Composição corporal e perdas hídricas de atletas adolescentes de uma equipe de handebol

Abstract

Introduction: Keeping an adequate hydration status is extremely important for athletes of different ages to preserve their health and to improve their competitive performances. Objective: To evaluate the dehydration cases occurrence among adolescents, athletes of a handball team, from the city of Sorocaba, SP, using two afferent methods. Method: Transversal study with adolescent handball athletes from Sorocaba, SP. Before the beginning of the study the athletes presented a formal authorization from their parents consenting their participation. Data was collected during the regular trainings and, in the evaluation day, everyone consumed water ad libitum. To evaluate the occurrence of dehydration during the training, with voluntary hydration and no orientations given to the athletes, the percentages of weight loss from each athlete (difference between the start and the final weight) were evaluated and the SR (sweat rates) were estimated. By the end of the training, after weighting the athletes, the urine's color was analyzed (Armstrong et al, 1994). Pearson Correlation coefficients were utilized in order to evaluate the agreement between two methods of evaluation about the dehydration, in a significance level of 5%. The present study was approved by the Ethics Commission from "Centra Universitário São Camilo (n. 31974014.0.0000.0062). Results: Forty-six adolescents, with average age of 13,2 years old (SD=1,74) were evaluated, being 42 boys (91,3%). Most of the players didn't consume any kind of liquids before the training (58,7%). The average SR was 9,74mL/min. Just 4,3% of the adolescents were considered well hydrated according to the urine color method. In the other side, the average percentage weight loss showed by the athletes after the training, corrected by the volume of the liquids voluntarily consumed during the exercise, was 1,32%, which represents light dehydration. By this method, 45.7% of the players were still hydrated after the training. 41,3% presented light dehydration, 10,9% presented significant dehydration and 2.2% were severely dehydrated. There was no correlation between the analysis methods of dehydration utilized (r=-0.010; p=0,947) However, there was a strong and positive correlation between weight loss and SR (r=0.95, p<0.001). After the exercise, 43,5% of the athletes presented a dry mouth sensation and more than half of the participants related that they would like to consume water. About 30% of the players were hungry after the training. Conclusion: There was significant discrepancy on the classification of the hydration status of the athletes according to both methods utilized. According to the percentage of weight loss method, 54,3% of the adolescent presented some degree of dehydration, what indicates a necessity of nutritional orientation to the hydric reposition.