Our friends over at Precision Hydration are leading experts on hydration during endurance training. So we turned to them for some sound advice on how to hydrate during an indoor training session. 

Indoor training is generally more intense (‘quality’ over ‘quantity’) which often results in higher sweat losses - you’ve probably noticed the pool of sweat under your turbo! Two other factors that influence this higher sweat are airflow and temperature. Outdoor training involves more airflow over the skin, which cools you down. Conversely, indoor training equals little to no airflow, so sweat drips off you instead with no natural cooling factor. This makes staying hydrated really important if you want to maintain your performance. There are a few simple steps you can take to ensure that you are well hydrated during indoor training sessions…

1. Arrive well hydrated but don’t overdo your pre-session intake. 

• Aim to drink around 16-24oz of a strong electrolyte drink a few hours before you start key sessions. 
• Don’t just drink lots of plain water (this can lead to a nasty condition called hyponatremia!)

2. Always have fluids available and drink to thirst during the session  

3. Think about your recovery after the session 

• You'll likely finish dehydrated to some extent. That’s ok as long as it’s not to a degree that has negatively affected your performance
• In most circumstances, simply rehydrating and replenishing electrolytes through food and drink consumed after training is fine
• But, there are times when you might benefit from a proactive approach to rehydration. E.g. when you’re doing back-to-back workouts, or when you’re training late and you’re going to bed soon after finishing, so won’t have much time to eat and drink afterward.
• In these circumstances, drinking a 16oz bottle of a stronger electrolyte drink like PH 1500 in the hours after you finish can be beneficial. 

Purple Patch members get 15% off their first order of electrolyte supplements that match how they sweat at precisionhydration.com using the code purplepatch2023.