Section D · The Mat & The Ring
Boxing & MMA
Cuts strip water and sodium on purpose. The hands drop in round five because the tank was never refilled.
Sparring and pad rounds in a hot gym with a hoodie on, plus weight cuts that empty the body by design. Fighters are the most chronically dehydrated athletes in this book, and rehydrate with plain water that goes straight through.
Rehydrating after a cut with plain water is pouring it through a sieve. Sodium is what makes the water stay. One before, one between blocks, one after. After a cut: one per 16 oz until pale. One stick in 16 oz covers a window; the schedule below covers the day.
The numbers behind boxing & mma
Sparring and pad rounds in a hot gym with a hoodie on, plus weight cuts that empty the body by design. Fighters are the most chronically dehydrated athletes in this book, and rehydrate with plain water that goes straight through.
Why this happens
Sweat is not just water. Every ounce carries sodium out with it, and sodium is what lets your blood hold its volume. Lose enough and there is less blood to move oxygen to working muscle, so your heart rate climbs for the same split, your core temperature drifts up, and the nerve signal that tells a muscle to relax gets noisier. That is the cramp, the dizzy stand-up and the split that will not come back, all from the same cause.
Plain water puts the volume back without the sodium, which is why it can feel like it is not working. The fix is to put back what actually left: water and the minerals that went with it, in roughly the ratio you lost them.
A fighter is already short before the session starts. The hoodie and the hot gym push the sweat rate up while the cut is pulling water and sodium out on purpose, so the deficit is stacked before the first bell of a sparring session. Then the corner bottle is plain water, which puts volume back without the sodium that makes it stay. The body reads the low sodium as a signal it has enough and sends the rest to the bladder, which is how a fighter drinks all day and stays dry.
Rehydrating after a cut with plain water is pouring it through a sieve. Sodium is what makes the water stay.
Sparring takes two to four pounds. The cut took its share on Tuesday.
Thirty-two to sixty-four ounces leave you in one hoodie session. For a 155-lb fighter the 2% line sits at 50 oz, which a heavy sweater passes inside the last round block. Walk in on a cut and the line has already moved, because the water and the sodium came out days before the first bell.
Four round blocks in a hot gym is 32 to 64 oz out. A heavy sweater passes 2% (3.1 lb, 50 oz for a 155-lb fighter) during the last block. On a cut week the whole band starts higher, because the deficit was there before the warm-up.
One stick before, one between round blocks, one after is 1,800 mg. That stays ahead of the session and leaves room for what the cut took.
What comes back when the sodium goes in with the water
Pooled across 28 studies, hypohydration cost 8.3% of muscle endurance and 5.8% of anaerobic power. Punch output in the last rounds is made of exactly those two things.
Savoie et al., Sports Medicine, 2015At 1.6% of body mass down, young men made more errors on a vigilance task and were slower on working memory, with more fatigue and tension. The heavy end of a hoodie session is past that before the last block.
Ganio et al., British Journal of Nutrition, 2011Drinking more than you lost only works if the sodium is high enough. Below that, the extra volume leaves as urine.
Shirreffs et al., Med Sci Sports Exerc, 1996Across 40 MMA fighters with about 22 hours between the weigh-in and the fight, 39% were still dehydrated two hours before they stepped in.
Jetton et al., J Strength Cond Res, 2013Among 63 elite wrestlers, judokas, boxers and taekwondo athletes, 89% were dehydrated on the morning of competition, and drinking more the evening before was not associated with a better result. What goes in has to carry sodium.
Pettersson & Berg, Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab, 2014
Dry, then hydrated, piece by piece
The red panel is what is happening now. The green one is what the next section buys you, and roughly how long each part takes to show up.
- Cut week: already down water and sodium
- Hoodie on in a hot gym, sweat from the bell
- Nothing in the corner bottle but water
- Heart rate climbs faster than the pace
- Fog between rounds; the corner’s instructions do not land
- Calves cramp on the footwork
- Hands drop; the punch output falls apart
- Cramping during the cut
- Foggy after sparring, wrecked for the evening
What to drink, and when
Start with after. It is the window most people in boxing & mma get wrong. For a normal training day rather than a race, the timing guide covers every window.
BEFORE
- 16 oz with a stick at T-90
- 8 oz plain water in the wraps
Start full so the early rounds spend what you have.
DURING
- The corner bottle, 4–6 oz between rounds
- A stick between round blocks in the hoodie
Replaces the sodium the hoodie is pulling out so round five has hands.
AFTER
- 20 oz with a stick after sparring
- After a cut: a stick per 16 oz until the urine is pale, then food
Water without minerals goes straight through. This is how the cut comes back.
Every pound off the scale is 16 oz to put back, and it needs sodium in it. Weigh in before sparring and out after, and you have your own number instead of an average.
What to take, and what we do not sell
Two of these three are things we do not sell. A hydration stick does not fix fuelling, and pretending otherwise is how people end up disappointed.
Electrolytes
Fuel
Worth taking too
The questions we get about boxing & mma
How much do you sweat in boxing & mma?
32–64 oz of sweat in a sparring session with the hoodie on. 1,000+ mg of sodium out, on top of what the cut already took. Weigh in before and out after a session: every pound down is about 16 oz you did not put back.
When should I drink during boxing & mma?
After sparring, and after the weigh-in: 20 oz with a stick after sparring; After a cut: a stick per 16 oz until the urine is pale, then food. Water without minerals goes straight through. This is how the cut comes back.
What should I drink before boxing & mma?
T-90 to the first bell: 16 oz with a stick at T-90; 8 oz plain water in the wraps. Start full so the early rounds spend what you have.
How do I recover after boxing & mma?
After sparring, and after the weigh-in: 20 oz with a stick after sparring; After a cut: a stick per 16 oz until the urine is pale, then food. Water without minerals goes straight through. This is how the cut comes back.
Do I need electrolytes or is water enough?
Water replaces the volume you sweat out but not the sodium, potassium and magnesium that left with it, and without sodium your body cannot hold the water. Per hour of hard work: Sodium 500–700 mg, Potassium 150–300 mg, Magnesium 30–60 mg, Water 16–24 oz.
How many sticks do I need?
One before, one between blocks, one after. After a cut: one per 16 oz until pale. After the weigh-in, the first thing in is a stick in 16 oz, not a bagel. Then another. Then food. The order is the rehydration.
How long does it take to rehydrate after a weigh-in?
More than a few hours, and volume alone will not do it. Forty MMA fighters with about 22 hours between the weigh-in and the fight regained 4.4% of their body weight, and 39% were still dehydrated two hours out (Jetton et al., 2013). Sodium is what turns fluid into volume you keep, so the first thing in is a stick in 16 oz, then another, then food.
Why do I cramp during a weight cut?
The cut takes water and sodium together, and the calf is the first place that shows. Plain water puts back one of the two, so the signal to the muscle stays noisy. A stick per 16 oz keeps the minerals moving back in with the fluid. If the cramps come at night, the book puts magnesium there.
Should I drink during sparring or only between rounds?
Between rounds, from a bottle that is already mixed. One minute is not enough time to mix anything or to walk anywhere, so the corner bottle gets made before the wraps go on. The book puts a stick in it per round block, which is what keeps the sodium in step with the sweat.
Everything in the box
The book this article came from is in there too. One page for every sport, so the next thing you take up is already covered.
Five flavours, one stick each
Taste is the only part of this you cannot take our word for. The starter kit gets you all five so you find the one you will actually reach for at minute four, not the one that sounded good online.
- All five minerals sweat costs you, no sugar.
- Informed Sport certified, batch by batch.
- Mixes into whatever bottle is already in the corner.
