New study of salt in the sweat of PWHL players aims to help them hydrate better

A new study aims to help current and future female hockey players reach their maximum potential by studying how female Professional Women's Hockey League athletes sweat.

As part of the study, conducted by the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, about 100 PWHL players, including athletes from each of the four Canadian teams, will be tested to determine how much they sweat during practices and games and how much salt is in that sweat.

“Each player will receive their own individual results and can use this data to fine-tune their hydration levels for the season,” said exercise physiologist Dr. Lawrence Spriet, who is leading the study.

“An analogy I often use is that no hockey player gets on the ice unless his skates are sharpened the way he likes, or he doesn’t have a stick that he likes, or his equipment doesn’t fit properly,” said Sprite, professor emeritus in the department of public health at the University of Guelph.

“Why would you go out on the ice without knowing what your hydration and nutritional needs are? Hydration and nutrition are a little more difficult to figure out, so that’s the value of these sweat tests.”

Montreal Victoire forward Marie-Philip Poulin said she has undergone sweat testing in the past and found the results helpful, especially in situations like the four-overtime playoff battle her team endured in May.

Athletes do everything they can to improve their game, and part of that should be a personalized hydration plan, she said.

“Personally, I'm getting a little older and you really want to find that edge, you want to find that extra 0.01 percent to make sure you're ready to go,” the Canadian superstar said.

Players were weighed before and after practices and games.

The sweat test is based on body weight: a player is weighed without equipment and with an empty bladder before practice or a game. Everything they put into their body is then tracked throughout the session, recording the volume and type of fluid.

At the end of a practice or game, they will be weighed again to determine how much they sweat.

When a player loses as little as 1.5 percent of his body weight through sweat (about one liter for an athlete weighing 70 to 75 kilograms), his performance can suffer, Spriet says.

Their muscles may not work as well, or their ability to make decisions may be impaired.

The most important thing for an athlete is hydration, he said, but studying the composition of a player's sweat also allows team support staff to get a better idea of ​​what an athlete needs in a water bottle on the bench.

“We try to keep them hydrated, we try to replace some of the salt that they're losing, and we try to get some carbohydrates into their system to help them stay sharp as the game or practice gets closer to the end,” Spriet said.

The results will become part of a larger “hydration experience database”

In addition to individual player results, broader results will also be included in the larger Gatorade Sports Science Institute study. The study has already included 300 to 400 top-level athletes in several other sports, Spriet said.

“What they're really trying to do is create a database of hydration needs and habits, if you will, for a wide range of professional or near-professional female athletes,” he said.

Similar data already exists for male athletes, and conducting research specific to women is critical, says Jayna Hefford, PWHL executive vice president of hockey operations.

“We've all really tried to work and live through research that isn't specifically about women in general. I think outside of sports we even find it,” she said. “So this type of research, I think, shows Gatorade's commitment to growing with us and growing with the sport and elevating women and female athletes.”

The study comes as the popularity of women's sports in North America continues to grow rapidly.

The PWHL is adding two new teams this season, the Vancouver Goldeneyes and the Seattle Torrent, while the WNBA will get its first Canadian franchise in the Toronto Tempo next year.

“When you look at the prominence of women's sports and female athletes, it's hard to imagine that there has been (very little) research done just on women who have been performing at a high level for a long time,” Hefford said.

“So it’s exciting to think about where this sport can go, and especially for us in our league and our athletes, how their performance can be impacted if we continue to invest in them.”