Texans doing their best to stay hydrated during heatwave - Ingles

The Houston Texans' outdoor morning training-camp practices last week looked routine enough: The offense and defense went through drills to prepare for an upcoming preseason game with the New York Jets.

Afterward, though, the scales in the locker room revealed something extraordinary: Faced with a searing heat wave, Texans players lost a collective average of 450 pounds of fluid during each two-hour practice last week, or about 54 gallons of water—as much as one might use during a 20-minute shower.

That's despite the players consuming about 1,600 pounds of ice, 50 cases of Gatorade and 100 gallons of water.

This year, the Texans' training facility in Houston is playing host to the hottest training camp in the NFL and, possibly, the hottest in the league for the last 30 years. Temperatures have reached triple digits for 16 days in a row here, the longest streak in Houston since the heat wave of 1980.

Given the dangers to players (Minnesota Vikings lineman Korey Stringer died of heat-related illness during training in 2001), most teams in hot climates opt for cooler spots. The Dallas Cowboys have lately favored a temperature-controlled dome. The Arizona Cardinals escape to Flagstaff, Ariz., and the Carolina Panthers, located in Charlotte, N.C., have practiced at night.

The Texans have not only opted to stay home, they're holding morning practices outdoors in the full sunlight. The team says practicing in the heat will help the players stay fresher during early-season games, which are often hot (the Texans play at Miami in the upcoming season's second week).

This sweltering strategy has put the Texans at the forefront of an intriguing scientific question: How do you keep 90 enormous men in helmets and plastic pads full of fluids and electrolytes during two weeks of hard practice in stifling heat?

The biggest danger for players is that they will gradually lose a small amount of fluids each day without fully replenishing them, creating a cumulative loss. This can leave them with little left in the tank by the end of camp and put them in a precarious position right at the start of the NFL season.

Before Wednesday morning's practice, Texans left tackle Duane Brown said he was feeling good. He weighed himself before practice and he was 318 pounds. By the time practice ended two hours later, temperatures were around 100 degrees and Brown's weight was 311. His muscles began to seize up and it took 15 minutes of him lying on the ground to be able to move them again—the result of his electrolytes being depleted. Later, Brown was hooked up to an IV to replenish his fluids.

The heat is "out of control," Brown said. Still, he added, it's a point of pride that the Texans have the hottest camp in the NFL. "It's a mental thing. It helps your psyche knowing you toughed it out."

To keep players from withering away, Geoff Kaplan, the Texans head athletic trainer, and Roberta Anding, the team's head dietician, have devised a plan that combines careful monitoring with cutting-edge nutrition. They've ordered shipments of electrolyte-filled coconut water, filled the team buffet with foods like squash, tomatoes and other vegetables packed with large amounts of potassium, magnesium and other electrolytes, and prescribed players jugs of extra-salty energy drinks like Gatorade before bed. In cases of extreme fluid loss, players have been hooked up to IV drips of a saline mix.
To monitor fluid loss, the Texans weigh each player before and after practice, which is now standard practice in the NFL. For each pound lost, Texans players are told to drink 20 ounces of fluid—usually, it's a sugary energy drink like Gatorade.

But Kaplan said some players have lost up to 14 pounds in morning practices (in the afternoon the team works out inside an inflated bubble that brings the temperature down to about 80 degrees). Energy drinks alone can't replenish all the electrolytes in the body. So the Texans use food to combat the problem. This year, they've been salting the food prepared for players as much as possible without giving it an unbearable taste. Some players have asked about the risks of high blood pressure, but the Texans say new research shows that combining sodium with vegetables like sweet potatoes and fruits like watermelon, which are high in potassium and calcium, cancel out the negative effects of the salt.

As a result, Anding mandates that players fill at least one third of their plate with vegetables. "Their first plate belongs to me," she said.

One challenge, Anding said, is finding vegetables players actually want to eat. To get a sense of players' taste buds, Anding has created a "food committee," which so far consists of quarterback Matt Schaub and linebacker DeMeco Ryans, who ask players what they think about the food.

Because of the stifling heat, Anding said her committee told her the players wanted lighter food, so she altered the menu a bit. (In the NFL, "light" food means things like spinach-stuffed beef tenderloin and jambalaya). For an evening snack, players are eating things like sushi instead of sandwiches. Then, they're told to wash it down with extra salty, sugary sports beverages just before bed.

Anding has also gone to great pains to find foods that contain a strong kick of potassium and magnesium but that also pass muster with every player's taste buds. For players from the south, the answer is okra and potatoes. "If you went to LSU or Alabama, of course that's going to seem like home," she said.

It's not clear if the Texans' sizzling camp strategy will toughen the players up or not. Gil Brandt, a Dallas Cowboys executive from 1960 to 1989, said he thought the team benefited back then from training camp pilgrimages to cooler locales in Oregon and Southern California.

But those were different times, he said, when players worked jobs in the off-season and sometimes came to camp so out of shape that they were forced to eat at a special table where only low-calorie foods were served. "You thought your team was in shape when you only had ten guys eating at the fat man table," Brandt said. This article was written by Reed Albergotti and appeared in The Wall Street Journal.