Don’t Let Dehydration Get You Down This Summer

Summer is here which means the weather is (finally) heating up! While hydration is important all year round, warmer weather can add an extra layer of consideration to your hydration practices. Whether you’re having a pool day, strolling around the city, or training, staying adequately hydrated will keep you feeling your best. Hydration needs vary due to many reasons, some including: heat, humidity, level of activity, individual sweat rate, etc.

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Top Nutrition Strategies For Fall Sports

The weather may be cooling down, but fall sports are heating up! Maintain peak performance all season with our sport dietitian’s top nutrition strategies.

  1. Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night. You’re probably wondering why sleep is making an appearance in a nutrition-related post? Sleep is vital to muscle repair, recovery, and the regulation of hunger and fullness cues and stress hormones. Ever feel that your hunger is insatiable, experience strong carbohydrate cravings, or see a lack in results? Cumulative lack of sleep may be the culprit!
  2. Hydrate: Gone are the days of “aim for 8 cups of water per day.” Hydration needs are not “one-size-fits-all.” What we should really aim for as a baseline is drinking half of our body weight in ounces. For example, a person weighing 165 lbs. should roughly consume 82.5 oz. (or 10.5 cups) of water per day. Hydration needs can increase above that based on physical activity level, temperature, sweat rate, etc. If you don’t have an estimate of your weight, don’t sweat it! Monitor your hydration status by observing the color of your urine during the day. Click here for an example.
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Monthly Fencing Workshops

Michael Berrebi at Amplifying Performance has been conducting monthly workshops with the Marx Fencing Academy, which offers elite fencing programs in Concord, Mass.

During these workshops, fencers have had the unique opportunity to explore core sport psychology skills and strategies aimed at helping to increase enjoyment and overall performance.

Topics to date have included: how to properly and positively self-assess one’s performance, understanding and improving the power of self-talk, and utilizing effective imagery.

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Sensation Is Information: How Athletes Can Learn From Pain

For athletes, especially in distance sports such as running and swimming, dealing with pain and discomfort comes with the territory. It’s not if pain and discomfort will surface, but when and how often. Putting the body under so much distress for miles and miles will certainly test the body and is part of the mental and physical preparation for these athletes.

But at what point do athletes decide to tough it out through the pain or surrender to avoid further discomfort? It’s a fine line that athletes must walk and requires mental fortitude.

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The Mental Block in Post-Injury Comebacks

Insights from leaders in sport psychology

For athletes of all levels, suffering an injury can be some of the most challenging moments they face in their career. Physically treating the injury is only a part of the recovery. Some sports lend themselves to more benign injuries—broken bones and pulled muscles— with very clear trajectories for recovery. Other sports often involving speed or technical environments (think diving, gymnastics, racecar driving, skiing, pole vaulting, equestrian) can render injuries that can be quite medically complicated and psychologically devastating.

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