Your health: Stay hydrated and healthy

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Your body needs water for a variety of reasons: Nearly all the chemical reactions that occur in your cells depend on water and electrolyte balance. Water is important for maintaining your body temperature. It helps maintain adequate blood volume.

On a nice day when you’re not working out, you would lose 1.5 liters (six glasses) of water through urine production, and another three to four glasses through your skin and from breathing. So imagine how much water you need to drink when you’re working out and sweating on a hot July day.

Here are five tips to help your health and performance during these hot summer months.

1. The “Rule of Thumb” for water requirement is to divide your weight in pounds by 2. That gives you how many ounces of water you should drink per day.

2. Caffeinated, alcoholic and many carbonated beverages are diuretics and actually increase your daily fluid requirements. Drink water or high-quality sport drinks instead.

3. Even mild dehydration can reduce your muscle performance and cause dehydration symptoms.

4. Don’t wait until you are thirsty to drink. Thirst is a sign that it is too late; dehydration is kicking in and performance is already impaired.

5. Here are some typical water loss rates during exercise, although we all have different sweat rates: 1 hour of weight training, 8 ounces of fluid lost; 45 minutes of swimming, 10 ounces; a softball game, 16 ounces; 5-mile run or 45 minutes of full-court basketball, 24 ounces each.

Gary Bredehoft is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, certified personal trainer and owner of Tiger Coaching & Personal Training in Lincoln. His tips will run monthly in The (402).