Hydration: Water Ways

When I began rowing in the mid-1960s, my coaches insisted that we drink nothing during training.

After training—even on hot summer days—we were allowed to consume only warm beverages, preferably tea.

Back then, conventional wisdom was not to irritate the stomach with cold liquids during or immediately after strenuous physical activity.

(It would have been difficult to carry water anyway, since the wooden boats were so delicate, plastic bottles didn’t exist, and space was limited by all the ribs and cross braces needed to stiffen the hulls.)

It goes without saying that we completed our training sessions without a single sip of water and, given the state of training science and rowing equipment at the time, achieved respectable results.

Contrary to our coaches’ advice, we followed our natural urge to rehydrate and after training on a hot day ran to the nearest water faucet to quench our thirst with cold water.

While hydration wasn’t a major concern a few decades ago, today it’s a hot topic.

In fact, the pendulum has swung so far the other way that having something to drink on hand at all times has become almost an obsession.

I’ve seen teams go out for a one-hour row in normal temperatures, with each rower carrying a two-liter bottle of water, and stop for a first drink break after just a few minutes.

Eskild Ebbesen, stroke of the famous Danish lightweight four, had to lose more than three percent of his body weight, including plenty of pounds of fluid, to make weight yet he managed to do so without compromising his performance, which included numerous world-championship and Olympic medals as well as a world-best time.

Michelle Darvill, former lightweight world champion, winner of several Olympic gold medals, and coach of the Canadian and Dutch national teams, says dehydration occurs in rowers who are ill-prepared for the length, intensity, and temperature of the training session and who don’t replenish body fluid adequately afterward.

“If we’re talking short term, about a two-hour window where the temperature is not extreme and the athlete has not gone into the session already dehydrated, it’s more a matter of discomfort,” Darvill said.

“More people have died in marathons from hyponatremia [low sodium in the blood] than dehydration.”

Volker Nolte, an internationally recognized expert on the biomechanics of rowing, is the author of Rowing Science, Rowing Faster, and Masters Rowing. He’s a retired professor of biomechanics at the University of Western Ontario, where he coached the men’s rowing team to three Canadian national titles.