Comments on: Drink Warm or Cool Water During Workout?

By: phiG

phiG — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:46:17 +0000

wouldn’t you want your muscle tissue to be warmer to expend calories instead of storing energy? from what i’ve read in research abstracts is that warmer muscles = relaxed muscles. And relaxed muscles have a much more permeable membrane to absorb nutrients, and the contractions flush waste through, hence how peristalsis works in the intestine to filter out food. I imagine that drinking colder water would slow down this metabolic process. You don’t want to absorb water, you want to absorb nutrients in the water, and if they can’t pass through the membrane of your intestine, then you’re probably not getting the nutrients you’d need to be healthy. This probably explains why warm alcohol passes through the bloodstream faster and why when people throw back mixed drinks they think they can take down more than they can until BAM! they stand up and it hits them. There’s probably a good reason that caffeine is so easily dispensed in warm beverages, and it might have more to do with the temperature of the drink than in the actual content. I’d be careful about telling people to drink cold water unless you can present evidence that supports your claim.

By: Derek

Derek — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:38:33 +0000

@Brandon: Don’t always believe what you read on the internet. Let’s take a look at how much energy it takes to heat a glass of water.

Okay let’s assume we have 500mL of water. (Which also just so happens to be 500g of water.)
Let define some variables:
Q – Energy
c- Specific heat capacity of water (4.186 joule/g °C)
T- Change in temp (lets assume a change from 17 degrees to body temperature which is 37 degrees Celsius, a 20 degree change)
m- mass of water

Q=mcT
Q=(500g)(4.186 J/g °C)(20°C)
Q= 41860 J

Now we convert Joules to calories.

Q=10 004.78 calories

Seems pretty impressive, eh? Wait, there’s a problem here. These calories are not the same calories we use in nutrition. In fact the calories that you use in everyday life are kilocalories or “nutritional calories”. There are 1000 calories in a nutritional calorie… so that means we use:

Q = 10 calories to drink a half a litre of cold water. Not so impressive.

So in short, yes it takes calories to heat up water… but not a lot.

For example if you drank one can of Coke, you’ve consumed ~150 calories. That means you’d have to drink 7.5 liters of cold water to offset that. Good luck with that.

By: Dana

Dana — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:29:45 +0000

This seems contrary to what my trainer told me. In order to burn fat, your body needs to heat up. If you are constantly cooling the body, then how do you expect to burn fat?

I drink room temperature water with a special sports drink flavouring that my gym supplies for the type of program i am on (snowboard specific workout). I drink a minimum of 2 litres of water a day. More on my cardio days.

There are many schools of thought on this subject. Chinese medicine doctors believe you should drink water at room temperature. And sports experts agree that a pinch of salt in your water helps the body in intense workouts because some people sweat more than others and sodium is lost through sweat. Therefore it is important to replenish the sodium especially in competitive athletes.

I personally don’t like cold water ever. I always drink it at room temperature.

By: Anon

Anon — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:37:08 +0000

I think the fallacy there is that DRDarden assumes that the only way we regulate body temp is the body generating extra heat. The most common way we regulate our body heat is clothing. I think most people would compensate for drinking ice cold water by wearing more clothing.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:21:48 +0000

Hey there. Just thought I clarify something here. Drinking cool water does help your body to lose weight. Our body actually heats up the cool water (40 degress Fahrenheit) to body core temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. So yes, your body does burn calories. Consuming 4 to 5 liters will burn about 150 to 250 calories per day.

Reference:
http://www.drdarden.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=D01D872934F843260885C81DD79524EB.hydra?id=383704

By: Kevlin

Kevlin — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:14:50 +0000

I heard from the old people they say that after exercising is bad to drink water straight away and far more worst is cold water. They said that drinking warm or hot is still ok but not cold example like ice water. It is said that it will cause stroke is that true or a myth?

By: Howard Chang

Howard Chang — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:26:50 +0000

I recently stumbledupon your website and am finding a lot of practical and often times hilarious posts. This entry caught my attention the most as I am slowly backtracking through all your entries.

I recently got interested in fitness and have read quite a lot of articles on such topics. I can’t be quite certain where I read this but I recall it may have been Men’s Fitness that mentioned drinking water that was substantially colder than room temperature may hinder the metabolism’s cycle. I personally prefer cold water(even iced water) when it comes to a refreshment after an arduous workout but have recently switched to drinking lukewarm water or room temp. water and have noticed a slight improvement in which my body handles my workout. Of course, with any kind of progress when it comes to exercising and working out there are placebo effects(it could be all just in my mind) so it’s very hard to pin point what works and what doesn’t. Additionally, everyone’s body functions differently so it would be hard to gauge how each individual’s body would react to such stimulus or lack of.

In any case, thanks for the insightful post. I thought it was very well put.

By: alifah halim

alifah halim — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:34:13 +0000

I need to know, why during and after my work out, my hands are very cold.. (like an ice)…. although my body sweat…this only happen on my hands..
Sometimes i am quite worry..i’ve been thingking wheter am i normal or not..
Pls let me know..tq