As temperatures rise and athletes spend more time training outdoors, staying hydrated becomes increasingly important. Whether it’s during football practice, track workouts, or summer training sessions, hydration can make the difference between a good and great athlete. The simple molecule H₂O has an enormous effect on both our bodies and athletic performance. As student-athletes and teenagers, our bodies are still developing. It’s important that we not only provide the hydration our somatic (physiological) growth needs, but our muscular growth as well. Water provides several benefits to the body. All cells, tissues, muscles, and organs need water to function properly.
Firstly, we need to understand how water regulates body temperature, supports energy production, and transports oxygen to working muscles.
Water helps regulate our bodily temperature by carrying heat away through sweating. When you’re hot, your brain sends a signal to your sweat glands and releases sweat – mainly made up of water. When your sweat evaporates, it uses your body’s heat to turn into vapor – cooling your body down and preventing overheating. Beyond regulating temperature, it plays a key role in energy production. Even though water doesn’t create energy in the form of ATP directly, it still plays a key role as a medium in processes, including those that create ATP (key for muscle contraction and activity). Adequate hydration also helps nerves communicate effectively with muscles, supporting normal muscle function and reducing fatigue. Furthermore, H₂O helps replenish glycogen stores, which act as a backup energy source during exercise by storing excess glucose from food. Another benefit of hydration is the support of athletic performance through the transport of nutrients and oxygen. The medium helps to deliver glucose, amino acids, and electrolytes to muscle cells and removes waste products like carbon dioxide. Since our blood has a high percentage of water, it carries oxygen (stuck to hemoglobin in the red blood cells) from the lungs, as well as nutrients through arteries and into small capillaries that surround the muscle fibers. Because capillaries have very thin walls, oxygen and nutrients can move into muscle cells while waste products move out. The oxygen and nutrients are then used by the muscles to create ATP by aerobic respiration (process by which glucose and oxygen create ATP). The waste is then separated from the oxygen and nutrients, and finally gets removed by the kidneys or by exhaling.
When we tie all the scientific research to the question, when a young athlete is dehydrated, our working muscles receive less oxygen and fewer nutrients. If the body lacks sufficient oxygen and nutrients, glycogen stores can become depleted and ATP production may slow down, leading to faster muscle fatigue. Dehydration can also slow reaction times and reduce sweating, making it harder for the body to stay cool. Without drinking enough water, the lactic acid built up in our legs will also go away slower – increasing stiffness and preventing muscle repair . Each of these factors are major contributors of sports performance in both sprint and distance events. For example, if you are a football player, you won’t be able to run as fast and as long, your aim will be off due to lack of concentration, it will take longer time to recover and lactic acid buildup will increase.
To sum up, water is an underestimated contributor to athletic performance. In a world where electrolytes, energy drinks and supplements are becoming more prominent in the sporting world, we fail to recognize that none of them can replace the importance of proper hydration. For young athletes, water remains one of the simplest and most effective ways to support both performance and long-term health.
