else your body just won’t function at an optimal level, regardless of how well you treat it otherwise.
Lack of water can affect you in many different ways. When it comes to training, a dehydrated person will never be able to achieve the same results as he would with proper hydration.
Symptoms of dehydration include sluggishness, not being able to recover well enough from your workouts, persistent headaches and much more. The exact symptoms will vary from individual to individual, but the root cause remains the same.
Despite the barrage of sports drinks, “post-workout” recovery drinks, etc out there, pure water is still and by far is the very best choice to stay well hydrated.
I recommend (as most medical experts do) drinking AT LEAST 8 glasses of pure water a day. This is simple enough to do, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t do it. And if your training hard, or are otherwise exposed to hot, humid (or another taxing) conditions, then you may need more – maybe 10 glasses of water a day as a minimum.
Other than water, green tea is something I highly recommend. When I was in China, this was an essential part of my “diet” – I NEVER started a workout without drinking green tea before.
There were many days I did not get a decent meal throughout the workday (wasn’t that easily accomplished apparently in the factory I worked at), and was tired and cranky when I got home – NOT the ideal way to start a tough workout immediately afterward.
But, a glass or two of green tea later, and I was raring to go – and got great results as well. Green tea has numerous health benefits which I will talk about in a later post, but for now, let’s just say it’s an instant and immensely healthy “pick me up” – so if your not drinking some green tea during YOUR daily routine, start doing so now.
Other forms of herbal tea are also great – jasmine tea, white tea, oolong, and black tea – but my personal favorite remains green tea.
Just make sure your getting high-quality green tea, preferably from China or someplace where the culture mandates drinking it regularly. And always use tea leaves, as opposed to tea bags – teabags contain crushed tea, which is bad for you.
And avoid colas, coffee, sodas, and any “soft drinks” with sugar in them. These are not good for you, dehydrate you, and have no positive benefits whatsoever – so if you must have then, have them in moderation, and make sure to drink enough water to compensate for the dehydration these will incur.