The Importance of Water for Exercise and General Health
Water contains about 60% of the typical human body, making it a significant constituent and survival factor. We need water daily to have our bodies perform at their peak. Your body cells, tissues, and organs are substantially made up of water, and therefore staying hydrated regularly has health-enhancing benefits. For example, the brain and the heart are 73% water, the lungs 83%, muscles and kidneys 83%, skin 64%, and even your bones are composed of 31% water. Thus, you’d be doing your body lots of good by taking enough clean water often.
However, if you’re a fitness fan and you often engage in workouts and frequent exercises- which we highly recommend, though, then consider making water your ever-present companion for your health and performance’s sake. Even though sports drinks are pretty good for consumption, especially during heavy exercises or intense workouts, water, the most abundant natural resource, is the best drink you can take before, during, and after an exercise. Here are five primary reasons why water is vital to your health and performance in physical activities.
1. Prevents Dehydration
Dehydration can cause detrimental effects on your body and performance during workouts. If you’re not staying hydrated enough, you might be unable to perform maximally, and you might also feel tired often. You also risk experiencing common dehydration symptoms like muscle cramps, dizziness, dry mouth, hard and fast heartbeat, fatigue, poor skin, etc. Extreme cases of dehydration can cause body weakness, brain damage and seizures, loss of consciousness, and in some cases, death.
2. Regulates Your Body Temperature
Water is a good body temperature regulator as it can prevent excess body heat during exercises and other physical activities. When you engage in physical activities, the water stored in your skin’s middle layers comes to the skin’s surface as sweat and evaporates, thereby cooling your skin as it heats up, keeping you going. Sweating prevents excess heat accumulation, causing symptoms such as dizziness, weak and rapid pulse, low blood pressure, and hyperthermia.
Similarly, as you engage in fitness exercises, your heart rate increases to pump more blood to your body parts, including skin, to get rid of excess heat to the environment. And water is also a significant constituent of your blood as it enables the free flow of nutrients, oxygen, hormones in your body. Having too little water in the body can increase heat storage, and such individuals might not tolerate heat strain. Contrarily, abundant water in the body can also reduce physical tension in the face of heat stress during exercises. And if you find yourself sweating abnormally, consider drinking enough water.
3. Helps Your kidneys Perform Best
The kidneys are one of the body’s primary excretory organs as they carry out osmoregulation. Thus, they need enough water to carry out their excretory functions maximally. A significant body toxin, the blood urea nitrogen, a water-soluble waste, passes through the kidneys to be excreted out of the body via urine. Your kidneys do a fantastic job of helping you rid your body of toxins passed out through the urine formed by the kidneys. And you need enough water to ensure the easy flow of urine and concentration balance. Too little water in your body can increase your kidney stones’ susceptibility, especially if you live in warm climate regions.
4. Energizes Your Muscles
Water is specifically suitable for your muscles as it helps the cells to maintain their fluids and electrolytes balance to prevent muscle fatigue that can drastically dent your performance. For example, the lean muscle tissue contains more than 75% of water and can get easily fatigued from a shortage of body water. As such, drink enough water before, during, and after exercises to energize and optimize your muscles’ performance leading to high and improved workout performance.
5. Maintains Normal Bowel Function
Water, coupled with adequate fiber and magnesium, can prevent constipation as it aids digestion. Maintaining your water intake will ensure your bowel movements contain enough water; you’re less likely to develop constipation. However, if you already developed constipation, consider taking carbonated and pure water to mitigate your symptoms.
Conclusion
While there are no precise rules that spell the amount of water you can take before, during, and after exercises, your sweat rate, the environment’s heat, humidity, and exercise duration guide factors you can consider for the required water. Take enough water, purified by the twin tank water softener engage in comprehensive workouts, and keep your body running at its best.