Hydration = Balance

When you perform any exercise it makes sense to have your body operating at optimal levels, and hydration is clearly necessary to achieve optimal performance. But proper hydration is even more critical for Stand Up Paddle Surfing, because hydration has a profound effect on balance. Try this simple test. Next time you are thirsty, before you drink water balance on one leg, close your eyes, and count how many seconds you can remain balanced. Then drink as much water as you can comfortably hold, wait a few minutes, and repeat the test. You’ll find you can balance much longer.

Not a very scientific test, but it should bring home the message that hydration is important to balance. Dehydration slows muscle response and detunes the fine muscle control that is critical to maintaining balance. There are other reasons too–physical performance, both intensity and endurance, falls quickly as athletes become dehydrated. In the longer term, operating in a dehydrated state is bad for your immune system, hard on your kidneys, and bad for your heart and lungs.

Here’s the kicker–sedentary people don’t have a big problem with hydration. They generally get enough fluids: Roughly a gallon of fluids for men and three quarts of fluid for women per day. It’s the folks that are physically active that are frequently dehydrated to the point of substantially decreasing performance and compromising health. This has been well understood for a long time, most of the data still quoted in journals is from the 1960′s. In random weighings of people working out in gyms with water freely available, more than 40 percent were dehydrated 3 percent or more; for bicycle riders it was more than 60 percent, runners more than 70 percent. A dehydration level of three percent is serious. Here’s the standard dehydration scale:

0% — normal performance
1% — thirst occurs, heat regulation may be compromised, balance compromised
2% — dry mouth, worsening performance
3% — Heat regulation is compromised, strength and endurance performance declines 10-20 percent
4% — discomfort, performance declines 20-30 percent
5% — headache, fatigue, disorientation
6% — weakness, severe loss of heat regulation
7% — collapse

How Much And How Frequently

So when you’ve been paddling for an hour and you feel a little thirsty, your balance is probably reduced by 50 percent and your strength by at least 10-20%. Even if you take along a camelbak and drink from it while you paddle, you may not be getting enough fluid to maintain hydration. Slaking your thirst is just turning off the alarm.

If you’d like to be a little scientific about this you can do some fairly accurate and simple measurements. Before you go for a paddle empty your bladder and record your weight naked ___________ lbs.

Do a typical paddle or surf session and drink as you normally would. Record the volume of fluid you consumed ___________ fluid ounces

Towel dry, empty your bladder and then record your weight naked ___________ lbs.(B)

Subtract your post-exercise weight from your pre-exercise weight to get the number of pounds you lost during exercise. To find out how many fluid ounces of water you have lost, multiply the weight you lost in pounds by 16. That amount of water plus the amount of water you drank is how much water you needed to drink to maintain normal hydration. You can remember the conversion factor for ounces to pounds easily with this mnemonic–a pint’s a pound the world around.

To find out your dehydration percentage, divide the amount of weight you lost by your original weight and multiply by 100. For example, if you weighed 200 pounds and you lost 2 pounds, it’s (2/200)*100 = .01*100 = 1 percent.

If you lost two pounds that’s 32 ounces of water you lost, so if you drank one quart you really needed to drink two. It’s more likely though that even if you are wearing a camelbak that you drink just a few sips as you exercise, and it’s not enough to maintain performance and balance. Generally, in warm weather paddling hard a person will need eight ounces of water every twenty minutes

Obviously you’re not going to be carrying a gallon of water with you if you go for a two hour paddle. So here’s a reasonable hydration plan for warm weather: In the hour before the paddle drink 32 ounces or more of water (one quart). During the paddle drink 6 ounces of water every 20 minutes. Following the paddle drink 32 ounces of water (one quart). Again, if you want to be precise, or just get a baseline measurement, weigh yourself before and after the paddle with an empty bladder and drink 24 ounces of water for each pound of weight you lost.

Unless you are exceptionally vigilant, as an active person you are probably chronically dehydrated. Not only is that bad for performance, it’s bad for your long term health. The list of diseases and disorders linked to chronic dehydration is long and unpleasant. Some of them are not things you would automatically associate with not drinking enough water. When I started paying more attention to hydration the backaches I thought were just the price I was paying for an active lifestyle disappeared.

Once you have a clear idea of how much water you need during exercise, it’s fairly easy to stay hydrated. You will increase your overall performance and recovery to a remarkable degree.