Sports Drinks - Yes Or No?

Watching the marathon on TV, standing in line waiting for a treadmill at the gym, or hit your park for a steady jog on a Sunday morning and you’ll notice one thing – sports drinks are everywhere.

You would see high level athletes sipping them during half time intervals or at the start of a race, and sports scientists were eager to share the benefits of sports drinks to the world.

Now though, everyone has them. Kids playing little league games and five a side soccer, they line the shelves of grocery stores, adorn pages in fitness magazines and you’ll even see people who’ve clearly never picked up a dumbbell or run a hundred yards in their life drinking them over lunch or on their way to work.

So What are Sports Drinks and What are the Benefits?

The term is a fairly wide one and encompasses a huge variety of products. The basic idea behind a sports drink though, is that it contains a liquid mixture of carbohydrates and electrolytes along with vitamins and minerals.

Carbohydrates are your body’s go to source of energy, hence the reasoning for their inclusion. Terms such as “carb-loading” are thrown around in athletic circles and we’re always advised that endurance athletes need a diet plentiful in foods like rice, pasta, potatoes, fruit and bread – high carb foods basically.

So the idea of having your carbs in liquid form is a pretty sound one which has many advantages:

• You don’t have to eat your carbs. Ever try shoveling down a mountain of spaghetti, a couple of bagels and a whole bunch of grapes two hours before a run in an attempt to fuel yourself up?

• If you have, you’ll know that it’s certainly not pretty, and entirely uncomfortable. A sports drink allows you to take in 30 to 40 grams of carbs in less than half a minute with minimal bloating.

• As the carbs are in liquid form they’re already partially digested, making it much easier and quicker for your body to absorb them, meaning a more rapid energy boost and faster recovery post training or race.

Electrolytes are contained in your blood. They’re actually substances that conduct electricity and are essential to our health, wellbeing and general everyday function. Sodium and potassium are the two you’re most likely familiar with but there are a number of others too and between them they help to maintain a stable internal environment, regulate organ function and control chemical reactions within the body.

When you train however, you lose electrolytes through sweating. While your body will naturally replace the lost electrolytes over time, even just a short period with low electrolyte levels can leave you feeling light headed, dizzy, reduce performance and cause dehydration. Clearly this has a huge negative impact on recovery.

So sports drinks are definitely a good thing – yes?

Well, not necessarily. They certainly do have their benefits, but it’s not all sunshine and roses as you’re about to find out.

Disadvantages Of Sports Drinks

Cost

The main disadvantage of sports drinks is the cost. While price varies between brands and what type of drink you but, a regular electrolyte based sports drink can easily cost two dollars plus. If you’re training four or five times a week and following manufacturers’ directions for usage, which often advise taking one drink before a session, sipping on an isotonic solution during training and then consuming another when you’ve finished, that’s upwards of 25 dollars a week, just on sports drinks.

Marketing is king in the sports nutrition industry and it’s no different for sports drinks. Advertising will constantly bombard you with the “need” for these products to help fuel performance. However you can get a drink that provides the same amount of fluid, a similar electrolyte balance and enough carbs to fuel a hard session for a fraction of the cost. Mix half a liter of water with 200 milliliters of high-sugar squash or freshly squeezed fruit juice and a quarter of a teaspoon of salt and you have a drink that contains fluid, carbs, sodium from the salt and potassium from the squash of fruit juice – exactly what’s in a pre-made sports drink.

Research

Companies love citing scientific studies to back up their claims, such as “Increases hydration by 35%” or “Burns fat five times faster” or the classic “Boosts performance by 20% when compared to drinking water alone.”

The trouble with claims like these is that they rarely have any substance to them. While they may be true, it’s highly likely that they’re based on studies conducted in the company’s own lab, with a very small sample of test subjects.

That’s not to say that the claims aren’t true or that they’re being made up, but it’s difficult to decipher whether the results would actually apply to the general population. And that’s another issue.

Necessity

If sports drinks do boost performance then that still doesn’t make them entirely necessary. Elite athletes may benefit from drinking them as they’re looking for that extra one percent that can give them an edge on the competition, but for most people, even those competing at a high amateur level, the difference between performance levels when drinking a sports drinks and drinking plain water will be negligible and won’t make or break your success.

The general consensus in the industry is that regular exercisers will only benefit from sports drinks when training at high intensity for an hour at the very least.

Weight Gain

If you’re trying to lose weight, sports drinks are a complete no no. The added carbs to fuel performance and boost energy will do nothing for your waist line. A single drink can contain over 150 calories from pure sugar – that’s 150 calories you definitely don’t need.

Wrap-Up

Sports drinks definitely show signs of benefitting elite athletes and fuelling grueling training sessions, but whether they’re necessary is another issue. If weight loss is your goal, avoid them at all costs, but if you’re looking for performance increases, experiment and see if they work for you, or whether you’re better off sticking with good old fashioned water.