LA fitness news

A Cold Sweat

January 29th, 2010

Question: How much water does the average camel’s hump hold? We’ll give you a couple of minutes to think about that, but in the meantime, let’s talk about dehydration in winter. Here’s the chain of events that triggers the desire to drink: The body sweats, which decreases the volume of blood, which triggers the hypothalamus (the thirst centre in the brain), which stimulates the brain to do its own variety of a rain dance. When it’s cold outside we tend not to sweat as much, so the whole hydration mechanism gets screwed up, which is not good.

Here’s our advice: If you want to replace fluids, water is wonderful, but when it comes to dealing with the salt loss that we can experience both while working out and in combating the cold, sports drinks - which contain carbohydrates like glucose and electrolytes like sodium - can be extremely helpful. Talk to our fitness team for more information.

Oh yes, the answer: Camels can drink up to 20 gallons at a time, but it is stored in their bloodstream not their hump. If you’d like to see how not to drink 1.5 litres of water, see our video gallery above.