Good hydration is about more than just “drink lots of water”, and in fact it’s quite possible for a person to drink too much water, and at the same time, be dehydrated. Here’s how and why and what to do about it:

Water, water, everywhere

Factors that people forget:

• Electrolyte balance: without it, we can technically have lots of water while either retaining it (in the case of too high salt levels) or peeing it out (in the case of too low salt levels), neither of which are as helpful as getting it right and actually being able to use the water.
• Gastrointestinal health: conditions like IBS, Crohn’s, or celiac disease can impair water and nutrient absorption, affecting hydration
• Genetic factors: some people simply have a predisposition to need more or less water for proper hydration
• Dietary factors: high salt, caffeine, and alcohol intake (amongst other diuretics) can increase water loss, while water-rich foods (assuming they aren’t also diuretics) increase hydration.

Strategies to do better:

• Drink small amounts of water consistently throughout the day rather than large quantities at once—healthy kidneys can process about 1 liter (about 1 quart) of water per hour, so drinking more than that will not help, no matter how dehydrated you are when you start. If your kidneys aren’t in peak health, the amount processable per hour will be lower for you.
• Increase fiber intake (e.g., fruit and vegetables) to retain water in the intestines and improve hydration
• Consume water-rich foods (e.g., watermelon, cucumbers, grapes) to enhance overall hydration and support cellular function (the body can use this a lot more efficiently than if you just drink water).
• Counteract the diuretic effects of caffeine and alcohol by drinking an additional 12 oz of water for every 8 oz of these beverages. Best yet, don’t drink alcohol and keep caffeine to a low level (or quit entirely, if you prefer, but for most people that’s not necessary).
• If you are sweating (be it because of weather, exercise, or any other reasons), include electrolyte fluids to improve cellular hydration, as they contain essential minerals like magnesium, potassium, and in moderation yes even sodium which you will have lost in your sweat too, supporting fluid regulation.

For more details on all of these, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

• Water’s Counterintuitive Properties
• Hydration Mythbusting
• When To Take Electrolytes (And When We Shouldn’t!)
• Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy (Especially After 60)

Take care!

Some people stretch for years without being able to do the splits; others do it easily after a short while. Are there people for whom it is impossible, and is there a way to know in advance whether our efforts will be fruitful? Liv (of “LivInLeggings” fame) has the answer:

One side of the story

There are several factors that affect whether we can do the splits, including:

• arrangement of the joint itself
• length of tendons and muscles
• “stretchiness” of tendons and muscles

The latter two things, we can readily train to improve. Yes, even the basic length can be changed over time, because the body adapts.

The former thing, however (arrangement of the joint itself) is near-impossible, because skeletal changes happen more slowly than any other changes in the body. In a battle of muscle vs bone, muscle will always win eventually, and even the bone itself can be rebuilt (as the body fixes itself, or in the case of some diseases, messes itself up). However, changing the arrangement of your joint itself is far beyond the auspices of “do some stretches each day”. So, for practical purposes, without making it the single most important thing in your life, it’s impossible.

How do we know if the arrangement of our hip joint will accommodate the splits? We can test it, one side at a time. Liv uses the middle splits, also called the side splits or box splits, as an example, but the same science and the same method goes for the front splits.

Stand next to a stable elevated-to-hip-height surface. You want to be able to raise your near-side leg laterally, and rest it on the surface, such that your raised leg is now perfectly perpendicular to your body.

There’s a catch: not only do you need to still be stood straight while your leg is elevated 90° to the side, but also, your hips still need to remain parallel to the floor—not tilted up to one side.

If you can do this (on both sides, even if not both simultaneously right now), then your hip joint itself definitely has the range of motion to allow you to do the side splits; you just need to work up to it. Technically, you could do it right now: if you can do this on both sides, then since there’s no tendon or similar running between your two legs to make it impossible to do both at once, you could do that. But, without training, your nerves will stop you; it’s an in-built self-defense mechanism that’s just firing unnecessarily in this case, and needs training to get past.

If you can’t do this, then there are two main possibilities:

• Your joint is not arranged in a way that facilitates this range of motion, and you will not achieve this without devoting your life to it and still taking a very long time.
• Your tendons and muscles are simply too tight at the moment to allow you even the half-split, so you are getting a false negative.

This means that, despite the slightly clickbaity title on YouTube, this test cannot actually confirm that you can never do the middle splits; it can only confirm that you can. In other words, this test gives two possible results:

• “Yes, you can do it!”
• “We don’t know whether you can do it”

For more on the anatomy of this plus a visual demonstration of the test, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

Stretching Scientifically – by Thomas Kurz ← this is our review of the book she’s working from in this video; this book has this test!

Take care!