Hydration Status After an Ironman Triathlon: A Meta-Analysis The Ironman is one of the most popular triathlon events in the world.Such a race includes a large number of tactical decisions for a healthy finish and the best performance. Dehydration is often postulated to reduce performance, and is known as the cause of dropouts at Ironman. Despite the importance of hydration status after an Ironman triathlon, it is clearly lacking meta-analysis studies on this topic. The aim was therefore to systematically review the literature and perform a meta-analysis of the hydration status after an Ironman triathlon. A systematic review of literature was carried out by June 2016, which included the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct and Web of Science. From the first 995 references we have 6 studies involved in the qualitative analysis and meta-analysis. All attempts had two measurements of hydration status after a complete Ironman race. The total body, blood and urinosmolality, the specific gravity of urine and the sodium plasma concentration were considered as hydration markers. Three researchers, independently, abstracted data to the study design, the sample size, to the features of the participants and the race, results and the quantitative data for meta-analysis. In the pooled analysis, the Ironman event seems to lead to moderate dehydration compared to the output values. Some heterogeneity and consistency indications were also observed.
The results suggest that the athletes seem to be hypohydrated after the race compared to the initial values. The whole article can be found under https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31915479/