Sports Drink - Value & Effectiveness

I have checked the content of a number of products sold under the label of sports drinks. They are heavily promoted as an aid to training for all sports persons and fitness fanatics. But will they help your performance any more than wearing more lycra will make your gym session more productive? Discounting of course those of you who only go the gym on the pull!!

Drinks come in three categories:

Energy drinks:  These contain relatively high sugar content and are used to replace energy burned up. They are really aimed at people doing endurance events and are a bad choice for replacing body fluids immediately after or during training. They may have a use to replace energy lost during training but it is a very expensive way to buy sugar.

Isotonic Sports Drinks:  These drinks claim to have sugar and salts in exactly the level that your body needs and are therefore ideal for replacing fluid and salt lost during training. In general they do work but when you allow for the fact that you may lose anything up to two litres of fluid playing or training hard on a hot day then they can be expensive. The will replace some of the energy (carbohydrate) burned off during exercise but you will still need to top up after the session. See a future article on energy use and replacement. Some people find this type of drink causes stomach upset is used during a hard session. If so dilute it with equal parts of water when it becomes a hypotonic drink (see below)

Hypotonic Sports Drinks: These are similar to Isotonic Drinks (above) but contain smaller amounts of the active ingredients. I have not found a commercially marketed one but you can produce the same effect by diluting an isotonic drink with water or by using the formula below to make your own. They are very good for replacing water during and after a game or training session. Because they are dilute they are unlikely to cause stomach upset during a hard session.  Warning hypertonic is another name for the high sugar energy drinks. Don’t get the words mixed up.

Notes:

• Caffeine is a stimulant which is banned by the IOC and other sports drug regulations at high levels. One pack of these drinks is unlikely to put you above the legal limit but if you drank a lot of this and also drink a lot of coffee or tea then it could be a problem and put you at risk of failing a drugs test. More serious is that caffeine is a diuretic (makes you pass urine) and this could cause dehydration problems if the product is drunk before exercise.
• Energy drinks should not be drunk during exercise, they may make it harder for you body to take up water and the high concentration of sugar may cause stomach upsets. This is a particular issue with Lucosade Energy the highest calorie drink of those on test.
• Most of the things listed under Other ingredients apart from caffeine (see 1 above) are useful. The advantage of taking them while you are actually exercising however is marginal and sports drinks are a very expensive way of getting them. If you have a good diet you should get all you need. If you are in doubt you can get a month’s supply of vitamin and mineral supplement tablets from the chemist for the price of two or three cans of any of these drinks.

• All there drinks come in different pack sizes, to make it easier to compare prices and calorie content these are quoted per litre.

• WARNING  If you read the label you will see that some of the drinks above also contain traces of other ingredients such a potassium salts. Except in VERY small quantities many of these substances can be harmful. Only a trained chemist will have the ability to weigh out such minute quantities .They are all things you get in a normal diet and so DO NOT TRY TO ADD ADDITIONAL INGREDIENT TO THIS RECIPE.

Make your own.

It is very easy to make up your own sports drink and very much cheaper than the drinks in the table above. The recipe below is for a hypotonic drink which should be more effective than water for replacing fluid loss during and after exercise. The precise weights are given and also approximate amount is you don’t have scales. If in doubt add less salt and sugar rather than more.

Place the sugar and salt in a jug. Add a small amount of hot water from the kettle. Stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Add the rest of the water and place in the fridge to cool.

Take great care not to exceed the amount of salt, anyone who thinks they already have too much salt in their diet can leave it out. .Junior players should use drinks made up by their parents. This should have very little taste and should be easy to drink. If you want to flavour it use 100ml (half a mugfull) of unsweetened squash in place of 100ml of the water.

Watch your diet. 1 litre of this mixture is about 120 calories. (or half a prawn sandwich  J )

If you are doing very long hard session and want a little more energy replacement in addition to fluid replacement you could make take the sugar content up to the isotonic level by making it 50grams (5 spoonfuls) but no more. Glucose powder is absorbed by the body slightly more rapidly that sugar so you might want to use it in place of sugar in the above recipe.

Dave Sharp

If you want to know more about this and about all aspects of nutrition then read Nutrition for Sport by Anita Bean published by A and C Black London ISBN 0-7163-5389-2

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