Good Ways To Stay Warm In Cold Water

Cold water is rough on the athlete. It gets into everything and pulls the heat right out of you. There is little less pleasant than running in wet shoes, and nothing much more shocking to the system than plunging into an ice cold pool. Whether you're championship swimming or mud running, here is a helpful guide to ways to keep warm in cold water.

Invest In The Proper Equipment

There is a lot of physics and chemistry that goes into keeping your body in peak performance. Athletics require balance, power, precision, and heat regulation. Cold water has powerful effects on a heat-generating body. It cools things down, and quickly. This is great for overheating, sweating bodies. But cold water will eventually pull all the heat out of any system. No human being generates enough heat to warm even a small body of water that is below blood temperature. The thermal inertia of water is simply too great. For prolonged swimming in cold water, there is no choice but to invest in a wetsuit. A cap, boots, and gloves are also important. This is not just essential for health, but for enjoyment. When body parts get too cold, they tend to lock up. It is very difficult to swim when you cannot pull your fingers together. It takes all the fun out of it.

Swim Harder

One of the best ways to stay warm is to work harder. Even if you cannot feel yourself sweating, you are still generating more heat when you swim faster. The friction from cutting through the water does not make up for the heat loss from the liquid flowing by, so you will still cool down in cool water. Moreover, it is essential to pace yourself when you are swimming harder to keep warm. You are not buying yourself very much time, because if you stop and tread water you are going to cool down quickly. Make sure you do not cramp up or strand yourself far out in the water. This is especially important in open water and the sea. Always pace yourself when you are dealing with a cold ocean like the Pacific.

Concentrate On Your Breathing

Make sure you work on your exhale. The body's natural response when it hits cold water is to inhale, so the shock reflex is lessened with a complete exhalation. Most of the nerves in your body go numb very quickly when you are plunged into cold water. However, your face is hypersensitive, and it will get cold very quickly if you are swimming face-down. Make sure that you raise your head often, or swim on your back, in order to keep the cold at bay. Once your face is adapted to the cold, you may also want to blow bubbles with your mouth. It sounds silly, but it works. It distracts the mind and focuses attention on the exhalation, which is helpful.

Stay Safe

Remember, hypothermia is no joke. Do not over-exert yourself, and if you are swimming far out in open water, make sure to have a friend with a boat nearby to keep an eye on you.

Derek often likes to blog about fitness and health. Whenever he is not blogging or working, he enjoys participating in mud runs or other obstacle related runs. The article above is for mud running.

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Drinking The Right Amount Of Water For Your Body

Water is often a hot topic when it comes to losing weight, purifying your body or combating illnesses. However, it is rather worrying when people proudly announce that they are having eight to ten glasses of water a day, which one must presume is in addition to all the other forms of liquid they ingest.

Let us discuss the highly contentious question, how much water should you consume?

In order to understand how much water you need to consume, you first need to understand your body and why you need water. The average human body consists of seventy-two percent water. We do not lose all the water in our bodies on a daily basis, because our body is designed to maintain a balance between water and minerals in our blood and other body fluids.

How do we lose water?
There are three ways to lose the water in your body: sweating, through the lungs, and by excretion of urine and faeces.

How do we take water in?
Our main source of liquid is through a variety of beverages we drink: water, tea and coffee, fruit juice, energy drinks and even beer. What most people tend to forget though is that in addition to drinking water, we consume it in our foods.  Most fruits and vegetables contain of between seventy and ninety percent water. Furthermore, our bodies produce water via our metabolism. This water breaks down foods and allows the body to ingest the minerals and vitamins within the food.

There are four things you need to consider when calculating how much water you need to drink:

• The Climate
• Physical Exertion
• Medical Conditions
• Slimming   

Number One – The Climate

It is logical that the hotter and drier the climate, the more water we will lose by sweating, and the most liquid we will need to ingest. This is particularly true for countries like South Africa and Australia in the summer months. However, in the mid-winter when it is cold in most countries, our need for water reduces. In order to remain hydrated, ensure that you adjust your drinking habits to the temperature – more when it is hot, less when it is cold.

Number Two – Physical Exertion

The more you exercise the more water you need. In fact, for every thirty minutes that you do physical work – gym or manual labour – you need to drink two hundred and fifty to three hundred millilitres of water. Remember if you work in an office environment; do not overdo your consumption.

Number Three – Medical Conditions

If you have a fever, you should increase your liquid intake, particularly in vitamin C rich fruit juices. When suffering from diarrhoea or vomiting, you need to replace the water and mineral salts you have lost – drink black tea or an energy drink. Patients suffering from gout, liver problems or kidney stones should also increase their water intake, to ensure the body is cleansed of all waste.

Number Four – Slimming

Looking to keep hunger pangs away and lose the extra few kilograms that you are carrying? Drinking water will help fool the mind into thinking it is full and therefore, reducing your craving for food. Furthermore, drink two hundred to three hundred millilitres of water before each meal as it will help you eat less at the meal.

In conclusion, your body needs water to function properly. A dehydrated body will leave you feeling with a headache and feeling lethargic. A quick test is to check the colour of your urine: light/clear colouring is a hydrated body, while the darker it is, the more dehydrated your body is.

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