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One Way to Optimize Your Performance as You Train for MMA (Part 1)
Can you get better at being dehydrated with training?We can go up to two months without food as long as we have water available. To the contrary, we can go a week or two at most without water.
Several years ago I was working out with a Navy Seals candidate and I noticed that he wasn’t drinking water periodically between sets like I was. When I asked him why, he told me that his recruiter advised him to get used to training while dehydrated. While I found this funny at the time, it wasn’t until years later when I was studying exercise science that I found out this was completely untrue. You can’t train yourself to get better at being dehydrated. The importance of hydration when exercising in hot and humid weather
Heavy exercise (the type you do when you train for MMA) during hot weather causes a much greater output (i.e. sweating) of total water. If total water intake remains the same, this can cause major performance problems. Dehydration negatively impacts cardiovascular ability. It causes a reduction in blood and plasma volume which causes the heart to work harder resulting in an increased heart rate. Dehydration also:
- Increases blood lactate levels (which causes quicker fatigue)
- Decreases VO2 max (a determining factor for aerobic endurance capacity)
- Increases body temperature resulting in an increased risk of overheating.
Don’t judge your water consumption by thirst as you Train for MMA
If you wait until you’re thirsty to drink, you are waiting too long. Thirst is a poor mechanism to act as a hydration benchmark. Sometimes a person will actually stop getting thirsty as they are getting dehydrated. Thirst begins normally when there is about a 1-2% water loss.
Hydration Facts:
- At 6% loss we get confusion, then dizzy, and as we progress to 11% life is at risk
- Sweat has to evaporate to cool us
- From a cooling standpoint, it is better to leave a shirt on than to take it off
- It is also better to wear lightly colored clothes than dark ones.
The easiest way to calculate how much you should drink is to first weigh yourself after exercise. Then consume as much fluid as you comfortably can periodically until you are at your pre-workout weight and fully hydrated. This may take up to 6 hours. As a guideline, consume 15 fluid ounces for every pound lost.
Some things to look for when rehydrating are that the beverage:
- Tastes good
- Absorbs quickly
- Offers potential to enhance exercise performance
- For events greater than 1 hour, a drink low in sugar (4-8 g per 100 ml) may be helpful
- Drink should be cool
- Drink should be palatable- Adding .5 g/l to .7 g/l of sodium increases palatability, fluid retention, and can help prevent hyponatremia (lower than normal levels of sodium in the blood).
Don’t overlook the importance of water
As basic as it sounds, water is one of the most important nutrients when it comes to your performance. Because it is so basic, it is often over-looked. Don’t make the same mistake as many other athletes. Do everything you can (just apply the principles from this article) to stay hydrated and your opponents will be struggling to keep up with you.
Click here to read Part 2 of this article
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