How The Hydration Calculator Works

We've launched a free digital hydration tool to help people develop proper hydration habits in exercise and achieve greater performance in sports—the CamelBak Hydration Calculator. 

The CamelBak Hydration Calculator guides you through a step-by-step experience intended to help you better understand the different factors that influence dehydration. You'll see information icons scattered throughout the calculator where you can dig deeper into the subject matter and link off to articles and videos to learn more.

To build the Hydration Calculator, CamelBak partnered with the University of Connecticut’s Korey Stringer Institute (KSI) - one of the nation’s leading research groups focused on health and safety issues in sports. KSI helped vet the information presented in the calculator as well as verify the output.

The Hydration Calculator works by taking into account your physical parameters (age, body mass index, gender) and then looking at your current hydration status. We're essentially asking the question: are you beginning your activity with a water deficit, or are you properly hydrated? The Hydration Calculator then seeks to understand what type of activity you're about to start and how hard you're going after it. More than any other factor, intensity will significantly influence your hydration requirements. Are you running close to top speed flat out for 30 minutes? Or are you running closer to a jogger’s pace for 30 minutes? The difference in sweat rate and therefore hydration demands could be significant.

Finally, the Hydration Calculator asks about the environmental conditions during your activity. Running in 95 degree heat will result in a greater demand for your body to cool itself than in temperatures around 80 degrees. Thus, environmental conditions affect your sweat rate.

The Hydration Calculator evaluates all of these inputs and makes two recommendations: 1) the total amount of water you'll need to replace during that specific activity, and 2) how much you should be consuming per hour. The latter is done in order to reinforce the idea of steady hydration throughout the course of the activity—and not just consuming a large amount at the very end. Regular hydration will make it easier for your body to absorb the water and result in better overall performance throughout the activity.