You May be Drinking too Much Water During Your Workout

A necessity when you’re exercising is to make sure that you’re hydrated. That is practically rule #1, and we had a post about it before. But it may also not be nearly as important as some of us think, so we put a post up about that too.

But the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, which has some pretty persuasive info by experts, is actually saying that you need to make sure you’re not drinking too much, or else is can be dangerous. 

The Journal points to issues with something called hyponatremia. Essentially it means that when you start chugging too much H2O, it begins to flood out sodium from your body which, yes, you badly need. This article says that “Symptoms include lightheadedness, dizziness, nausea, puffiness and weight gain during athletic events, such as marathons. More severe symptoms include vomiting, headache, confusion, agitation, delirium, seizure or coma.”

And this isn’t just scare-mongering. Two high schoolers died last year due to hyponatremia, and there are countless people who may have suffered from it but not known that it was actually too much water giving them the symptoms.

It is also important to remember, as mentioned in the article, that neither muscle cramps nor heat stroke can be mitigated by drinking water. Instead, you should only be tipping back the Dasani when you’re thirsty. If you’re working out or running a marathon or playing squash and sweating like crazy, don’t worry about replenishing fluids until your body begins to ask for them.