What is the Best Sports Drink?
By Amirali Banani
sports drinks (noun): special beverages formulated to help athletes and fitness enthusiasts maintain hydration, replenish electrolytes, and provide energy during and after exercise.
They are a healthier alternative to popular hydrates like soda and other sugary beverages but are more flavorful than water, which is why they are often marketed to athletes and fitness enthusiasts as a way to enhance performance and help them achieve their fitness goals without compromising their health. While they come in all shades of the rainbow, sports drinks typically have three ingredients in common: water, carbohydrates, and electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium. These ingredients are combined to help athletes and fitness enthusiasts maintain proper hydration levels and compensate for the electrolytes lost during exercise. Some sports drinks contain additional ingredients such as various vitamins and caffeine to provide additional benefits such as increased energy and enhanced focus.
However, it’s important to note that while sports drinks can be helpful in certain situations, they are not necessary for everyone depending on the duration and intensity of exercise. For example, if you’re exercising for less than an hour, then water is more than sufficient to maintain proper hydration levels. Unless you are doing endurance activities for prolonged periods of time, such as running around a pitch playing football nonstop for hours, then water may not be sufficient to sustain your energy — demanding the need for sports drinks.
Additionally, although certainly a healthier alternative to soda and other sugary drinks, sports drinks do still often contain added sugars and calories, which may not be suitable for people who are trying to manage their weight or have certain health conditions such as diabetes. For such people, it is best to go with water.
Anyway, with so many different brands and flavours of sports drinks available in the market, it can be challenging to determine which one is the best. In this article, we will explore the various factors that determine the effectiveness of sports drinks and compare some of the most popular brands available today to determine which ones stand out and enhance athletic performance the most.
Factors That Determine The Efficacy of Sports Drinks
Electrolyte Content: Electrolytes are essential minerals that the body requires to function properly. When we sweat, we lose electrolytes, which can cause fatigue, cramps, dehydration and other issues. Sports drinks that contain high levels of electrolytes can help replenish the body’s electrolyte balance and prevent these issues.
Carbohydrate Content: Carbohydrates are the body’s primary source of energy, and they are particularly important for athletes and fitness enthusiasts. We often consume carbohydrates through sugars, fibres, and starches that are found in the food we eat. Sports drinks that contain carbohydrates can help maintain energy levels during intense physical activity and prevent fatigue.
Water Content: Water, obviously, is essential for hydration, and sports drinks that contain high levels of water can help prevent dehydration during exercise.
Flavour: While certainly not a critical factor in determining the efficacy of sports drinks due to pretty much having zero nutritional value, the flavour does impact how much and how frequently athletes drink a particular sports drink. Thus, this is nothing merely more than a psychological factor.
Comparing Popular Sports Drinks
Now that we understand the factors that determine the effectiveness of sports drinks let’s compare some of the most popular brands available today.
Gatorade: Gatorade is probably the most popular sports drink available today. It contains a high level of electrolytes and carbohydrates, making it an excellent source of energy that can keep athletes and fitness enthusiasts exercising for hours. Gatorade’s rich electrolyte content makes it the perfect drink for heavy sweaters who lose high volumes of electrolytes during their workouts. It also helps maintain blood volume and muscle blood flow, preventing fatigue during prolonged exercise.
Powerade: Powerade is another popular sports drink that is high in electrolytes and carbohydrates. It also contains vitamins B3, B6, and B12, which help the body perform functions ranging from releasing energy from carbohydrates and fat to transporting oxygen and energy-containing nutrients around the body. However, Powerade contains slightly less sodium than Gatorade, which can be a disadvantage for athletes who sweat heavily.
Lucozade Sport: Lucozade Sport is a popular sports drink in the United Kingdom that contains a high level of carbohydrates and electrolytes. Similar to Powerade, it is also high in vitamin B6. Lucozade Sport comes in a wide variety of flavours, making it a popular choice among athletes.
Vitamin Water: While not marketed specifically as a sports drink, Vitamin Water is a popular beverage among athletes. It is high in electrolytes and contains vitamins C and B, which are crucial in supporting energy metabolism, enhancing blood health and circulation, and preventing muscle cramps.
BodyArmor: BodyArmor is a newer sports drink that has gained popularity in recent years. Along with the typical electrolytes and vitamins that most sports drinks contain, it also consists of coconut water. This coconut water is rich in potassium and natural sugars, which help instantly rehydrate the body. What really makes BodyArmor stand out, however, is its rich antioxidant content, which makes it a healthier choice than other sports drinks.
Water is Interesting Too!
Water is undoubtedly the most essential fluid that we require to survive. Any statistics will tell you: our bodies are around 60% water, and over 80% of our most important organ — the brain — consists of water, most of which is found in cerebrospinal fluid. Similarly, the human body’s most important asset — blood — is 94% water. We require water to function optimally both physically and mentally. Therefore, water is without a doubt the healthiest, safest and most affordable option to go with for athletes.
For athletes, water is crucial for thermoregulation, prevents dehydration, and helps people maintain focus by enhancing cognitive functioning. The substance supports virtually all bodily functions as it is the solvent within which all chemical reactions inside the body take place. Among these functions are nutrient transportation and absorption, digestion, lubrication of joints, and waste removal, just to name a few. Below are a few of the reasons that make plain water an ideal drink choice for athletes.
Excellent source of hydration: Once again, during exercise, the body loses a lot of water through sweating. If this fluid is not replaced, it can lead to dehydration, causing fatigue, impaired performance, and even heat-related illnesses in extreme cases. Drinking water at regular intervals during exercise can consistently help prevent dehydration and maintain a healthy balance of fluids and electrolytes in the body.
Thermoregulation: Drinking water is key to regulating body temperature during exercise. As the body heats up during exercise, it sweats to cool down, and the evaporation of sweat helps to dissipate heat. However, if the body is dehydrated, it may not be able to produce enough sweat to cool down. This could cause the body to overheat — similar to a computer — which would raise the temperature beyond the range of homeostasis.
Calorie-free: For athletes seeking to maintain or lose weight, water is undoubtedly the best choice as it is calorie-free, which means that it does not contribute to excessive calorie intake as typical sports drinks — which often contain added sugar and flavouring — do.
Healthiest drink: Water is by far the healthiest and safest drink for athletes to go with as it does not contain any artificial ingredients or added sugars and of course must be consumed on a daily basis regardless of exercise. Therefore, especially for people with certain health conditions, water is the best choice without a doubt.
Most professional athletes drink water during training and competitions. They often tend to avoid sports drinks to stay in shape and avoid certain health problems associated with sugars and other artificial ingredients, over time. Indeed, the high sugar content of many of the aforementioned marketed sports drinks is the main concern for these athletes as it can lead to Type 2 diabetes, gout, or cardiovascular disease in the long term. Although water is not a rich source of electrolytes, vitamins, or carbohydrates to help energize the body and replenish lost electrolytes, professional athletes tend to adapt their bodies to maintain their energy and fluid-electrolyte balance during long and intense physical activity by simply drinking plain water. This adaptation to functioning solely on drinking water entirely disregards the need for sports drinks, which allows these well-trained athletes to perform optimally while sustaining ideal physical shape and health.
Obviously, though, most of us are not professional athletes. Therefore, when engaging in strenuous physical activity for long periods of time, we most likely require a little more than just water to sustain our energy and add a bit of taste and excitement to the task of hydration. When observing and considering the entire population, we see that there are too many differences between people to determine one definitive “best sports drink” title. Each person has different goals they want to achieve through exercise, is of different age and state of health, plays a different sport with varying levels of vigour and endurance, and most of all, each person is biologically different primarily thanks to genetics. I have summarized the best sports drink below for different types of people:
For professional athletes and people who want to keep their weight in check or who have a particular medical condition: Water
For heavy-sweaters and non-professional athletes seeking to exercise for hours: Gatorade
For non-heavy-sweaters who participate in high-endurance sports that require energy for prolonged periods of time: Powerade, Lucozade Sport
For athletes who participate in sports that heavily involve all muscles of the body from head to toe (such as basketball and swimming): Vitamin Water
For those looking for a sports drink that’s richer in nutrition and can boost health in some ways: BodyArmor
Overall, it is important for athletes to experiment with different sports drinks to find the one that best fits their needs and goals while simultaneously not compromising their health. It is also important to remember that sports drinks should not replace water as the primary source of hydration and that moderation is key when it comes to consuming any beverage. Once this balance is found, an athlete can determine which sports drink(s) is best for them and their health to perform at the highest level they can.