The Big Small Things: Choosing the Right Water Bottle

This post is the first in a series highlighting so-called "small things" that you can do to make a difference in your swimming performance.

Today's small thing is the type of water bottle you choose to bring to practice. We all have heard how important staying hydrated is. Consider this:

• If you begin a workout dehydrated, your performance will suffer. Your muscles and other systems need water to function optimally. Without water, you can't perform at your best!
  
• If you become dehydrated during a workout, your body will have difficulty adapting to the training you have done. You get physically stronger only when your body recovers after training. This means that all of the hard work you do won't be as effective at helping you improve if you get dehydrated during practice!
• If you are dehydrated after practice your recovery is affected and could impact your performance in the next workout. This begins a cycle of training and lack of recovery which is detrimental to your physiology.

So you can see the importance of being and staying hydrated. Now what you might not have considered is the impact that a small thing like the type of water bottle you use has on how much you drink.

This Gatorade bottle is commonly used at practice, yet it is less than ideal. It only contains 20 ounces of fluid, which is not nearly enough for practices that range from 90 minutes to 3 hours in duration. This means that for a swimmer to be optimally hydrated, he has to refill the bottle during practice. There may not be time for this in the workout, or a swimmer may not want to make the effort to refill it. Not only that, but it has a screw on lid, meaning a swimmer needs at least 30 seconds to take it off, take a sip, and screw it back on. In a distance set with many repeats on a tight interval, there may not be time to do this!

This green Gatorade bottle is much better for your typical swim practice for two reasons. First, it holds 32 ounces, which is a good rule-of-thumb minimum for swim practice. Second, it is a squeezable, allowing the swimmer to take in 3-4 ounces in a matter of seconds. Both of these qualities mean a busy, hard-training swimmer is much more likely to hydrate appropriately.


It seems like a small thing, but the water bottle you choose can have a significant impact on how well-hydrated you are. The amount of fluid you have available and the ease of getting it can make a huge difference. Do this "small thing" right to make your training pay off to the max!