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Well Being Shape Up > Blog > Healthcare > Here’s How to Actually Hydrate Properly During Your Hot, Sweaty Outdoor Workout
Healthcare

Here’s How to Actually Hydrate Properly During Your Hot, Sweaty Outdoor Workout

Kayne Collins
Last updated: August 18, 2025 6:14 pm
Kayne Collins
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Here’s How to Actually Hydrate Properly During Your Hot, Sweaty Outdoor Workout
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There’s no doubt that working out in the heat can be rough. But if you find yourself on a major struggle bus—maybe you’re cramping, nauseated, or super fatigued—you might just not be drinking enough. “People who are adamantly like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, I can’t train in the heat, I feel horrible,’ that, to me, is a huge red flag of not doing hydration right,” sports dietitian Meghann Featherstun, RD, CSSD, owner of Featherstone Nutrition, tells SELF.

In news to no one, we sweat a lot more when it’s stinking hot out, meaning the risk of dehydration is higher. And that can make a massive difference in how our workouts feel. “Your organs and your cells need water to properly function,” Monique Marcelino, MS, director of athlete research at the University of Connecticut’s Korey Stringer Institute, who studies thermoregulation, tells SELF. In particular, we need enough fluid for our blood to simultaneously deliver oxygen to our muscles and to go to our skin to cool us off. Losing blood volume through sweat makes both of these tasks harder. “So as we get dehydrated, our core body temperature rises faster and our heart rate rises faster,” Featherstun says.

This increases the risk of heat illnesses like heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Plus, all it takes is losing 2% of your body weight for your athletic performance to do a nosedive. It’ll feel harder to hit the same paces. Your muscles might cramp and your GI tract could rebel (think: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea). You may get lightheaded, dizzy, or even a bit confused.

So what can you do to avoid this fate during the next heat wave? SELF touched base with hydration experts and sports dietitians to find out.

Play the preventive game.

Setting yourself up well before your workout is huge. That’s why the American College of Sports Medicine recommends getting in about 5 to 7 milliliters of fluid per kilogram of body weight (or about .1 ounces per pound) at least four hours before heading out in the heat, if possible. Yes, coffee can count toward that, Featherstun says, though Marcelino suggests also having some plain water too, since caffeine can have a bit of a diuretic effect.

Going into your workout properly hydrated will give you a head start on avoiding that increased heart rate and core body temp, Floris Wardenaar, PhD, an associate professor of nutrition at the Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions who studies hydration, tells SELF. Plus, you’ll just feel better. “Being good and well-hydrated during the day is good preparation before even starting your workout,” he says.

Drink up during—and let an at-home science experiment guide you to how much.

Just sipping water whenever you feel thirsty isn’t the best way to stay hydrated when you’re sweating through a toasty HIIT session or long run. “If you feel thirsty, that means that you are already on the way to getting dehydrated,” Marcelino says.

As a basic, rule-of-thumb guideline, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association recommends drinking 200 to 300 milliliters (or about 7 to 10 ounces) every 10 to 20 minutes during exercise. But exactly how much we sweat varies widely, depending on things like the weather, our workout intensity, clothing choices, and whether we naturally get soaked or if we’re more likely to just “glisten” a little. Your training buddy might just lose a liter while you lose three. So these generalized recs might not be sufficient.

A better bet is to figure out exactly how much fluid you lose during your workout through a sweat rate test. This might sound fancy, but all you really need to do is weigh yourself before and after your workout—as long as you don’t pee in the meantime—being sure to subtract any ounces you drink in between. (Featherstun offers a calculator on her site to figure out your per-hour rate.)

The goal is to make sure you’re drinking enough during your workout that you don’t wind up 2% or more lighter than when you started, Dr. Wardenaar says. So, if you weigh 150 pounds and learn you lose four pounds an hour while cycling, that means you’ll want to drink a little over 16 ounces during an hour-long ride to keep the difference under 2%.

Just remember that how much sweat you lose is variable, so Dr. Wardenaar suggests trying this out in different conditions. “We’re not expecting athletes to be weighing themselves before and after every workout,” sports dietitian Roxana Ehsani, MS, RD, CSSD, tells SELF. But having a general idea of your average sweat rate in some common scenarios will give you a better idea of how much fluid you actually need to replace during and after your workout (more on that later!).

Don’t forget about electrolytes.

Most of us have long been told to watch our salt intake, and for good reason: Too much can raise our blood pressure. But when you’re sweating heavily, you’re losing important electrolytes, and sodium—a.k.a. salt—most of all. “[Electrolytes] help our muscles and nerves and organs work properly,” Ehsani says. “They help move nutrients in and out of cells. They help maintain pH levels in the body.”

When your electrolyte levels dip too low, it’s harder for your body to actually use the fluids you’re drinking. “We rehydrate our body faster if there’s some sodium around,” Featherstun says. That’s because sodium helps the water get past your gut membrane and into your blood cells so you don’t just pee it out.

What’s more, if the sodium in your blood gets too diluted, you can risk a condition called hyponatremia—something that happens to about 7 to 15% of marathoners, according to various research studies. “It’s not uncommon for runners to experience that even just a little bit,” Featherstun says. “The initial symptoms would be just a little bit of dizziness or confusion. And then sometimes our hands and our feet and our fingers start to swell a little.” Although rare, severe cases could lead to rhabdomyolysis, seizures, or even a coma.

Don’t worry: Both Dr. Wardenaar and Marcelino say that in our regular day-to-day lives, we typically get all the electrolytes we need simply by eating a balanced diet. But when we sweat a ton—like, say, during a long, hot workout—or when we really want to make sure our bodies are holding onto as much fluid as possible, electrolyte drinks can come in handy. The taste can also simply help us remember to drink: “Some people just consume more fluid that has a flavor,” Dr. Wardenaar points out.

“I typically say anything over 80 minutes in the heat, we should probably be thinking about our electrolytes,” Featherstun says. That could look like a classic electrolyte packet like Liquid I.V. or Nuun, a salt tab or pill, or, if you’re also looking to take in some carbs, you can have a sports drink like Gatorade or a high-sodium energy gel like Neversecond. Really, the choice just comes down to personal preference and what makes sense for your particular workout. (For instance, Amy Goblirsch, RD, a dietitian who specializes in working with runners, points out to SELF that trying to swallow a salt pill while running isn’t exactly fun.) But any option can theoretically do the job, as long as it’s replacing enough of what you’re losing.

The tricky part is that, again, some of us lose more electrolytes than others. You’ll know you’re a particularly salty sweater if your eyes sting when sweat drips inside, if you’re left with white streaks on your clothes, or if your sweat just tastes salty. But if you want to figure out exactly how much sodium you need, you can take a sweat composition test. A number of at-home kits offer this, though they’re not all accurate, so Marceline suggests looking for one that’s been tested against gold standards. (One brand Featherstun trusts is Levelen, which you mail in to get analyzed in a lab.)

Replace your fluids…generously.

Afterward, you’ll want to recoup whatever you sweated out—and then some. “Try to compensate 150% of your loss,” Dr. Wardenaar says. That’s because once you stop exercising, the kidneys kick back into full gear, making you pee. “So that makes fluid retention difficult,” he says. Ehsani adds that you also don’t immediately stop sweating, so it’s smart to overcompensate.

So, back to our example from our at-home science experiment: For every pound of fluids you lost during exercise, you should shoot to replace 24 ounces.

Not sure how much sweat out? Goblirsch and Featherstun recommend starting with about 24 ounces or so, while keeping an eye on your trips to the toilet. “If we’re not peeing, we’re still dehydrated,” Featherstun says. Dr. Wardedaar says that you should be going seven or more times a day, and your urine should look more like lemonade than an Arnold Palmer: “A bright, light, straw-like color most of the time indicates that you are well-hydrated. If it is dark, you definitely need to drink more,” he says.

Although it might be tempting to chug a gallon of water all at once post-workout then call it a day, that will mostly go straight through you. “You are not retaining it,” Dr. Wardenaar says. (Marcelino adds that having more than about 24 ounces in one go can be tough for some people’s stomachs to handle.) Instead, try spreading out your drinks throughout the day—just think of it as immediately getting a head start on your hydration for your next workout.

Don’t forget that you can also rehydrate through food too. “Especially during the summer, having watermelon, peaches, strawberries, cucumbers, sometimes that can be a really refreshing snack after a run,” Goblirsch says. Plus, it’s often easier to eat your electrolytes: An ounce of beef jerky or a quarter teaspoon of table salt will give you nearly twice the sodium you’d get from a Nuun Sport tablet, for instance. “Some chocolate milk is great too,” Ehsani adds. “It’s giving you that carb-to-protein ratio that we need to replenish muscle glycogen and repair muscle. And it also has natural electrolytes in there too.”

No matter your pre-, post-, or mid-workout hydration strategy, though, just know that you won’t always be able to drink enough to offset the effects of extreme heat. Sometimes, a workout in sauna-like temps is simply going to feel terrible. “There’s never any shame in shutting down a workout or calling it and going inside,” Goblirsch says.

Related:

  • 12 Hydration Mistakes Leaving You Parched, According to Experts
  • The Best Way to Rehydrate Quickly When You’re Super Hot and Sweaty
  • The Best Hydration Products To Help You Drink More Water

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