I saw a massive debate in the 100 best cycling tips thread a while ago and thought I'd give some insight as to why cold water is not better than warm or hot water...or whatever.
The arguments for both sides were not very technical, so I'm going to use some basic physics here to say what I think:
Water at either extreme temperature will obviously not aid you. Too cold, and this can cause your body to go in to a cardiac arrest or whatever, meaning you have a heart attack and die from the severe shock of cold. What happens is that heat is transferred from a warm object to a cooler one. Thus, when you drink really cold water from your water bottle, your body heat (and therefore some energy) is sucked away from your inner core and into the water to equalize the temperature. Not good. If you're running hot (gotta go by feel here, there's no engine temperature gauge!) then cool water will help to keep you cool. (Obviously).
On the other hand, if the water is too hot, you will burn up your organs...
If the water is as warm as your body temperature or warmer, it will not help to keep you cool, but will help to stabilize your body temperature. (Good if you are riding in winter!) If you are running hot and drink warm water, this just means you're going to stay warmer and sweat more, thus requiring you to drink alot more. Generally your body temperature goes up when you exercise, so drinking warm water won't aid you by matching your body temperature.
So the moral here is....Water temperature is not THAT important...unless it's too hot or too cold.
If you're sweating lots, stick with cooler water. This will help to keep you cool, thus enabling your body to:
-sweat less,
-lose less electrolytes, and
-use less energy trying to keep you cool.
That's just what I think anyways...maybe it was a useless debate, but I thought it was half-interesting...
The arguments for both sides were not very technical, so I'm going to use some basic physics here to say what I think:
Water at either extreme temperature will obviously not aid you. Too cold, and this can cause your body to go in to a cardiac arrest or whatever, meaning you have a heart attack and die from the severe shock of cold. What happens is that heat is transferred from a warm object to a cooler one. Thus, when you drink really cold water from your water bottle, your body heat (and therefore some energy) is sucked away from your inner core and into the water to equalize the temperature. Not good. If you're running hot (gotta go by feel here, there's no engine temperature gauge!) then cool water will help to keep you cool. (Obviously).
On the other hand, if the water is too hot, you will burn up your organs...
If the water is as warm as your body temperature or warmer, it will not help to keep you cool, but will help to stabilize your body temperature. (Good if you are riding in winter!) If you are running hot and drink warm water, this just means you're going to stay warmer and sweat more, thus requiring you to drink alot more. Generally your body temperature goes up when you exercise, so drinking warm water won't aid you by matching your body temperature.
So the moral here is....Water temperature is not THAT important...unless it's too hot or too cold.
If you're sweating lots, stick with cooler water. This will help to keep you cool, thus enabling your body to:
-sweat less,
-lose less electrolytes, and
-use less energy trying to keep you cool.
That's just what I think anyways...maybe it was a useless debate, but I thought it was half-interesting...