EPISODE 05: Why hydration is important before, during and after exercise.
episodePreviously titled “EPISODE 05: Why hydration is important before, during and after exercise?” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
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What is hydration and why is it the foundation of endurance performance?
Welcome to Unlocking Performance, the Ministry Podcast. Today's topic is why hydration is important before, during, and after exercise. I'm Leonard, I'm CMO at Ministry, and today I'm joined again by Robert, Paul, and Julian. Also, we have our Ministry Podcast 20 code, which gives you 20% off the tasting box. You will find the link and the code in the show. So let's jump right in with the first question and the definition um of hydration. I'd like to give the question to you, Julian, to get us started and tell us what actually is hydration.
Yeah, it's it's a great question. Hydration is um It's it's having enough water in the body and the the body is composed of around sixty percent of of water and we we need to keep this level constant, like as much as possible to function well. Um because yeah, we need water in the body for all the physiological functions, the cardiovascular system, we need to maintain uh plasma volume as well, the volume of blood. Uh so yeah, between four and five liters in the uh in in the body that needs to be maintained and that's through hydration, which is drinking water. So we need to stay well hydrated as much as possible and it's even more important during exercise because we are losing water through sweat.
And um uh one thing that is also then the opposite of hydration is uh dehydration. It's a status where you are not well hydrated. When is this threshold when do we cross that threshold and uh what happens then?
Yeah again, I think it's um it's it's what we want to avoid or or what we want to avoid is excessive dehydration and and yeah it needs to be measured a bit and typically yeah the easiest way to measure it would be to check changes in body weight. So before and after exercise we could check easily body weight and if it goes down by minus Minus 1%, 2%, 3%, or more, we would be considered dehydrated. Then the question would be: next: what's tolerable? What is the level of dehydration that is kind of acceptable because it wouldn't like alter too much physiological functions or performance? And this question: what is this threshold of this? level of dehydration has been like uh an important question in sports nutrition research for 30-40 years and we still don't know we are not sure about it a lot of people historically have said minus two percent this is a threshold from minus two percent you start like seeing alteration in performance like negative impact
Now more and more people like seem to think about like more like three percent toward three percent, minus three, so a bit more dehydrated potentially to actually have an impact on performance. But still we are not really sure. And my opinion is it's it's probably individual.
Yeah. The first myth that comes to my mind then we can discuss this. Maybe two of you know it, uh Paul. Don't know if you're familiar with the f um concept that or the concepts that Team Sky had back in the day, the functional dehydration. Anything real or relevant to it. I think the theory was basically you lose a certain amount of water, that's a weight that you lose from your body. Um and the weight gain um that you have or the the is bigger than the penalty you get from the dehydration. Any opinions on that? Can we
Yeah, I mean that trade off it's a risky, risky strategy. I'm not sure if anyone's repeated it since, but I just think like P was gonna be a greater performance disadvantage putting somebody in a into a dehydrated state. Um than like trying to gain a little bit of time from them losing weight. So so it is a strategy, but I don't think it's anyone would kind of go near it now, particularly You know, as we see so many competitions where um where the the temperature that those take those competitions are taking place in is so hot, then obviously that's gonna drive up sweat rates, it's gonna drive up dehydration more, it's also gonna result in um downgrade of performance um and possible other issues as well, such as uh GI issues, which are further gonna affect performance.
Yeah, that's definitely a really important topic that we're gonna touch on later.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is hydration and why is it the foundation of endurance performance?
0:02–17:49
2
How do we define dehydration thresholds and what level of body‑weight loss is acceptable?
17:49–29:33
3
What is functional dehydration and why is it considered a risky strategy?
29:33–42:08
4
How should hydration strategies differ between hot and cold race conditions?
42:08–55:25
5
How does sodium interact with carbohydrate absorption during exercise?
55:25–1:07:44
6
What causes gastrointestinal distress and cramps, and how does hydration influence them?
1:07:44–1:18:47
7
What practical steps can athletes take to measure and improve their sweat rate?
1:18:47–1:20:28
8
What is the single most important takeaway for listeners about hydration?
1:20:28–1:20:43