NATA PASS Program
Pay particular attention to athletes with excessively high sweat rates or a past history of heat illnesses. For example, athlete 3 appears to have an excessively high sweat rate compared to athletes 1 and 2. In this case, you should consider taking the following measures:
- Develop and implement a more aggressive hydration protocol specific to this athlete's sweat rate and individual situation.
- Taking daily weight measurements will enable you to determine weight loss due to dehydration, and then you can look for trends.
- Calculating this athlete's sweat rate more frequently than the others enables you to determine his optimal amount of fluid consumption.
- Monitoring this athlete is perhaps the most aggressive tactic. Keeping an eye on him on the field as well as monitoring his daily hydration status will allow you to intervene when needed.
- Because the athlete needs aggressive fluid consumption based on his individual needs, you must continually evaluate these needs.
- Look carefully at whether this athlete is matching fluid intake with fluid losses. If he's not, explore the possible reasons why. Does he play offense, defense, or special teams, and therefore he never gets a chance to drink? Each situation has a potential solution. Be creative and think outside the box. The athlete's performance will dramatically improve if you change the behavior that results in substantial dehydration during football games, practices, or both.
