It seems like every year we hear another story about a young, healthy football player who dies during routine training. The most recent is Chad Wiley, a 22 year old offensive line starter for North Carolina A & T State University who died after a workout last Tuesday (5/27/08). While running hill sprints he began to feel dizzy and came inside to rest. Once inside, he collapsed and never regained consciousness. Tuesday’s high temperature in the area was only 86 degrees – hot, but still cooler than the high temperatures that athletes practice in during their August preseason.

            The reason that deaths from heat illness are so tragic is that they should be completely preventable. The vast majority of heat illnesses result from dehydration – when water is lost through sweat and not replaced, the body is unable to cool itself adequately. For this reason, it is essential that athletes always have access to unlimited supplies of water during practices and games, particularly when the temperature is high.

According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, 33 football players have died from heat stroke since 1995 – of those, 25 deaths were high school athletes.

Heat illnesses can include heat cramps, heat syncope (fainting due to dehydration), heat exhaustion, and heat stroke (the most serious). Always keep an eye on yourself and those around you for signs of heat illness. These can include:

Nausea or vomiting

Confusion

Fatigue

Headache

Weakness

Muscle cramps

Problems seeing

Dizziness

            If you are experiencing any of these signs or symptoms, let your coach or athletic trainer know. You should take a break from activity to cool off and get a drink. If caught early on, most signs of heat illness resolve easily with rest and fluid replacement. It is only when the early signs are ignored and athletes continue to push through them that a life-threatening situation can occur.

To find out whether you are staying hydrated during practices, weigh yourself before and after each training session. For every pound that you lose, you need to drink between 16 and 20 ounces of water or Gatorade. That’s about two cups, or one average bottle of Gatorade.

            Dehydration has other serious side effects as well – while you may not notice symptoms like dizziness or a headache until you are about 3% dehydrated (a weight loss of 6 pounds for a 200 pound person), decreased performance can occur with only 1% dehydration. If you weigh 150 pounds, that’s losing just one and a half pounds during a practice! If you want to perform at your best, you should be drinking throughout practices and games.