Here's a list of hydration tips for youth athletes:
- Drink before, during, and after activity.
- Drink sports drinks (if calories are a concern, drink a low calorie sport drink) during and after.
- Let youth choose their favorite flavors to drink, and stock up on them.
- Equip your youth with their own hydration bottles (try to avoid them sharing with other teammates).
- Have a refill plan for the bottle (a water fountain, a cooler, or another Gatorade bottle), Don’t let them run out and have no way to refill it.
- Maximize hydration opportunities during meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner are great times to lightly salt foods, eat foods that are “watery” in nature, and have more than 1 cup of fluids along with the meal.
- Chocolate milk is a cheap and great “recovery drink.”
- Try to figure out how much the child sweat in an hour during activity to figure out their true fluid needs instead of a standard amount.
- Don’t let youth become dehydrated across days of activity, always replace what they lost through sweat before practice.
- But don’t push fluids to the point where the youth is over-hydrating and feeling weighed down and sluggish.
