We exercise to feel and look good, wear cool workout clothes and sneakers, and, most importantly, stay healthy and strong. Monitoring our hydration and stretching our muscles before and after every workout are important steps to ensuring our bodies get the most out of our exercise. But sometimes these extra steps can feel like the equivalent of investing in plumbing and electrical repairs for our homes; sure, they’re necessary, but who wants to do them?
“Hydrating and stretching are going to put you in a position where you can focus on getting faster and stronger day in and day out,” says John M. Vasudevan, MD, CAQSM, Associate Professor of Clinical Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Penn Medicine.
In this post, Dr. Vasudevan will offer some tips to help both hydration and stretching feel less abstract. His advice should serve as a starting point, but as with any other aspect of training and competing, it can be valuable to experiment and take notes to discover what works best for you.
How to Gauge Your Thirst
Nearly two-thirds of a human adult body is made of water. So, it should come as little surprise that water is vital to everything we do, including our athletic performance. Our blood, which contains a lot of water, carries oxygen to our cells, making even basic functions possible. Water also gets rid of waste and helps regulate the body’s temperature.
How Much Water Should You Drink Per Day?
You’ve probably been told to drink eight glasses of water a day. We’ve all heard it. But our hydration needs are not one-size-fits-all. “The recommendation to drink 8 glasses of water per day fails to take into account your goals and variables, including the weather conditions and physical demands of your workout or race,” Dr. Vasudevan says. “Monitoring your thirst is a good place to start becoming more familiar with your hydration needs. But if you’re feeling thirsty, you’re already a little behind where you should be. The goal is really to drink frequently enough – at rest and during exercise – so you don’t feel parched.”
He suggests drinking 15 ounces of water two to four hours prior to a workout or race, 10 ounces one hour prior, and then five ounces every 15 minutes during your workout or race. Again, though, this is merely a place to begin. Experiment with the amounts and timing.
How To Know If You're Drinking Enough Water
One way to tell if you’re drinking enough water is to weigh yourself before and after your workout. If you’ve lost one percent or less of your bodyweight, you’re doing well. A two-percent loss might warrant drinking a little more the next time out. At three percent, not only is your performance negatively affected, you’re also at risk of illness.
A brief note about sports drinks: You won’t fully deplete your glycogen stores in a workout or race lasting under an hour, so there’s no need to replenish them with a carbohydrate-rich sports drink. Water is just as effective up to that point.
Finally, once you find a hydration strategy that works for you, stick with it, even on race day. There’s a tendency to drink too much or too little before and during a race; blame all the distractions or adrenaline. But by sticking to your routine as much as possible, the race simply becomes a matter of doing what you’ve already done in training many times before.
When (And When Not) To Stretch
It’s also a good idea to get into the habit of bookending your workouts and races with a warmup and cooldown. Static stretching is integral to your cooldown, but not necessarily to your warmup.
The goal of a warmup is to slightly increase your heart and breathing rates and prime your nervous system.
“There’s no muscle without a tendon and no tendon without a muscle,” Dr. Vasudevan says. “Warming up ensures the muscles are going to respond with strength and power. It also helps lengthen the muscle-tendon unit so that it will be able to accommodate stress.”
This can be accomplished in any number of ways. For example, run three to four 100 meter-intervals at the pace you plan to run your workout or race or do 20 jumping jacks followed by several reps of various lifts with a bare barbell. Regardless of the shape your warmup takes, it doesn’t need to last longer than a few minutes.
“You want to do just enough so you feel like you’re hitting the ground running when you actually begin,” Dr. Vasudevan says.
In recent years, whether or not static stretching should be included in a warmup has become a controversial matter among physiologists.
“The studies are limited, but they tend to lean toward saving static stretching until after the workout,” he says. “That said, if you’re feeling especially tight or sore, and static stretching helps, then do it.”
Make Time To Cool Down
Dr. Vasudevan describes the cooldown as “critical” to any successful exercise regimen.
“Consciously transitioning from vigorous exercise mode to non-exercise mode is so important,” he says. “You’ve been taxing the body’s systems to achieve this output for a sustained period. Stopping abruptly can cause a precipitous drop in blood pressure and oxygen levels.”
Like the warmup, a cooldown doesn’t need to last longer than a few minutes. Aim to stretch your tightest and/or sorest muscles with three 15-second, progressive static stretches. In other words, hold the stretch for 15 seconds, rest for a few seconds, then hold the stretch again. This time, try to go a little deeper.
“We tend to go a little too deep with our initial stretch,” Dr. Vasudevan says. “When the body senses resistance, it instinctively tightens up to protect the affected muscle. But after 10 to 20 seconds, it will realize there’s no threat, and it’ll begin to loosen. As a result, you’ll be surprised how much further you’ll be able to go on those second and third stretches.”
There’s value in stretching between workouts for longer durations, too, especially as we age.
“Fitness is a three-legged stool: cardio, strength, and agility. But agility is usually an afterthought,” he says. “However, our bodies get stiffer as we get older, and our agility deficits become more noticeable. Yoga, Pilates, and other similar types of exercise can help correct those imbalances and enable you to keep going at it hard.”