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Are you drinking enough and the right Drinks during training and performances?
Drinking enough and the right drinks is very important for dancers.
Nearly 70 to 80% of the human body is water. If we loose water we also loose minerals. A lack of minerals leads to dysfunctions of muscles, a lack of water disturbs the cooling of the body and effects the cardiovascular system badly. Dehydration is very dangerous , it not only makes tired and enhances the danger of injuries, it also can lead to serious dysfunctions of inner organs and body systems.
When you feel thirsty your body indicates that he has not enough water. But this is already too late. Better is to drink enough, in small portions over the whole day without becoming thirsty. Avoid drinking big portions and avoid drinking to fast.
When to drink?
Never start training thirsty and never perform thirsty.
Drink a glass 15 minutes before the beginning of your training. If the class is not longer than 60 minutes it usually is enough to fill up the lost fluid after class. Only if the training is longer or when training in very high temperature you should drink small portions during the training. Note: if a class is very hard and you sweat a lot you maybe will loose approximately 1 Liter of wate.
Remember: Drink slowly and drink before you become thirsty.
How much to drink?
To get the feeling of how much you need to drink you need to learn about your body. A good thing is, to weight yourself before and after training. To get the right results, you should go to toilet and empty your bladder before weighting yourself. Also never weight yourself with wet cloth after training, do it naked or in dry underwear. If you lost weight after training this is never fat, it’s always water. If the weight is the same, the fluid system of the body is well balanced. If your weight is higher than before the training, you drank more than you needed. For a healthy person usually a bit more water is better than too less. But take care, drinking high amounts of water at once that you not really need is also not healthy for the body.
What to drink?
First rule is: Do not drink too cold. The ideal drink is somewhere between room temperature and body temperature. Avoid sparkling drinks, they force the the stomach to stretch and the resorption is much slower than the body can use non sparkling drinks.
Coke, Lemonade or pure Fruitjuice, as well as milk or energy drinks replace energy (because of high calories) but the body can’t use them fast to replace water in the cells. Apart from milk and fruit juice they do not deliver electrolytes that the body looses when sweating. Diet Coke or diet lemonade also do not replace fluid well, they do not give energy (because they have zero calories) and they have no electrolytes.
Mineral Water replaces electrolytes and fluid. So mineral water It’s definitely a very good choice, but to add a bit more energy some fruit juice mixed into it, makes the best choice. (2 parts of water with 1 part of juice or less).
Never drink alcohol or coffee as a sports drink and avoid so called isotonic sportsdrinks , they are usually very unnatural and full of chemicals and a waste of money. One last tip: there is a difference between different brands of mineral water,choose one with a high amount of electrolytes (like magnesium, calcium). Try to compare the labels of different mineral water next time you are in a supermarket, you will see the difference.