Sorting Through the Hype: Choosing the Right Sports Drink

Why use sports drinks?

These nifty inventions, besides making their inventors and distributors a handsome profit, do actually help athletes of all levels perform well in their chosen event.

So how do they work?

Sports drinks, as their marketers trumpet in their advertising, provide replacement fluids and nutrients that are depleted in endurance events.

What this translates to in your physiology is that with continued exertion, you lose:

• Water
• Muscle fuel in the form of glycogen (a close relative of the sugar, glucose)
• Chemical mediators in the form of electrolytes (salts)

With supplementation of sports drinks during activity, you delay the inevitable physical decline and extend your ability to compete or train.

The Origins of Modern Sports Drinks

While people consuming specific concoctions to enhance athletic performance has been around for ages, back in 1965, the University of Florida football team wanted something to help contend with the dehydration of players in the Florida heat and humidity. Working with what they knew, the scientists took Ringer’s Lactate, an IV solution to treat dehydrating conditions, and turned it into a palatable sugar and electrolyte solution. Gatorade was born.

With considerable field testing, the formula was refined into both a commercial and fluid replacement success. Based on the success of this product, an entire industry has arisen. Based in Science, these products can deliver the help you need in your training.

What To Look For in a Sports Drink

As with the vast variety of drinks on today’s market, finding the right fit for your physiology, palate, and physical needs comes down to a little trial and error testing. Since everyone’s body is different, try the different products under training conditions to see which ones work best. When you find the ones that work best, you’ve got your answer.

Side Note: This keeps coming up in both pro and amateur ranks – Don’t try a new product for the first time at a competition. Test it out first. If a product doesn’t work well for you, better to suffer through a workout instead of losing at a competition.

Carbohydrates

Sugars are sugars. Only the chemical complexity varies. Many of the newer products coming out are going with a much lower sugar concentration for drinks used during exercise. Since it is the hydration issue that is most important, the lower concentration of sugar better helps the body retain water instead of diverting it to digestion.

Heavier concentrations of sugars can be used in recovery from exercise, when replacing muscle glycogen is important.

Electrolytes

Electrolytes are salts, like sodium, potassium, and calcium, are intermediaries in chemical processes in a number of parts of your body. In the physiology of muscle contraction, the proportionally small concentration of these elements belies their vast importance. If your muscles become depleted of these chemicals, the muscles stop working.

You lose some electrolytes with exercise, so replacement becomes an increasingly important consideration as duration of your event expands. Most sports drinks provide an adequate amount of electrolytes but, as mentioned above, it will pay to experiment and find out with which ones your body performs best.

This is just an introduction. There are just so many other components and considerations about sports drinks which will be covered here in subsequent articles. In the meantime, best of luck in your search for hydration solutions that will enhance your training and competitive performance!

“I drink coconut water before my workouts. It has just the right amount of calories and electrolytes to get me going. My body has actually started craving it.”
 – Jennifer Morrison