Hydration Basics: What Actually Matters
A practical hydration guide covering daily water needs, exercise hydration, thirst, urine colour, electrolytes, sweat loss, caffeine, overhydration and simple ways to adjust your intake.
Hydration for Training
Hydration guides
Practical guidance on water, electrolytes, sweat loss, sodium, and hydration around training. Understand what matters, measure your own needs, and make better hydration decisions before, during, and after hard sessions.
Hydration basics
Start with the fundamentals. These guides explain how hydration works around exercise, how much water you may need, and how to recognise when fluid intake is not keeping up with training.
How Much Water to Drink Before, During and After a Workout
A practical guide to how much water to drink before, during and after exercise, including pre-workout amounts, sweat-rate calculations, Muay Thai examples, electrolytes and post-workout rehydration.
How to Tell If You’re Actually Dehydrated
Learn how to tell if you may be dehydrated using thirst, urine colour, body-weight changes and training context, plus the warning signs that need more than simply drinking water.
Signs of Dehydration During Exercise: What to Notice Before Performance Drops
Learn the common signs of dehydration during exercise, how they differ from normal fatigue, heat illness and overhydration, and when symptoms require more than simply drinking water.
Before, during and after training
Hydration needs change with session length, intensity, environment, and what you drink before training. These guides focus on practical choices around workouts rather than one-size-fits-all rules.
Electrolytes for Workouts: When You Need Them (and When You Don’t)
A practical guide to electrolytes for workouts: when you need sodium, when water and food are enough, how sweat rate changes your needs, and what to look for in an electrolyte drink.
How Much Water to Drink Before a Workout if You Use Pre-Workout
Learn how much water to drink before a workout when using pre-workout, whether caffeine causes dehydration, how shaker water counts, and how to build a practical pre-exercise hydration plan.
What to Drink During Long Training Sessions: Water, Electrolytes, or Sports Drink?
A practical guide to choosing water, electrolyte drinks or carbohydrate sports drinks during long training sessions, including sodium, carbohydrate, sweat rate and overhydration.
How Much Water Should You Drink After Exercise? Simple Hydration Guide
Learn how much water to drink after exercise using sweat loss, body-weight change, workout duration, heat and sodium needs, with practical examples for gym training, Muay Thai and running.
Heat and hydration safety
Hot conditions and long sessions can increase fluid needs, but more water is not always better. These guides cover training in heat, excessive fluid intake, and situations where hydration needs a little more thought.
Hydration in Hot Weather: How to Train in Heat Without Crashing
A practical guide to hydration and training in hot weather, covering sweat rate, sodium, humidity, heat acclimatization, cooling strategies and warning signs of heat illness.
Can You Drink Too Much Water During Exercise? Hyponatremia Explained
Exercise-associated hyponatremia can occur when fluid intake exceeds losses and blood sodium becomes diluted. Learn the causes, warning signs, role of electrolytes and practical ways to avoid overdrinking.
Can Drinking Too Much Water Make You Sweat More During Exercise?
Can drinking too much water make you sweat more during exercise? Learn how hydration affects sweating, why excess water usually increases urine rather than sweat, and the risks of overdrinking.
Sweat rate and sodium
Move beyond generic hydration advice by measuring what happens during your own training. Start with sweat rate, understand the difference between fluid and sodium loss, then use the calculators to estimate your individual needs.
How to Measure Your Sweat Rate Correctly
A practical step-by-step guide to measuring sweat rate during exercise, including the correct formula, wet-clothing errors, fluid and urine corrections, worked examples and how to use the result.
Sweat Rate Calculator: Your Workout Hydration Plan
Use this sweat rate calculator to estimate litres lost per hour from body-weight change, fluid intake and session duration, then turn the result into a practical workout hydration plan.
Sweat Rate vs Sodium Loss: What to Measure After Hard Training
Learn the difference between sweat rate and sweat sodium loss, how to calculate fluid loss, why sweat sodium varies between athletes, and when sweat testing is worth doing.
How Much Sodium Do You Lose in Sweat? What Actually Affects Sodium Loss During Exercise
How much sodium do you lose in sweat during exercise? Learn typical sweat sodium ranges, how to calculate total sodium loss, why heavy sweaters are different, and when sodium replacement matters.
Sodium Loss Calculator for Exercise: How to Estimate Your Sweat Sodium Loss
Use a simple sodium loss calculator for exercise to estimate total sweat sodium loss and sodium loss per hour, while understanding the limits of estimates without a measured sweat sodium concentration.
Keep hydration simple
Track your water intake
If tracking your daily water intake helps you stay consistent, Stellar Lift Water Tracker provides a simple way to log drinks and keep an eye on your intake. It is an optional tool — the goal is still to support your training, not turn hydration into another complicated task.
Back to training
Hydration supports the work — training is the focus
Explore strength, conditioning, workout programming, and exercise guides, then use what you learn here to support those sessions.