Water is a lubricant for your muscular fibers and maintains a proper body temperature. It is also a very good “hunger-killer” and helps reduce lipid deposits with its lubricating action. In fact, is the water that divides the nutrients inside our body, passing them through the cell membranes and delivering nutrients to every part of our system.
During a cycling activity, losing about 2% of your body weight in water is equivalent to up to 6% decrease in your performance. If you go over, a 10-12% can be extremely dangerous. It is therefore essential for athletes to plan carefully a good rehydration strategy: this can be obtained only by taking a proper quantity of water and sodium chloride.
Try to take “water-breaks” instead of the usual “coffee-breaks” and try to drink at least 2 lt of water a day (without counting the quantity that you drink while training). Fill up a bottle of 2lt every morning and make sure to finish it before the end of the day.
Sodium is necessary in order to maintain the right plasmatic volume before, during and after a training session or a race. If someone raced yesterday, you could have see, in such a hot day, how much water and salt you lost during the race. Hence, a sprinkle of salt in your water and some good powered drink with enough quantity of sodium is important.
