Jim Jeffries "drying out" before the Jack Johnson fight

I think i've started a thread about this before but I've been re-reading the build up to the Johnson-Jeffries fight in Pollack, and it never ceases to amaze me that these two [Johnson did this too] were denying themselves water in the build up to the FOTC in enormous heat at altitude.

About ten days before the fight Jeffries "also said he would start the drying out process. He would not drink much, feeling that it was time for him to tighten up his skin. Back then, many believed that water was a detriment."

Does anyone know anything about this? How much denial was involved? Were they just sipping? I wonder how much fluid they were taking on. At altitude and in that heat it should have been way, way more than normal - instead they both took on less.

A) Anybody know any details?

B) Imagine how good Johnson would have been if allowed himself a wee drink of water before his filmed fights!

According to "Sports Nutrition" by Asker Jeukendrup, PhD, and Michael Gleeson, PhD, "Exercise performance is impaired when an individual is dehydrated by as little as 2% of body weight. Losses in excess of 5% of body weight can decrease the capacity for work by about 30%"

I'm not ready to bet that Johnson and Jeffries were going into the ring 5% low on bodyweight versus fully hydrated - not impossible but I can't be sure - but I know for sure they'd be hitting that 5% in that heat and at that altitude way way before they would have been if they'd hit the ring swooshing with water.

Maybe they drank fully the day of the fight or something though? Any details?

 

"The endurance capacity during incremental exercise is decreased by marginal dehydration (fluid loss of 1% to 2% of body weight), even if water deficits do not actually result in a decrease in .VO2max. Endurance capacity is impaired much more in hot environments than in cool conditions, which implies that impaired thermoregulation is an important causal factor in the reduced exercise performance associated with a body-water deficit. Dehydration also impairs endurance exercise performance."

 

No ****? Do you know of any pro athletes who practice it now?

 

Apart from every pro fighter in the world bar heavyweights

 

This is interesting, just from a random google:

"Dehydration may not be the threat to sporting performance that athletes have been led to believe, a study suggests.

For several decades, the mantra in sports has been "hydrate, hydrate, hydrate" – a tenet based on the belief that not replenishing the fluids and salts sweated out during exercise is both bad for athletes' health and their success.

But a novel study conducted at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., found that competitive athletes performed equally well regardless of whether they were hydrated or dehydrated, thirsty or not experiencing the sensation of thirst.

Lead author Stephen Cheung said the dehydrated athletes did have higher core temperatures and heart rates, though.

"Your body is more stressed with dehydration. So no questions there. But the performance was not different. And also none of these competitive elite athletes were at any [health] danger," said Cheung, a Canada research chair in environmental ergonomics.

The public should not interpret the results to mean that there is no need to rehydrate, he insisted. "Obviously dehydration is bad at a severe level."

But the study results do test the notion that people need to constantly top up their fluids while exercising, he said. "That is the common message that we are bombarded with. And I'm suggesting that there are certainly some cases where hydration is not as critical as it has been made out to be.""

 

From that study:

"Study designs that manipulate hydration status through oral fluid ingestion are limited by altering both the physiologic hydration status and psychologic cues because of thirst perception and the lack of blinding to fluid balance. Recently, Wall et al. (2013) was the first study to provide a blinded state of hydration, via real or sham intravenous (IV) infusion during recovery from 3% exercise‐heat dehydration. No differences in 25 km cycling TT performance were found with this blinded rehydration to 0, 2, or 3% body mass loss. However, neither oral fluid ingestion nor mouth rinse were provided during any of the hydration conditions, so it remains possible that the similar performance outcomes were driven by a consistent impairment from a strong psychologic state of thirst rather than a lack of effect from hydration status. "

Now i'm totally ****ing tortured.

 

That said, it was for 50% v02 peak on a stationary bike. Certainly not comparable to fighting.

 

I've just confused myself all to **** in this thread

 

I remember you saying this before. It just goes to show how entrenched some of these ideas get.