Whether you exercise for personal fitness or as part of a conditioning program for a competitive sport, you know that replenishing fluids is essential to your performance and your endurance. Deciding to replenish with water or a sports drink depends largely on the sport or exercise, the duration, the intensity and how quickly you dehydrate.
Need for Fluids
Regardless of activity level, everyone must replenish fluids throughout the day to avoid dehydration and ensure the body functions properly. For the more active child or adult who loses more fluids through sweating, replacing fluids is crucial.
For water to be effective, it must be consumed frequently, but without diluting the body's sodium content. Commercially produced sports drinks contain sodium to help replace what is lost during exercise, but only 0.5 to 1 gram of sodium is needed each day. Consider that the average American diet delivers between 8 and 20 grams and you can see why sodium replacement is not a priority for the treadmill walker.
Nutritional Value
Sports drinks contain as much as 14 grams of carbohydrates that come from sucrose syrup and glucose-fructose syrup. They also contain as much as 110 mg of sodium and pack 50 calories. For the intense athlete, these calories are nominal, as they will be burned easily. For the casual walker or sedentary person, 50 calories per drink can add up. Water, on the other hand, has zero calories, zero sodium and zero carbohydrates.
Kids and Dehydration
Active children often increase their fluid intake when the fluid is fruit-flavored. Children younger than 12, however, typically don't lose enough fluid during exercise to warrant electrolyte and carbohydrate replacement. Children might voluntarily consume 91 percent more fluid when it's a sports drink than when it's plain water. For kids at risk of dehydration, whether from exercise, activity or even a mild illness, the increased fluid intake is highly beneficial.
Competitive, active athletes--even those in their early teens--may benefit from sports drinks because the sodium content permits the body to hold the fluid more easily. When the temperature rises during spring and summer months, sports drinks could make even more sense, as sweating increases.
Concerns About Carbohydrates
If you're watching your carbohydrate intake, the label on the bottle of your favorite sports drink could be alarming. But that depends on your activity level. If you are working your muscles at a high intensity for an hour or longer, you need to replace carbohydrates lost in the blood sugar used for energy. A good rule of thumb is 30 to 60 grams of carbs for every hour past the first hour of exercise.
Concerns About Sodium
Electrolyte replacement is one of the most widely publicized benefits of sports drinks. Among these electrolytes is sodium. While sodium might not necessarily need to be replaced during exercise, it can help increase thirst, which can lead to more fluid intake. And that leads to better hydration. For serious athletes who are exercising more than four hours, sodium replacement offsets the sodium lost while sweating.
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