Health Tips for Sports

Weather you play sports for fun, scholastic competition or professionally, you'll enjoy many health benefits. Along with the healthful stresses physical activity can place on the body, harmful effects of too much activity can cause annoying and serious health problems, as well. Knowing how far you can push the human body--and ways to prevent overexertion--will help keep you in the game and out of the first-aid tent.

Hydration

Exercise physiologists and dietitians recommend you drink liquids during physical activity for three different reasons: hydration, electrolytes and body temperature regulation.
As you sweat during intense, prolonged physical activity, your body loses more water than it can easily replace, which can lead to muscle cramping. Start drinking before you get thirsty, or you may have waited too long.
When you sweat, you lose sodium, chloride, calcium, potassium and other trace electrolytes, all important to muscle contraction and energy levels, according to Page Love, a registered dietitian who works with professional athletes and sports teams. Drinking a sports drink with a 6 to 8 percent glucose solution and approximately 100 mg sodium chloride not only helps you replace lost water, but these important nutrients, as well.
Drinking cool water is best for regulating body temperature, especially important during warm weather conditions. Drink chilled, rather than iced liquids, which take longer to get into your bloodstream and may cause gastrointestinal distress.
To prepare for fluid losses during sports activity, pre-hydrate with 16 to 24 oz. during the two hours before your game or match; drink 4 to 8 oz. of water every 15 to 20 minutes during activity; and 24 oz. immediately after activity to recoup sweat losses, said Love.

Warming Up and Cooling Down

Jumping right into strenuous activity with cold muscles and a resting heart rate, and going from intense activity straight into an air-conditioned car, aren't good ideas.
Help your body coordinate its heart rate, blood flow, energy use and muscle flexibility by slowing raising your heart rate with a variety of movements during a four- to five-minute warm up. Slowly lower your heart rate after activity by repeating your warm up until your heart rate gets below 100 beats per minute.
Cooling down can also help you avoid the exercise phenomenon known as Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness (DOMS), according to performance coach Brian Mac, a trainer/assessor with UK Athletics, the United Kingdom's governing body for track and field.

Rest and Sleep

During sleep, your body repairs damaged cells. Adequate sleep is especially important to athletes who regularly tax their bodies. If you are a high school or college athlete, don't pull an all-nighter preparing for an exam if you have trained hard that day or if you'll be competing the next day.
Professional trainers recommend an off-season period for highly competitive athletes so they can recover from the stresses on knees, shoulders, backs and other overworked body parts. If you are involved in a season-long recreational or competitive sports, make sure to take days off to let your body recover. Especially the day before a big run or match, rest and recover for your coming competition.