Hydration: Crucial Before, During and After Pickleball Matches

Pickleball is a fast-paced sport that will elevate your heart and breathing rates and cause you to work up a good sweat. That last point highlights something crucial about enjoying the game and playing your best: Hydrating before, during and after matches is essential.

This article explains why ensuring your body has the fluids it needs is so important in pickleball and how staying hydrated benefits you.

How Dehydration Affects Your Body

To understand why hydration is so important, it helps to look at the consequences of dehydration. While we all know that our bodies need water, it’s easy to think that the main consequence of dehydration is being thirsty. After all, that tends to be the most noticeable symptom.

However, not having enough water in your system causes several significant issues, including:

• Decreased blood volume and an accompanying drop in blood pressure and increase in heart rate.
• Impaired muscle function from decreased oxygen and nutrients.
• Nervous system disruptions can cause dizziness, lightheadedness, headaches, confusion, irritability and, in severe cases, seizures.
• Impaired balance and spatial awareness.
• Decreased ability of the body to cool itself and increased risk of heat-related problems like heat stroke.
• Reduced kidney function and, with severe dehydration, the risk of kidney damage.
• Feeling of Nausea.
• Constipation as the body pulls water out of the digestive tract.

These issues are significant even at rest. When you are playing pickleball, they are amplified and can cause low energy, decreased reaction time, poor decision-making, impaired balance and increased injury risk.

With intense play on a hot day, dehydration can even lead to someone needing medical attention. Bottom line: Staying hydrated is imperative.

Don’t Wait Until You’re Thirsty

It’s critical to understand that waiting until you’re thirsty to drink some water is an ineffective hydration strategy. Our thirst sensation is triggered by changes in the body’s fluid balance and doesn’t activate until we’re in a deficit state.

Unsurprisingly, it takes time for your body to absorb the water you drink and replenish depleted systems. Consequently, the negative effects of dehydration won’t resolve immediately when you guzzle some water.

In addition to thirst, other signs of dehydration include:

• Dark urine
• Decreased urine
• Dry mouth
• Dry skin
• Fatigue
• Dizziness
• Headache

How Much Water Does a Pickleball Player Need

Many have heard the general recommendation to drink eight eight-ounce glasses of water daily. That advice is helpful because it encourages people to consider their hydration levels, but the actual amounts of water needed are significantly higher.

The current thinking is that men should get 104 ounces of water daily, and women should consume 72 ounces. And those figures don’t take exercise into account.

On days when you’re playing pickleball, good rules of thumb are to aim for 193 ounces of water for men and 135 ounces for women. The timing of your hydration is also important. You’ll discover what works best for you, but here’s a rough plan as a starting point for both men and women:

• Drink 17-20 ounces of water 2-3 hours before a pickleball match.
• Have 8 ounces 30 minutes before play starts.
• Drink 7-10 ounces every 10-20 minutes during a match.
• Consume 8 ounces within 30 minutes after a match.
• Drink around 20 ounces for every pound of body weight lost during play.

If weighing yourself before and after playing pickleball to assess your water needs feels like a little much, just be sure to drink plenty of water in the hours following a match.

Picklers: Stay Hydrated To Stay in the Game!

Remember that many factors affect your water needs, including your body size, the intensity and duration of your pickleball play and the weather. Ultimately, you may need more or less water than the recommendations above, but if you’re prioritizing and thinking about hydration, that’s a good place to start!

If you have questions about your water needs, given your health and other factors, your healthcare provider can answer them. If you don’t have a Baptist Health provider, check out our online directory.

Next Steps and Helpful Resources

Learn More About Pickleball at Baptist Health
Pickleball Pros and Cons for Your Health
Warm-Up and Cool-Down Routines for Pickleball Players
Is Pickleball Good Exercise?