Power Drink Your Way to Fitness

While browsing the aisles of the local supermarket, you will now often find those brightly coloured bottles with words like energy, sports hydration and electrolyte mix on them. These are not beverages for everyday consumption but are well suited for physical exercise. On a non-exercise day water and your other normal drinks like fruit juice and hot drinks will be fine for that sedentary day, but when it comes to exercise, it is a good idea to consider the use of a sports drink unless you are on a diet, in that case stick to water or flavoured water.

The best time to use sports drink are during or after exercise. They speed up hydration compared to regular drinks, they contain easily digestible carbohydrates and replace electrolytes that have been lost during your sweaty workout.

These sports drinks come in many flavours to suit all tastes but also vary greatly in what they contain. This type of workout you are doing will affect the type of sports drink you should consume. In general though a sports drink should be non-carbonated, should contain 14 to 17 g of carbohydrates, around 100 mg of sodium and at least 30 mg of potassium. You may not need the electrolyte replacement if your diet contains more than the daily recommended dose of salt or your workout is less than an hour in length.

Other ingredients in sports drinks include vitamins, protein and other minerals. some of these added ingredients aren’t strictly necessary but they will not hurt. Not recommended though sports drinks or energy drinks that are carbonated, this is because carbonation slows the digestive process and can cause stomach pain if you are doing sports such as running or cycling.

Another new addition to sports drinks and energy beverages is caffeine. Extra caffeine can help give you that extra energy boost in short but fast activities such as sprinting but will not give you any benefit in regards longer workouts, in fact it may be detrimental as too much caffeine will cause you to dehydrate.

Protein-based sports drinks are used as a post workout drink. Quite often they are a thicker consistency made with sometimes milk or water and are used as a means to build up muscle mass. Do not use these types of drinks if you are trying to lose weight, although they can be used by all athletes and not just bodybuilders.

Even if you’re not trying to lose weight, drinking lots of energy and sports drinks may not be such a good idea. They contain many more calories than normal drinks with their higher carbohydrateand glucose levels. It is recommended to take both a sports drink and a bottle of water with you to the gym, then when you start to work out take alternate sips of the energy drink and then the water. This is what you see tennis players do between games when they are taking sips from multiple bottles, they are fulfilling their energy requirements and alternatively making sure their hydration levels are topped up.

Two hours before an important race or sporting event it is best to start hydrating yourself and also getting some glucose into your bloodstream to supply that extra bit of energy when you begin the exercise. Drinking in plenty of time before the activity will allow your body to fully absorb the water and glucose, giving your muscles that extra boost may give you that extra advantage over your competition.

You should be looking to drink every 20 minutes of exercise between four and 8 ounces of fluids. The sugars in the sports drink will then keep your insulin levels higher and load your bloodstream with glucose. Your muscles will not tire as quickly as you will be using the glucose rather than all your muscle glycogen, making sure that the muscle glycogen lasts longer and provides you with maximum energy throughout your exercise.

The rule of hydration and energy drawing workouts is to make sure you drink water for hydration for the first hour of exercise, then make sure you start adding an energy drink after that first hour for the extra carbs and the extra calories that you now need. As soon as you finish the workouts, make sure you drink some energy drink that contains the electrolyte is to speed hydration and boost the replacement of muscle glycogen.

Also, don’t forget to eat within 30 minutes of a high intensity workout. With your energy drink ad foods such as bread, pasta, rice or maybe a cereal or sports bar. The food and drink will take carbohydrates into your bloodstream, up your insulin levels and help your muscles to soak up glycogen.

As you can see, keeping hydrated during exercise can be a science in itself. Make sure you understand what your body needs so you can make the most of each workout. Always remember to at least take a bottle of water out with you when you go for a run or head for the gym, but if you can get hold of a sports drink to help you rehydrate more quickly. The sodium and glucose assist with absorption of water molecules into cells and the salt will help replace those lost electrolytes, which you need to avoid those killer muscle cramp attacks. Ouch!