Importance of water in sports

Edited by Doctor Izzo Lorenzo

During intense physical activity and regular sporting practice, the amount of water that is lost can reach significant values ​​and compromise both the sporting result and the athlete's state of health.

Sports practice, in fact, is mainly characterized by a more or less significant increase in the production of energy by the muscle cells involved in the technical gesture of the specific sporting discipline.
Consequently, and hand in hand with the increase in the use of ATP, there is an increase in the amount of heat produced, which in turn is responsible for the increase in body temperature typical of sports, as well as of any other activity. physics that requires some muscular effort. The increase in internal body temperature that occurs during sports activity constitutes a potential risk factor for the health of athletes, as well as an unfavorable element for athletic performance.
Therefore, when the human organism is subjected to physical exertion, especially if carried out in conditions of high ambient temperature and humidity, but also in the case of cold temperatures, it must necessarily activate those mechanisms (thermoregulation) capable of inducing an adequate reduction of body temperature (heat dispersion) and vice versa. The most effective mechanism in this sense is certainly the evaporation of sweat which, during muscular work, is produced more efficiently precisely to safeguard the integrity of the organism and to ensure maximum athletic performance ability. In fact, every gram or milliliter of water that evaporates involves the dispersion of 0.58 Kcal; however, in this regard, it is good to remember that sweating does not cause energy expenditure (it does not make you lose weight) and that only the water actually evaporated produces a reduction in body temperature. Conversely, what remains in the removed clothing, either drips, or is removed mechanically from the skin surface, for example with towels, it does not produce favorable effects on thermo dispersion, but on the contrary determines a further loss of water capable of aggravating the state of dehydration of the organism.
In athletes engaged in training and / or competitions of considerable intensity and duration, weight variations of up to 5-6 kg may occur, represented by a very large part of the water lost through sweating.
Sweat is a biological liquid consisting mainly of water, with minimal quantities of mineral salts, such as chlorine, magnesium, potassium and also iron and calcium.

A lack of water is poorly tolerated by the body, the athletic performance capacity is reduced to the degree of dehydration of our body: a loss of 2% of the volume of ATC (total body water) alters thermoregulation and negatively affects efficiency and on the physical abilities of the subject, while a loss of 5% involves the risk of cramps and is able to determine a 30% reduction in sports performance. Greater water losses compromise the homeostasis of the organism and are particularly dangerous to the point of becoming even life-threatening (hyperthermia and heat stroke).
It is clear, therefore, that the main integration that athletes need is water, this is true both for elite sportsmen and for those of a lesser technical level.