#035 Hydration Guide

Welcome back to the 35th edition of the Boats & Logs Lifting Club. I really appreciate you being here. We are the based fitness community that focuses on mastering the basics instead of getting lost in the details.

Today, we will be discussing hydration with a focus on its impact on muscle growth.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter.

But before we start, here is a quick overview of what’s coming next. Are you interested in a topic I should cover in depth? Just send me a message, and I will consider adding it.

• June 30th: Testosterone Guide

• July 7th: June Q&A

• July 14th: Bodyweight Program

• July 21st: Creatine

Why to hydrate?

We could start by explaining why you SHOULD hydrate properly, but everybody knows and ignores that already. So, instead, we will start by explaining why you WANT to hydrate properly:

70-80% of muscle mass is water.

And being properly hydrated means that your muscles store more water. This has the practical side effect of making your muscles bigger by simply holding more water. It’s the same reason people hype creatine because it “makes them bigger”. They store more water in the muscles, making them appear bigger.

But besides appearing bigger, being properly hydrated has real impacts on the muscle. Studies have shown that being even slightly dehydrated can cause a strength loss of around 5%. The tricky part is that you are probably not even aware that you are slightly dehydrated because the thirst kicks in only a bit later.

Especially those of us who like to train in the morning encounter an increased risk of training in a state of (slight) dehydration, as we just had a +6 hour period (of sleep) without any liquid intake.

So, you want to make sure that you are properly hydrated when you work out to ensure that you are training at your maximum strength. Additionally, training at full strength and with your muscle cells filled with water can help prevent injuries.

But drinking a lot of water can also have a nice benefit if you are trying to lose weight. By consuming more water, you could experience that you feel more satiated when you drink a lot of water. Drinking a lot of water can also help to lose body fat by replacing high-calorie drinks/sodas with 0-calorie water.

How much should you drink to hydrate properly? That is a question we will cover in the next section.

But before, let’s have a very quick look at why you SHOULD hydrate - even if you are not training.

Besides stating the obvious that you would die if you take dehydration to the extreme, being in a state of dehydration can have countless negative effects on your body. Starting from a lack of energy over to brain fog and ranging to serious kidney problems.

Water is literally needed to wash the waste out of your body. And now, we cover how much water you should drink.

How to hydrate?

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to determining how much water you should drink per day. As with most things, this is highly individual and depends on many factors, such as your size, your activity level, and the outside temperature (basically: you sweat more = you need more water; you are bigger = you need more water).

But there are 3 easy steps we can take to make sure that we are properly hydrated:

1. You can use thirst as an indicator. The problem here is that we are already dehydrated if we feel thirsty. So we can be sure that we are dehydrated and need to hydrate if we feel thirsty, but just because we are not thirsty doesn’t mean that we are fully hydrated. You should aim to feel no thirst throughout the day or hydrate as soon as you start to feel thirsty.

2. Another indicator is the color of your urine. This one is a more precise indicator to determine how well you are hydrated. The lighter the color of your urine, the better you are currently hydrated.

   

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3. Drink at least 100 oz (3.0 liters) per day. This should be your baseline. If it’s hot outside or you are sweating a lot, you can easily increase this number by 50-100%. As I said before, how much water you need to drink is highly individual, so take the range as a guideline to start from, and when you feel thirsty or see that your urine gets too dark, simply drink more water.
   Additionally, it can be good to hydrate directly in the morning. Drink around 16 oz (0.5 liters) after waking up to compensate for the night when you couldn’t hydrate while you slept.

The based way to…

Hydrate!

As laid out before, hydration is incredibly important for your general health, as well as for building muscle. As always, there is nothing wrong with trying to do it 100% right, but for those of you who want to focus on the key factors. Here you go:

1. Drink at least 100 oz (3.0 liters) per day - more if you feel thirsty or sweat during the day.

2. Measure your hydration level by using the color of your urine and thirst as an indicator. Adjust your water intake if necessary.

3. If you struggle to drink enough, either track your water intake or buy a big bottle you fill up in the morning and carry around all day.

Thank you for reading today's newsletter. If you have further questions, simply DM me on Instagram.

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Stay strong,
Boats & Logs

Disclaimer

This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol, please consult a medical professional. These are the opinions from an AI voice.