BATON ROUGE — High school Football teams across Louisiana are gearing up for the season. With practices going on during one of the hottest times of the year, players are getting reacclimated to practicing in the hot sun.

Doctors say right now, proper hydration and warm-up/recovery are as important as ever.

"It's a huge concern right now, especially this time of year, as hot and as humid as it's getting," Ochsner Health Sports Medicine Physician Geoffrey Hogan said.

"With sports ramping back up, one of the first things that I tell people is that hydration is super important. Start early, start often, you want to be drinking before, during, and after exercise," Hogan added.

Hogan says that if you're thirsty, you're already behind.

If someone is not hydrated, Hogan says that there are signs that coaches, trainers, parents, and other players should look out for.

"We want to see what the level of sweating is. Our athletes should be sweating quite a bit, so certainly if it gets to the point where we've been out there, we've been exercising a lot, and somebody has stopped sweating, they're looking clammy, they're looking really red like that's a big sign like something could be off with that," Hogan said.

"When people start getting overly fatigued, like we expect some level of fatigue with our exercising, but if people are overly fatigued, if they're dragging, if they're starting to get confused, really lethargic or vomiting, like those are really worrisome signs," Hogan added.

The doctors discussed how one of the most effective ways an athlete can tell if they are dehydrated is the color of their urine.

"As you get more dehydrated, your kidneys are going to compensate and hold on to more water, so what you actually urinate is going to be more full of the things that you're filtering out as it becomes darker and darker as you become more dehydrated," Baton Rouge General Family Medicine's Jake Wood said.

"What we like to see is even after practice, but especially going into practice, almost clear, maybe a tinge of yellow," Wood added.

Both Wood and Hogan were asked about what every coach or trainer should do if they notice someone who looks dehydrated or is showing signs of heat exhaustion.

"First thing we need to do is identify, and then we pull them out. We need to get them into the shade," Hogan said. "Get them hydrated, and if you can cool them externally with ice packs or cold rags or any of that kind of stuff, get them near a fan, get them into shade, don't leave them out in the middle of the sun," Wood added.

Another important part of being safe with practice is warm-up and recovery.

"I like heat, especially before exercise, before activity to kind of help with that warming up process, kind of loosening up the tissues and then icing afterwards for kind of the anti-inflammatory benefit with that," Hogan said.

When the athletes get home, parents can play a big role in ensuring they're getting proper recovery.

"Probably the biggest issue right now with kids, especially with social media and cell phones, is a lack of adequate sleep. I mean, these kids need to get 8 to 10 hours a night, depending on their age, and they are well short of that most of the time because they're up scrolling on phones," Hogan said.

WBRZ spoke with the head football coaches of Woodlawn and Dutchtown High School this week about hydration and recovery. Woodlawn was having an afternoon practice on Thursday, while Dutchtown had some lifting and film sessions on Friday morning.

"So we have our athletes first block in the morning for 90 minutes, we have them from 7:30 to 9:00, so depending on the forecast, for that day, be it lightning in the afternoon or heat, we're able to come out in the morning. We can come on the field, in shells, and get a lot of our heavy lifting done," Dutchtown Head Coach Guy Mistretta said.

Both head coaches know how hot it gets and take steps to ensure their players' safety while practicing.

"One thing we do is we give plenty of water breaks, we give them water while they're going and doing their reps, and then we also have mandatory water breaks where you have to go under the tent and make sure you hydrate and drink water. We want to keep them hydrated and want to make sure that we're taking a lot of breaks right now," Woodlawn Head Coach Tramon Douglas said.

When an athlete is dealing with something causing them pain, a thought that sometimes comes to their mind is, "If I tell them I'm hurt, I may lose my spot." The doctors want to let them know that the faster they let their training staff or doctor know, the quicker they can get them back on the field healthy.

"I tell a lot of the players I take care of, if we go ahead and get you in and get this taken care of now and be aggressive with it, we're going to get you back to playing faster, so let's get after it and instead of pushing it off and waiting to kind of see what happens," Wood said.