Sunday, October 19, 2008

Sports drinks- should you use them?

There’s the new Vitamin Water, Fizzy vitamin’s, new drinks that have B-vitamins, ginseng, and caffeine all stating how BAD the “other sports drink” is.

These new ads don’t say it, but the other sports drink they are talking about is Gatorade.

Should you drink them?

In my opinion, no. Unless you are working out for greater than one hour, most
sports drinks are totally unnecessary. Here’s the reason why.

Within one hour of exercise, you are not going to sweat enough to lose that much electrolytes to make necessary to replace them right away.

During exercise less than one hour, you can drink a little bit of water to quench thirst if you need it.

During exercise, especially hard exercise, our digestive system is not efficient at absorbing nutrients. That’s why trying to drink something with lots of vitamins in it doesn’t make any sense. You’d be better off drinking water with an apple, orange, or banana after a workout if you really want vitamins.

As far as caffeine and ginseng in the sports drinks, it may give you a temporary perk of energy, but why not drink iced coffee if you really need the perk?

Some sports drinks have protein powder in it. These are for exercise that last much greater than one hour. Again, not necessary for most people. Also you need to be able to stomach these drinks. Most of them taste very chalky.

You gotta admit though, the marketing is genius.

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