Podcast #146: Hydration and Stretching (Part 1)
Narrator: Welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast– if you love tennis and want to improve your game, this podcast is for you.
Whether it's technique, strategy, equipment or the mental game, tennis professional Ian Westermann is here to make you a better player. And now, here's Ian! Ian: Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast– your place for free, expert tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Today's episode of the Essential Podcast is brought to you by TennisExpress.com. Please check them out this week by going to EssentialTennis.com slash express.
Thank you very much for joining me on today's show. Before we get to our guest who is a special return guest that you guys will recognize if you guys have been listening to the show for a while.
I just want to say that I've got all of those shipments of tennis string out to those of you who were kind enough to leave reviews on the iTunes music store and send me your address. I apologize that it took me a while to get to that but I shipped out quite a few– a lot of them international as well. So I hope that you guys enjoy the string.
Those of you listening in the US, you should have it this week. If you are listening to me today, which is Monday the 29th, probably in the next day or two. And international listeners, probably about a week from today or so. Again today is November 29.
So thank you guys again for your support and for your kind words in the iTunes music store– I really appreciate it.
Alright, let's get to today's guest. Sit back, relax and get ready for some great tennis instruction.
My guest today is Dr. Jack. Dr. Jack, welcome back to the podcast. It's really great to have you back on the show. Dr. Jack: Thanks Ian. It's been so long. I've been very busy and I'm ecstatic to be back tonight. Ian: I'm really happy to have you– especially because you were really one of the first outsiders to kind of reach in and contact me. Dr. Jack, for those of you have not listened to a lot of the older shows, he was one of the first sponsors of the essential tennis podcast so I always continue to appreciate that.
He's been on the show many times. Dr. Jack, I just redid the podcast section and it's all done into categories now. And so if you go there and click under injuries and sports medicine, all the shows that you've done with me are all listed there. I don't know how many off the top of my head but thank you so much for how often you've been a guest on the show. Dr. Jack: My pleasure. I always saw great promise with your show when I first started listening to it and I see that it's all coming to fruition and you are doing a great job with the podcast and all of the other [inaudible] that have gone with it. I wish you all the best in your continued success.
Ian: Thanks, I appreciate it. Before we get to our questions, there are a lot of new listeners on the show since the last time that I had you on, so can you please give us a brief background of yourself as a tennis player… I know you haven't been able to play much recently, but I know that you are a fan of the sport and you have definitely been a recreational player in the past and I know you hope to in the future. So give us a quick background on yourself as a player and also as a sports medicine doctor and what kind of athlete's you work with on a regular basis. Dr. Jack: Sure. I'm probably a good 4.0 player. I haven't played as much recently. I've been spending a lot of time teaching my daughter's how to play lacrosse which has been a lot of fun. I enjoy playing doubles more than singles only because of my history with being a basketball and lacrosse player– I'm geared more to a team type of sport then individual sports. Singles is nice but I really like the camaraderie of having a teammate to play with in doubles. It's just more with my philosophy of a team game. So that would be as far as tennis. It's a great game. I live in a golf course community and I'm one of the few tennis players because I”m not a big golf fan. I just love tennis and breaking a swear more.
As far as my professional credentials, I'm board certified in a family practice and sports medicine. I've been in practice for over 20 years. I take care of a women's professional soccer league team. A mens baseball team. I do some consulting work with Rutgers University. And just a lot of fun stuff with that, and as we've mentioned a few times off-air, I'm getting more involved with stem cell work for regenerative medicine which we've touched on in some past podcasts. Ian: Great. Let's get to some questions from listeners– I'm kind of letting these stack up a little bit, hoping that you would be back on the show. Our first one has to do with hydration which I know is kind of a passion of yours and something that you enjoy speaking about and something that is really important to not only the advanced player or professional player, but definitely to recreational players as well.
And this question comes to us from Justin in California. He wrote and said, “I'm a bigger guy and I sweat profusely. I often find myself drinking 1 bottle of water or Gatorade per hour of play. However, I get tired fairly easily in the hot weather and when I use the restroom when I get home, I can see that I'm still dehydrated, if you know what I mean. Also, having to drink so much during a match makes me feel sick within the first few minutes of my drinking breaks. Is there a certain way to stay hydrated longer without having to drink so much? Especially if you sweat as much as I do.
Dehydration is hurting my game and having to drink so much liquid during a match is hurting my game as well. Please help.”
Dr. Jack: A couple of issues. First of all it's interesting that he's from California– I imagine that is Southern California where the weather is probably nice all of the time. One of the things that happens with all of us in changes of weather is what we call acclimatization.
A lot of times players when they go from a cold environment to a warm environment, if they are used to colder weather and then go and play in warmer weather, our sweat for the first couple of weeks will have more salt in it until our body acclimatizes.
So that will increase your dehydration rate and risk of cramps and decreased performance. But if you are like our listener that is in one climate all year round, then that's probably not the case. He may just have a problem with losing more salt than it would normally be expected.
And I've had a few of these instances in the past and one of the things that is easy enough to do is take your 16oz bottle of Gatorade– about an hour before you play and add a quarter teaspoon of salt to that Gatorade and drink that. Because the salt will help retain the fluid better.
Now drinking a bottle of water or Gatorade per hour of play, I guess it depends on what size is it — 12, 16, 24oz bottle… A 16 oz bottle may not be all that unusual to drink during the course of play. You should stay well hydrated because if you don't, obviously your performance is going to decrease. So one of the things that I would say is you could start off with water or you can drink half strength Gatorade after that [inaudible] with the pinch of salt. Or even with that, half way through the match, add a quarter teaspoon of salt to one of your mid-match drinks and that may help retain the salt and fluid in your system better and cut down on cramping and performance.
And again, if it does make you feel a little naicous, the Gatorade may be too strong and you have to cut it down to half strength– but you can still add that pinch of salt. There might just be too much sugar for your stomach to handle.
Ian: I know that Gatorade– one of the main ingredients is the sodium to begin with. How does that work exactly? Additional salt will even more-so help your body absorb the fluids that we need?
Dr. Jack: Water follows salt. That's why people with high blood pressure often get water pills and why they are told not to eat a lot of salt. Because the more salt you take, the more water will follow it to try to equalize out your fluid volume.
Let's say that you had a glass of water and you wanted to make ice tea. Opps, you put a little too much mix in there so you have to add more water to dilute it out. It's the same thing with your blood. You want to maintain a certain concentration of water in your blood stream. So if you have too much salt in there, the water is going to chase it in. But since you are sweating and you are losing it, adding extra salt will help you maintain it or keep it in there. Follow that?
