Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports

I am an Ultrarunner for over 10 years. I do training in hot summers, often running 20 miles on difficult trails that take close to 4 hours. I have been running without taking a water bottle or taking salt supplements for the last five years or so without any ill effect. After reading this book, I know why a little dehydration never hurt anybody! This book is just the right one for any ultrarunner who is simply curious about the science on hydration. The book is not a self-help book for the recreational runner who runs less than a couple of hours in a single run. The book is heavy on science with lots of charts, graphs and references to scientific literature. The book is somewhat verbose and at times repetitive. However, I found it engaging. After the first read, I come back to it again and again and reread some snippets. It will become a valuable reference for any serious runner.Dr. Noakes, himself an ultra-marathoner, takes on the establishment, the big sports drink industry and refutes with solid science the prevailing dogma and mythology of hydration. First he establishes with evidence that humans are evolved to withstand severe dehydration without ill effects. Then he traces the history of research on the role of salt in dehydration and muscle cramps. Then he recounts the history of Gatorade and sports drink industry and its powerful influence on the academic researchers and running authorities. He also touches lightly on the influence of glucose and carbohydrates on performance. But one should not rely on this book on that subject, since the focus is water and salts. Finally, he devotes nearly a third of his book to the problem of overhydration with scores of case studies. At times he shows genuine contempt and anger at the sports drink industry and sports authorities. Though he doesn't directly accuse, but does somewhat implicate the advertisements from the sports drink industry for the deaths of runners due to overhydration. The sad part of these stories is that the runners followed the advice in those advertisements!In the final chapter, Dr. Noakes summarizes his findings and recommendations. Dehydration was never a problem, is not a problem and is not likely to be a problem in any modern organized endurance sport. However overhydrations is a growing problem, is very serious to one's health and likely to remain a problem in the running community heavily influenced by the sports drink industry. His simple advice is to drink water when you feel thirsty and don't over do it.

If you are an endurance athlete, you need to read this book. In it Noakes challenges the conventional belief that you should not loose water weight during exercise for max performance. He points out that this conclusion is based on erroneous science and is totally bogus since the fastest runners typically loose the most weight during endurance events! While Gatorade scientists claim that they could have gone even faster if they had hydrated more. Noakes' points out that certainly the athletes who are the fastest would be most eager to gain a performance edge. According the Gatorade science, if they would have only known to drink a few extra ounces of Gatorade to maintain weight during competition they could be setting world records! How foolish of these athletes! Of course this argument is totally bogus and has never been proven. Noakes goes into the science behind it all in amazing detail. Muscle cramps, sodium tablets, heatstroke, he covers it all. Oh and if you were taking sodium tablets like me during marathons to prevent cramps go ahead and chuck them. Sodium supplementation has never been shown to work and it may even make your problems worse since your body has to process all that extra sodium and use its precious water resources to do so. If you are a salty sweater it is evidence that you have too much salt in your body and your body is trying to get rid of it. Your body amazingly maintains its sodium balance even on very low salt diets for months on end. Loved this book! Buy it if you like challenging conventional wisdom.

DISCLAIMER: During my many years in Cape Town (South Africa) I had the honour and privilege of knowing Dr Tim Noakes personally and attending many excellent physiology lectures and tutorials given by him. Dr Noakes is a true scientist who continually questions the prevailing 'wisdom' (sometimes dogma) of contemporary exercise physiology. His novel ideas, backed by solid scientific research and thorough analysis, have often been considered heretical but later become all or, perhaps at least, part of the answer e.g The 'Central Governor Model' for fatigue. Unlike the Central Governor Model, though, the evidence supporting the conclusions reached in Waterlogged is more 'watertight" (excuse the poor pun) and likely at this stage to be marginally less controversial. I suspect that if it had been possible to publish "Waterlogged" a decade ago it would have also have been considered heretical by many experts in the field.Please read the reviews of E. San Miguel & M. Nir which accurately describe the book and with which I agree entirely. From my perspective as a elite-level triathlete in the late 1980's, I fell for this idea of 'over-hydrating' and did in fact drink gallons of the South African equivalent of Gatorade (Energade) as well as water and/or Coca-Cola. However, I too strongly disagree with the reviewer who said it is for the serious athlete only - This is a thoroughly interesting read for any thinking athlete who has more than a passing interest in science and its applicability to the human body under 'exercise' conditions.Perth. Australia

If, like me, you have been told to 'drink before you are thristy' so many times that you've internalised the message, then be prepared to be challenged. Noakes sets out an alternative approach - and provides plenty of evidence to justify his stance. Clearly written by an expert in his field, this book should be compulsory reading for coaches, race organisers and anyone serious about hydration strategies. And best of all, it's written in an accessible style, so you don't need a PhD in physiology to be able to understand it.

I have Lore of Running which is an incredible book and a runners' must have. I knew then that Noakes leaves no stone unturned and analysis studies and reports in incredible detail.As a keen marathon runner I thoroughly enjoyed this book and is a fantastic read and incredibly educational.It is just a little long, chapters 8&9 could be reduced, and overall you could cut it by about 100 pages and it would still be a very detailed book.

I don't normally write reviews but the one star review below prompted me to defend this excellent book. It's well written and exceptionally well referenced, Noakes lays out his case logically and methodically, with a body of evidence and data that really is hard to dispute.As an endurance runner I've always believed in hydration, hydration, hydration. Since reading this book and further exploring the subject on the internet I've began taking less and less water and I've found now that on training runs around 2-3 hours I can go without really needing a sip, I still carry a small hand held water bottle for now. In competition in the past I have suffered very bad stomach problems that I put down to nerves, over eating, the sun... Many different reasons, but I never thought that it could have anything to do with the 2 litres of liquid sloshing around in my stomach...I would seriously recommend this book to anyone who runs marathons or ultras and is looking to do this as healthily as possible.

If you really want to know the science behind how much you actually need to drink and why, there is no better book. The only downside to this book is well, it's a science book so it is a very dry read (no pun intended). The information is amazing and easy to understand but the book is best well read in small doses with a notebook and pen. Otherwise it's definitely a book that will stay in my collection to reference in the future.

Every coach and sport scientist MUST read this book.If you believe yourself to be a free thinking, cutting edge professional, this is a must read.It makes head turning statements which are impeccably argued with spot-on references.