I'm a nag on hydration, just ask my kids. I ask them constantly if they've been drinking enough prior to and after sporting events. Additionally, I double check them on whether they have some Gatorade in their sport duffle each time they leave the house. Occasionally, I catch that they've forgotten something to drink but reassuringly they usually are way ahead of me. I believe that my athletes are properly hydrated, or at least I did.
Despite the fact that 76% of moms think their athletes are properly hydrated, around 70% of teen athletes show up to their athletic event already dehydrated. Wow! Really? 70% are dehydrated? The next question becomes how does a mom find out if her kid is in that 70%.
Ask them. Don't ask them simply if they've been drinking enough, ask more telling questions. You specifically need to ask these two questions:
How much do you weigh?
What color is your urine?
If you get answers to both of these before your child exercises and again right after they exercise a couple times, both of you should have a much better fix on how you are doing. You'll get a better fix on how well your child is hydrating and teach them how to watch for dehydration signs themselves.
The weight monitoring is fairly straight forward. Your child should weigh basically the same weight before and after their activity. Every pound of weight lost immediately after represents about 16 oz. of sweat (give or take) they didn't make up properly in hydration. (If you find they are down a couple pounds right after playing, have them be sure to continue hydration slowly.)
The urine color monitoring is fairly straight forward as well. Simply ask your child to urinate in the bathroom shortly prior to their event. You don't need to see if yourself, just have them note the color of their pee in terms of the following: clear like water, light yellow like lemonade, dark yellow like apple juice, or brown like pepsi. The ideal color is light yellow like lemonade. Darker yellow means you are under hydrated, brown is dehydration that would require a trip to the doctor. Clear? Over achiever. Have your child check their urine color right after their event again, are they still peeing the color of lemonade? Not a glamourous process, but it is an important one.
Why is hydration so important? How do I get my tween or teen to truly understand this?
While all moms would like to think that the health benefits alone will compel our child to maintain their hydration levels, kids don't always get motivated by that kind of stuff.
What teens and tweens can relate to, what my oldest two sons heard that really mattered to them was how hydration and dehydration relates directly to their overall performance. The loss of just 1% of body weight due to dehydration during a sporting event is enough to impair your athletes performance. The folks at GSSI (Gatorade Sports Science Institute) have done countless studies on just this subject. They shared studies with us on how hydration levels directly relate to things like a basketball players shooting averages and other sports. Simply put, your teen athlete needs to understand that they won't perform to their full potential unless they maintain proper hydration.
Watch for more posts to come on my visit to Gatorade including tips on hydrating, new and recently released Gatorade products, and more.
* Again, my thanks to Gatorade for making this visit possible! See my first post including my meeting Kevin Durant's mom here.