Sports Drinks

Sports drink, energy or recovery drinks whatever you call them; one thing all the names suggests is that they are for high end athletes. These days the drinks are so readily available that all of us are getting into the trap.

The question is who actually needs a health/sport drink. Sports drinks are actually meant for people who do intense training for at least an hour on a daily basis. If you are working out for less than an hour daily, water is just fine for you. The reason behind it is that these drinks have around 200-250 calories which obviously you wouldn’t need after a brief jog on a treadmill; as this will lead to gaining weight as you would take in more calories than you actually burn. Your body doesn’t actually get depleted of electrolytes that these drinks offer and which they replace.

Make sure you carefully read the nutritional labels on the sports drinks before buying the right drink for yourself.

Make sure you do ample market research and take advice before going in for the sports drinks you want, as these drinks are fashionable and you can get confused between the huge options available. The drink you choose should fit your workout routine and shouldn’t load up unnecessary calories. Make sure you don’t pick up energy drinks which are mounted with no nutrition and have huge amount of sugar and caffeine.

Sports Drinks that have high amount of salt and sugar can be substituted for water only if you aren’t having any food. Research proves tennis players get low body temperature when they consume sport drinks with sugar & electrolytes, vis-a-vie water. If the body temperature is high during exercise, it will tend to tire you and exhaust you.

Many sports drinks (more than 80%) provide energy which is supplied to your muscle is actually lost in form of heat. During your exercise session, heart needs to cool down your body as it pumps warm blood from the muscles to the skin; it also pumps oxygen laden blood into your muscles. You do not require energy drinks to defend yourself from high temperature.