How much water should I drink per day?

Surely we have all asked ourselves this question at some point: How much water should I drink per day? In this post, we are going to talk about something we all already know: the importance of water in our bodies, since it is essential for our health, and that is why we should drink plenty of water.

If we search Google for the question, “How much water should I drink per day?” millions of contradictory results will appear regarding how much we should drink. We have always been told that we should drink 2 liters of water daily, even though that is already a large amount of water. Normally, all the results tell us that we should consume plenty of water, and even medical studies refer to water intake as needing to be abundant.

An athlete whose diet is high in protein, provided that their macros are perfectly balanced in carbohydrates and fats and not much glycogenesis occurs, will always have protein breakdown, which creates waste products. An athlete who trains with weights and has muscle contractions will have slightly elevated urea levels, although these waste products are eliminated by drinking a normal amount of water. For this reason, an average of 2 liters may seem insufficient, but it should be considered more than enough for this waste-elimination process, and it may even be a high amount.

Many medical institutions, which I strongly support and try to follow as much as possible, state that the ideal amount is 3 liters of water per day, which is already a large amount. This leads to confusion and a serious error, since the average intake should be 2 liters, to which we should add the water present in the foods we eat, soft drinks, coffee, and tea. All of these usually contain an average of between 750 ml and 1 liter. Therefore, the greater the food intake, as in the case of bodybuilders, the greater the amount of water consumed that is already present in the food.

When I started bodybuilding, the first thing my coaches in the US advised me to do was drink a US gallon, equivalent to 3.7 liters of water, or in Spain, 4 liters of water. Interestingly, when I had blood tests, my sodium levels were usually too low. I even compared them with those of other athletes, and although they were within the established ranges, they were still too low. I wondered how that could be, since I added a moderate amount of salt to my meals, because excess salt in food can inhibit aldosterone. Shortly afterward, I was able to confirm that this was because I drank 4 liters of water a day: the more I drank, the thirstier I became, because I was excreting more sodium.

That is why it is very important that, nowadays, doctors and even professional nutritionists be included in our community, because unfortunately our field is plagued by unqualified nutritionists and unqualified nutrition coaches. True professionals are the ones who should educate us and instill in us the importance of this in our sport.

Why is water so important?

Every chemical reaction within your body, including the production and utilization of energy—which is simply the construction, breakdown, and conversion of substances—needs water as a medium.

Only when your body has the right amount of fluid can enzymes and hormones reach their full potential and therefore efficiently produce the effects of your training.

Your body loses at least 2.5 liters of water per day through breathing, sweating, and excretion; that is why guidelines recommend drinking 2 to 3 liters per day.

However, as a bodybuilder, you have a significantly greater demand for water because you have greater metabolic activity, which allows you to excrete more fluid, and you must consider these factors when thinking about how much water to drink per day.

Even slight dehydration can cause serious performance losses, and dehydration amounting to 2% of your body weight can cause permanent damage.

• The organ most affected by dehydration is your brain, because dehydration can cause significant shrinkage, seriously affecting your concentration and ability to think.
• Similarly, your central nervous system cannot function effectively when you are dehydrated, because muscle response, coordination, strength, and endurance decrease significantly, including the occurrence of

This is because you need water to deliver electrolytes to your muscles through your nervous system; otherwise, your muscles cannot move or contract.

Many times, problems such as muscle cramps or poor performance are attributed to a lack of certain nutrients or poor nutrition, but in reality, they are a consequence of dehydration, in the sense that water is essential as a medium for transport and chemical reactions.

Why think about how much water you should drink per day?

Drinking enough water is vital for keeping your athletic goals on track; otherwise, you risk stalling muscle growth, hindering fat loss, and damaging your health. But let’s return to the question: what and how much water should you drink per day?.

Water is called the “essence of life” for good reason: your body is almost 70% water, and it is essential for keeping all your systems functioning at their best.

• It is essential for muscles, cartilage, and intervertebral discs.
• It serves as a solvent and a means of transporting nutrients.
• It regulates temperature.
• It keeps the different systems in your body in balance.

Athletes: how much water should you drink per day?

An athlete following a high-protein diet, provided their macros are perfectly balanced in carbohydrates and fats and not much gluconeogenesis occurs, will always have protein breakdown, and waste products will be created.

If you train with weights, you will maintain your muscle contractions while your urea levels remain slightly elevated.

By drinking a normal amount of water, these wastes are eliminated, so this factor should not make you wonder how much water should you drink per day?.

For this reason, 2 liters on average may seem like too little, but it should be considered more than enough for this waste-removal process, and may even be a high amount.

Many medical institutions, whose views our experts follow, state that the ideal amount is 3 liters of water per day, but for us, that is already a high amount.

This leads to confusion and a major error, since an average of 2 liters should be consumed, and this amount should include the water present in the food we eat, soft drinks, coffee, and tea. All of these usually contain between 750 ml and 1 liter on average.

Remember that the greater your food intake, as is the case with bodybuilders, the greater the amount of water you consume.

Professionals: how much water should you drink per day?

One of the bodybuilders who is part of the MASmusculo family is Raúl Carrasco. He tells us that in bodybuilding, the first thing his coaches in the US advised him was to drink one US gallon, equivalent to 3.7 liters of water, or, in Spain, to drink 4 liters of water.

• Interestingly, whenever tests were carried out, his sodium levels were usually too low, and he even compared them with those of other athletes.
• Even though it was within the established parameters, it was too low for what he had been doing.

For him, when he thought about how much water to drink per day?, he could not determine what was happening.

On the one hand, I thought that adding salt to meals in moderation inhibited aldosterone. But the reality was that this was because I drank 4 liters of water a day: the more I drank, the thirstier I became, because I was excreting more sodium.

That is why it is very important that, nowadays, medical professionals or even professional nutritionists be included in the high-performance bodybuilding community, because unfortunately this sector is full of unqualified nutritionists and unqualified nutrition coaches.

So, everyone finds their own path as they go, and few are the ones who should educate and instill the importance of this within professional bodybuilding—not necessarily a non-specialist study or doctor.

In every circumstance: how much water should you drink per day?

Three liters is the absolute minimum on non-training days, although if you train hard and are at an intermediate level, your metabolic activity remains permanently elevated, even at rest. Therefore, your water requirement is above average, which is why we recommend drinking a little more.

Keep in mind that actual fluid requirements can only be determined individually, but a good guideline is to drink approximately 50 ml per kilogram of body weight throughout the day.

• How much water should you drink per day in each season? The answer is clear: “In warm temperatures, you should drink one or two extra liters, since you lose more fluid through sweat.”
• How much water should you drink per day during the workout period? Well, before, during, and after exercise, your water requirements increase even further; therefore, drink at least approximately one liter about 90 minutes before your workout to keep your muscles hydrated.

Water is also important for your musculoskeletal system, since only when hydrated can you provide enough synovial fluid, which is necessary to prevent severe friction between the articular cartilages, damaging your joints in the long term.

• After your workout, you should also drink at least half a liter to support recovery.
• In addition, water helps eliminate waste products such as lactic acid from the muscles produced during exercise and supplies muscle cells with nutrients such as proteins and carbohydrates.
• You can also turn to low-sugar juices, for example, made from apples or berries (preferably in a 3:1 ratio) to quickly make up for the difference in your mineral balance.

Fluids: How much water should you drink per day?

When we talk about liquid, we always mean plain water, excluding alcoholic, caffeinated, or sugary drinks, including so-called isotonic or energy drinks, because they contain many unnatural and harmful additives and often a lot of sugar.

Good alternatives include unsweetened herbal teas and naturally flavored water.

To protect your body against cramps, nausea, and muscle stiffness, fruit juices are also useful because they contain minerals that reach your muscles in the form of electrolytes.

In short, any type of liquid you consume counts toward your daily water intake, whether it is plain water, milk, juice, zero-calorie beverages, coffee, tea, or anything else.

Contrary to popular belief, caffeine is not actually a very powerful diuretic, and caffeinated beverages still have a net positive effect on your hydration status.

The only exception is beverages with a high alcohol content, as they have a dehydrating effect.

You also get a decent amount of water from food alone, around 20% of your daily water intake.

However, you should avoid consuming large amounts of calorie-containing beverages, even if they seem healthy. They are very easy to drink and do not satisfy your appetite the way solid foods do; they also add some body fat.

Just a few glasses of these types of beverages can easily contain several hundred calories or more and can drive your daily totals to an excessively high level without you realizing it.

Even during the holiday season, drinking a controlled amount of these beverages is fine as long as you take the calories into account.

Thirst is not the best indicator.

You generally rely on your sense of thirst as an indicator of when and how much fluid you need.

However, unlike other warning signs such as fatigue or hunger, thirst only appears late, so by the time you feel thirsty, your body is already slightly dehydrated.

In this context, to know how much water to drink per day?, thirst is not always a reliable sign of dehydration.

With these considerations in mind, you should schedule your water intake as an important daily task and develop new habits to reach the goal of at least three liters a day.

With these simple tricks, you can incorporate more water into your daily life:

• Set fixed times to drink water, such as right after waking up to boost your metabolism, before or after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and before and after your workout.
• Drink a glass of water every hour, or draw marks on the bottles indicating specific times to drink water.
• Place large glasses and bottles in places where you spend a lot of time, such as your workplace, in your car, or beside your bed.

Is too much water harmful, yes or no?

Although it may sound surprising, drinking too much water can cause intoxication, a condition in which electrolytes become diluted in your body.

If sodium levels drop too low, it can cause serious health problems. Additionally, certain medical conditions, such as kidney disease and poorly controlled diabetes, can increase the risk of water intoxication.

From every perspective, you should stay hydrated, but you should also monitor the amount of fluids you consume because excess is never good.

In short, now that you have an idea of how much water to drink per day, we will explore in greater depth the benefits of water for bodybuilders and athletes, whether amateur or professional.

• Cleanses the body.
• Increases energy.
• Maintains the muscle pump.
• Accelerates muscle recovery.
• Prevents muscle breakdown.
• Replaces lost electrolytes.
• It also helps you lose body weight.

Water cleanses your body

In bodybuilding, high-protein diets make up a large percentage of your daily food intake. Your body needs to clear out urea and ketones, which result from this high consumption.

To get rid of all these toxins and help your kidneys function optimally, you should drink enough water throughout the day and keep yourself properly hydrated.

Water maintains the muscle pump

When you exercise, your muscles contract; during this process, water moves from the blood into the muscles and makes them swell.

But if you are not properly hydrated, your body will have difficulty maintaining blood pressure and circulation while you exercise.

When you ask yourself, “how much water should you drink per day to prevent this?” The answer is to stay regularly hydrated to maintain your health and promote muscle growth.

Hydration accelerates recovery

Dehydration can cause muscle pain, which is one of the biggest obstacles to your training session.

Not knowing how much water to drink per day could cause problems with your body's overall performance and, consequently, lengthen your recovery time.

This shows that hydration is important for accelerating recovery, detoxification, and the proper functioning of your muscles, as well as increasing your vigor and endurance.

Increases energy for exercise

To obtain the endurance and energy needed for training, your body needs glycogen, since it runs out faster, making it difficult for your nervous system to function.

Your body needs plenty of fluids to stay energized while doing intense exercise, and drinking water or a sports drink is essential to prevent muscle loss.

That is why adequate hydration increases energy for an intense workout and prevents fatigue and exhaustion after exercise.

Improves muscle growth

An increase in your body’s workload leads to muscle growth, but if your body is not adequately hydrated, your muscle growth will be negatively affected.

This happens because when you do not know how much water to drink per day, dehydration can cause loss of energy and fluids, making it difficult for you to lift weights and gain muscle growth.

Prevents muscle breakdown

In the early stages of bodybuilding, preventing muscle breakdown is very important. Well-hydrated muscle cells prevent muscle breakdown after an intense training session, but lower hydration levels can cause cells to contract and protein breakdown.

Now, simply by drinking the right amount of water, your cells will remain swollen and protein breakdown will be reduced, allowing for better muscle growth.

A hydrating drink containing a combination of electrolytes, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and carbohydrates will give you instant hydration and replenish essential nutrients in your body.

You need to replace lost electrolytes

Electrolytes are minerals such as sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium that are specifically designed to help improve hydration levels and are necessary to replenish what is lost through sweat.

During exercise and competitions, you tend to lose a lot of fluids, so how much water to drink per day if you go through this?

Drinking a beverage that includes electrolytes can help you maintain adequate hydration levels and balanced electrolytes, as well as relieve fatigue and muscle soreness.

Follow these tips to improve your hydration levels:

• Do not wait until you feel thirsty; drink water at regular intervals throughout the day and during your workouts or competitions.
• If you find drinking plain water boring, add some flavor with fruit to infuse the water with flavor.
• Add water-rich fruits and vegetables to your nutrition plan, such as watermelon, strawberries, oranges, berries, etc.
• Avoid excessive sun exposure and plan your outdoor activities for the evening or morning, when temperatures are not as high.
• Monitor the signs of dehydration.
• Check the color of your urine, which should be pale yellow.

Water helps you lose weight—did you know?

Caloric balance is the formula for losing weight; however, many factors are involved, both directly and indirectly, at the metabolic level and throughout all the body’s systems… it is a WHOLE, which must be understood as such, whether or not you are a professional, and whether you train in bodybuilding or other sports recreationally…

YES, water really can help you lose weight, even if you think that drinking a lot of water will make you bloated and cause you to retain fluid, increasing your weight on the scale.

However, this is not the case; in reality, if you do not drink enough water, your body retains the little fluid available and does not excrete it because it needs to use it for normal bodily functions, which will make you look bloated.

So, the only way to get rid of that bloated appearance is to know how much water you should drink per day, because your body will function much better and your metabolism will begin to increase, helping you burn calories more efficiently.

If you want to burn even more calories, drink ice-cold water, because your body needs to warm it up so it can be used properly, and to do so, it uses the energy obtained by burning calories.

If you feel and look bloated, monitor your sodium intake and increase your water intake.

Conclusions

Staying hydrated is one of the best things you can do for your body in summer or winter. In addition, its effects improve your health and performance… even your body composition through several pathways that we have summarized here…

We all know what water means to a living being, so alongside your solid foods, never overlook planning your fluid intake. Without a doubt, it can make a major difference when it comes to achieving results and attaining the well-being that encompasses everything, especially when fighting the weights, fighting fatigue, and fighting your own body.

Remember that when your muscles are properly hydrated, they look tighter and more defined, and when you feel your best, your mental focus and physical ability work in unison.

Wrapping up and asking yourself the question, “how much water should you drink per day?” the answer is simple… IT DEPENDS ON YOU and YOUR NEEDS… that is the point, so we invite you to watch the following video prepared by MASmusculo on this ever-controversial and fascinating subject.