Gatorade launches hydration education, athletic training

Celebrating its 10th year in the Philippines, Gatorade brought to the country the latest in sports hydration science through the launching of the Hydration Education and Athletic Training Program yesterday at the adidas Sports Camp in Fort Bonifacio.

The HEAT, an educational program focusing on proper hydration, its impact on maintaining good health and athletic performance boosters, will be facilitated by Gatorade Sports Science Institute’s Kris Osterberg and Dr. Xiaocai Shi, and RP sports medicine expert Dr. George Canlas.

"We’re really excited about sharing this knowledge with the local athletic and medicine community," said Gatorade marketing manager Clars Guerrero in yesterday’s event launching.

"With a continuing program such as HEAT in place, Gatorade hopes to help boost sports science locally and at the same time help prepare our athletes in the forthcoming Southeast Asian Games in Manila this November," she added.

As a start, the GSSI, the world’s largest privately funded sports science research facility, conducted two tests–sweat analysis test and hydration assessment test–on some Talk N’ Text players that included Bong Ravena, Vic Pablo and Willy Miller for them to better understand how hydration affects their performance.

Sweat analysis test is done using sweat samples from players during training to determine the concentration of electrolytes such as sodium and potassium an athlete loses by exercising.

The hydration assessment test, on the other hand, shows how well an athlete replaces the fluids lost during training by measuring a player’s weight change and post exercise to calculate fluid lost versus fluid replaced.

NBA stars Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets and Vince Carter of the New Jersey Nets and Real Madrid stars have also undergone these tests to optimize their performance.

"These tests will help us collect valuable data on how dehydration and fluid loss can affect sports performance, and this is the first time such tests have taken place here in the Philippines," said Shi, a senior scientist at GSSI.