In the dying moments of the game, eleven all in the fifth, you may be found wanting for a little extra energy to help you gain that crucial extra point. If you find yourself struggling to go the distance or lacking the power to make that winning combination of shots, it may be due to your hydration levels. Agility, strength and stamina, achieved through regular training, are essential for competitive table tennis, but they won’t give you the edge if you’re suffering from dehydration. Hydration plays an important role in any professional’s performance; just take the England football squad’s lacklustre display against Paraguay in the 2006 World Cup match, but regardless of what level you play and indeed the intensity of your performance, the correct hydration level is a key element to helping you gain the edge against the opposition.

Water constitutes about 60% of a typical young man’s and 50% of a young woman’s total body weight. Despite this even minimal changes in your body’s water content can impair performance. If the loss reaches 4-5% of body weight the capacity for prolonged effort can decline by as much as 20-30%!!!

Approximately 2.5 L (4-5 pints) of water is required each day for a fairly sedentary adult in a normal British environment. This water is supplied from liquids, foods, and produced by the body during metabolism. The average person consumes about 1.2 L per day (just over 2 pints) from various drinks and is able to maintain a good level of hydration. However, during exercise and in hot weather fluid intake can increase five or six times above the normal level. The main source of loss in these conditions is through sweat, the body’s mechanism of maintaining its correct core temperature. In fact during an hour of intense effort a 70Kg male’s sweat loss could exceed 1.5 L (2-3 pints); that’s over half of a sedentary day’s requirement.

What happens if you don’t drink enough?

Sweating is designed to cool the body down and the way that it does this is be releasing fluid from the blood vessels close to the skin, if this fluid isn’t replaced (rehydration) then the blood thickens. This ticker viscous blood is pumped through the heart at a slower rate, greatly reducing oxygen delivery and the body’s ability to remove waste products such as lactic acid, this can result in cramps, “heavy” legs and tiredness.

Thirst

It is natural to assume that the more water we lose through sweat the thirstier we would become. This assumption is true to an extent, however the mechanism is not sensitive enough to avoid losses in athletic performance. Your body doesn’t sense thirst until well after dehydration begins. In fact the majority of our drinking is habitual, with meals or at natural breaks throughout the day, it is rare for thirst to dictate our need for drink. Even when you are dehydrated you might only desire fluids but only at intermittent intervals. This has been highlighted by several scientific studies. One such study requested that its participants drink water as their thirst dictated. It showed that when reliant upon the thirst mechanism the body required 24- 48 hours to completely replace water lost through heavy sweating. This is an interesting contrast to dogs, whose thirst mechanisms cause them to drink up to 10% of their total body weight within the first few minutes after exercise or heat exposure, thus replacing all their lost water.

Because of our sluggish drive to replenish body water and in order to prevent chronic dehydration it is advisable to drink more water than our thirst dictates. So exactly how much should we drink and is it better to drink before, after or during exercise?
The correct answer is that you should drink before, during and after exercise. It is recommended that you drink around about a pint of water or a sports drink two hours before a training session or match, followed by half a pint 10-20 minutes before the session or match, and then the same again every 15-20 minutes during (depending on intensity levels and environmental temperature). After the session or match you should consume approximately one to one and a half pints of water or a sports drink per pound of weight lost during the course session or match. Weighing yourself before and after every session is beyond the realms of most club level players; it is, however, an interesting experiment to highlight just how much fluid needs to be taken on after a tough session.

Another and more practical way to check your hydration status is to monitor the colour of your urine first thing in the morning. If your urine colour is more like apple juice than water, you should drink more throughout the day.

Water or sports drinks?

Water is a good thirst quencher, but not as good a re-hydrator as specially formulated sports drinks. This is because plain water turns off thirst prematurely and turns on the kidneys. As a result research shows that people drink less water than they need during exercise and lose more in the form of urine. Sports drinks are beneficial because they often contain other components lost in sweat and provide energy for active muscles. They may contain sodium (electrolytes), which stimulates fluid absorption, and helps maintain the desire to drink as well as suppressing the excretory mechanisms of the kidneys, therefore helping retain more water. A combination of water and sports drinks is what most people opt for.

What to look for in a sports drink?

Carbohydrate levels - below 8% is optimal for absorption and energy. Levels above this make the drink hard to digest especially during exercise. Avoid drinks containing only fructose, as too much slows fluid absorption and can initiate muscle cramps. No carbonation, which can cause stomach discomfort, and no caffeine, as it promotes dehydration.

“It showed that when reliant upon the thirst mechanism the body required 24-48 hours to completely replace water lost through heavy sweating. This is an interesting contrast to dogs, whose thirst mechanisms cause them to drink up to 10% of their total body weight within the first few minutes after exercise or heat exposure, thus replacing all their lost water”. Christopher Pettit