Sports Drinks are a booming business! Such popularity with the buying public, it is no wonder that these sports supplements continue to be touted as fantastic enhancements to a person’s exercise efforts.
Yet the darker side to this industry is that the true efficacy of sports drinks is questionable. Artificial colors, unnecessarily high sugar content being connected to childhood obesity, and even questions about the physiological need for the added electrolytes.
Who Should Use Sports Drinks
The individuals who best benefit from the use of sports drinks are athletes. Endurance athletes to be more specific. These are the focused, and by some accounts, slightly crazy folks who exercise continuously for hours. Runners, cyclists, and triathletes usually.
These dedicated people take the human body on excursions into levels of performance not normally experienced by the average person. In doing so, they deplete their bodies of stored fluids and electrolytes. There is also a vitally important need to refuel muscles that burn stored energy along the way.
These are also the individuals who are studied when Science wants to know how sports performance drinks react in the human body.
Enter the modern-day sports drink. A specialized solution to the very specific problem of keeping the human body fueled to participate in exercise over hours of athletic activity.
For endurance athletes training or competing in hot and/or humid conditions, some form of supplementation becomes essential. Whether through the use of sports drinks or through a systematic use of food and water throughout the workout, some carbohydrate source is required.
Sports drinks can also be very useful in the treatment of medical conditions where the body has become dehydrated from prolonged periods of vomiting or diarrhea. Obviously treating the underlying cause is the most important aspect.
Who Should Not Use Sports Drinks
If you do not find yourself being described above, then you probably don’t need to supplement with a sports drink.
Watching your weight? Trying to avoid sugar-laden soft drinks? Think of sport drinks as a very heavy soft drink. Even with the perky come-on lines of marketing about increased power and stamina, sports drinks are still just soft drinks. Your kids also don’t need them any more than they need the carbonated ones.
So unless you are in some constant motion exercise for two hours or more at a time, you’re still good staying hydrated with water.
Using Sports Drinks
[pullquote style=”right” quote=”dark”]Never try out a new sports drink for the first time during competition.[/pullquote]Sports drinks are a terrific tool in your bag of tricks to participating in endurance events but they are not one size fits all. As you can see online or on the shelves of your local stores, the variety is great! This is where you become your own lab experiment.
- Select a product that you feel comfortable consuming
- Test it out during training and adjust as you find you need to.
- Modify portions and timing according to how your body handles the product. Many sport drinks are really heavy on the sugars and a certain amount of dilution with water may be needed.
- Experiment to find what works for you, your body, and your event. Try different brands/concentrations until you feel comfortable.
- Be prepared to make mistakes along the way
Look at hydration before, during and after exercise. Heavier drinks that do not digest well during and event may be more appropriate as a post-exercise solution
Sports Drinks Ingredients Too Scary?
Consider making your own. Many you can whip up in your kitchen with ingredients readily at hand. Plus you get to control the proportions of water, sugar, and salt.
The more you learn about what your body performs best with, the easier it is to tailor a performance aid to your own specifications. And the things you will learn about yourself in the process are priceless.
“Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.”
― Steve Maraboli
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