Extreme Sweating

I've been at a Muay Thai camp for the last month and a half. The daily regimen consisting of run > train > rest > train > sleep is intense and requires high performance from my body. Training with this intensity has brought me to realize some surprising feats, features, and maintenance requirements of my body. I found that the feat most worthy of reflection is my water consumption / perspiration.

It's hot in Phuket. It's consistently 30C and 60-80% humidity during the day and not much cooler at night. The air conditioning in my room is set to 26C and it feels cold. In that environment, most people would sweat sitting in the shade. When I'm training, it looks like I got out of a pool seconds ago. I don't wear a shirt and sweat will stream down from my shorts (to the point where I'm sometimes self-conscious that it looks like I'm peeing). If I stand in one spot that isn't carpet, a pool of water will quickly develop under my feet. I can make sweat angels.

Sweating that much takes a lot of water - I sweat out more mass than I consume during training. I drink somewhere between 2.5-4L of water during each 2hr training session. Two training sessions, a morning 4k run, casual hydration, and drinking during meals adds up to 7-8L of water a day. The most I've consumed in one day is probably close to 10L. To give some perspective, the "general" recommended daily intake of water in drinks, foods, etc. for US adult males is 3.7L/day. The human stomach can hold somewhere between 1-4L of liquid. I don't fill water bottles up from the tap either - I have to buy 9L packs of water almost daily.

At first I didn't drink enough water. The solution was simple. When I began to drink enough water, I got overly exhausted. I thought it was because training is hard. It turns out that you sweat out more than pure water and you have to replace those other things. That's what Gatorade and Powerade is for (along with delivering instant carbs). Now I get packets of hydrating salts (pretty much just salt, sugar, and flavouring) to put in the water bottles I bring to training. When I drink plain water after finishing the bottle with hydrating salts, it feels heavy and unrefreshing - even if it's cold. My body knows what's up.