Do sport drinks really work?

AstraMonti

Well... You have to decide that. But first go ahead and read this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryhusten/2012/07/19/guest-post-the-bmjs-amazing-shock-and-awe-assault-on-sport-drink-science/

Make sure to follow the sublinks, awful lot of information.

A very interesting part of it:

busted myths:

The colour of urine accurately reflects hydration (nope)
You should drink before you feel thirsty (nope)
Energy drinks with caffeine or other compounds improve sports performance (nothing other than equivocal benefit from caffeine)
Carbohydrate and protein combinations improve post-workout performance and recovery (nope)
Branched chain amino acids improve performance or recovery after exercise (subjectively did help, objectively equivocal)
Compression garments improve performance or enhance recovery (performance probably not, recovery yes)

Captain Havoc

This was on the radio the other day, he was also having a go at the high calorie content saying that it would just replace the calories lost by Joe Soap and would do more harm than good. I will drink lucozade sport after soccer but after cycling I tend to go for a tin of beans. I think Anton Savage referred to sports drinks as an expensive alternative to milk.

emclau

The BBC Panorama program referred to was broadcast last week:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l1yxk

It was fantastic! Recommend anyone with an interest in sports to watch it...

Esroh

Did Jens Voight not tweet during the Tour that chocolate milk was his recovery drink of choice.

bcmf

emclau wrote: »

The BBC Panorama program referred to was broadcast last week:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l1yxk

It was fantastic! Recommend anyone with an interest in sports to watch it...

+1 on this.
Watched this and now view 'sports drinks' as commercial hokum.
The only thing that I personally find works is strong coffee, The High 5 tabs and High 5 extreme mix.

uberwolf

is this the same clip?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4e85ZnVjmU

the bbc player is region specific.

funnights74

I agree with the milk theory, normally i don't touch it but after a cycle, especially a long cycle i find milk a great way for recovering and refreshing myself. During a cycle, water and jelly babies keep me topped up, i only stumbled on this about a month ago and it's worked a treat ever since.

j@utis

last 30secs of that vid, roflmao

bcmf

uberwolf wrote: »

is this the same clip?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4e85ZnVjmU

the bbc player is region specific.

Yep thats it

snubbleste

I saw a similar BBC programme earlier during the year. It proved that milk was a better recovery drink than sports drinks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00p293l

colm_gti

Milk may be just as good as a whey protein drink mix, but you're missing the point about cost and convenience..

It's a hell of a lot cheaper to get the same nutritional value from a protein shake than it is to get it from milk, not to mention the fact that protein shake mix doesn't go off half as quick. In an ideal world I'd have a constant supply of chocolate milk for after a cycle but imagine leaving it in your car while you're off racing for an hour or two on a hot day...yum!

As for sports drinks during a workout, I'm pretty sure it's been proven that replenishing your glycogen stores for fuel is pretty much a necessity. They're essentially gels but in drink form, and if you don't believe that try racing with and without sports drinks and I bet you'll find it far harder without.

Note: I have not watched the video because a lot of them are made by companies either trying to sell you something or put you off something, so far too biased. Better to try them for yourself and stick with what suits you.

colm_gti

Also, while we're on the subject of posting publications to back our claims up...check this one out

smacl

I always found on longer spins that the Hi5 4:1 was doing me some good, but the benefit could be entirely psychological. I tried powerbar drink over the winter, but didn't feel as good so moved back. Also tried a couple of months of plain water, and noticed reduced performance on daily turbo sessions (~1hr).

Must try moving back to water, and spend all those extra calories on cheap beer and kebabs instead.

Beasty

Captain Havoc wrote: »

after cycling I tend to go for a tin of beans.

I hope you guys doing the Raid with the Cap'n are reading this and make sure you give him a suitably wide berth:D

A_Sober_Paddy

emclau wrote: »

The BBC Panorama program referred to was broadcast last week:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l1yxk

It was fantastic! Recommend anyone with an interest in sports to watch it...

Even in the show, it said sports drinks were useless unless you were exercising for over 2 hours...When I cycle I'm out for a minimum of 3 hours, so will sometimes drink one on the bike

Mycroft H

I make my own.


50% Water
50% Pure Orange Juice
Pinch of Salt
Teaspoon of Sugar.


All into a litre bottle. I could drink this over 3-4hours. Going to bring some jelly beans next time, nice tip.

Lashed

BX 19 wrote: »

I make my own.


50% Water
50% Pure Orange Juice
Pinch of Salt
Teaspoon of Sugar.


All into a litre bottle. I could drink this over 3-4hours. Going to bring some jelly beans next time, nice tip.

Making your own with this recipe has to be a more expensive option than something like High5 tabs.
One tube of these contains 20 tablets which according to their recommended mix ratio will make 15 litres of drink.
That's 15 litres for say 8euro.
I personally would make at least 20 litres of mixture from these.

To achieve this you would have bought 10 litres of orange juice.

Also if you took 2 bottles on a long spin you would have drunk 1 litre of pure orange juice.
I can see that having consequences in the bathroom department later on.:D

leftism

I don't even know where to begin with this article...

In a lot of ways i'm glad that the BMJ have opened this can of worms because the overuse or misuse of sports drinks definitely needs to be addressed. But IMHO the author has gone at this issue with what can best be described as a sledgehammer. Attacking valid research on the grounds that it was funded by companies such as GSK or Coca-cola is a weak argument, especially considering corporate declarations are always clearly stated by the scientific authors.

The body of literature regarding the performance benefits of carbohydrate ingestion during endurance exercise is not really up for debate. Ingesting CHO during endurance exercise will delay glycogen depletion and improve endurance. This has been proven countless times in laboratories all over the world, using very strict protocols (randomised, double blinded, placebo etc). The results are nearly always the same; CHO ingestion significantly increased time to failure.

As i've argued before, that is great for those of us involved in endurance racing but we need to think long and hard about whether its a useful training aid!

In some cases it can be, in others not! And this is where the danger lies...

Its not that scientists are selling you a pack of lies, its just that the data can be very easily misinterpreted and taken out of context. This is the danger of mixing corporate sponsorship and media with science. We can end up with kids (and grown-ups) drinking this stuff like water.

I'm seeing the same thing now with this high intensity training (HIT) fad. We've got athletes taking that research TOTALLY out of context and thinking they're gonna win the TdF doing 5x15sec a couple of times a week... It is far too easily to misinterpret scientific literature when the media are running with the latest cool story.

But we can't just blame the media! Scientists have ourselves to blame too. Labs want to make headlines outside of their niche journal publications, so they make sweeping statements like "cellular switch for cancer discovered" and so forth. You'll see it in the papers or on the news, but when you actually examine the data yourself, you find its an in-vitro study in rat liver cells, which is a far cry from the grandiose suggestions of a cure.

Example:

The "makes top athaletes go 33% longer" motto which Lucozade were shoving down our throats for the last few years. That statement is based on a study where cyclists rode for 2hrs and then did a series of (1min on/1min off) intervals until failure. If memory serves, the group which drank Lucozade were able to do 8x1mins where the group which drank a placebo only did 6x1mins. That extra 2mins equates to 33% of the interval work, or 1.5% of the total work done, depending on which way you look at it.

But you have to admit, "makes top athaletes go 1.5% longer" doesn't have the same ring to it....

emclau

I met a guy a few months ago who swore by jam croissants while cycling. We laughed and laughed at him until we tried or ourselves. After the Panorama program, he has been vindicated by cycling world record setter Graeme Obree, whose secret recipe was jam and bread - jam for the short term sugar hit and bread for the longer carb release.

I brought honey on croissants on the 4.5hr Donegal Coastal Cancer Challenge event yesterday -worked a treat!

C3PO

emclau wrote: »

I brought honey on croissants on the 4.5hr Donegal Coastal Cancer Challenge event yesterday -worked a treat!

Try getting them out of your pocket, unwrapped and eaten while trying to race though!

Super Freak

The body of literature regarding the performance benefits of carbohydrate ingestion during endurance exercise is not really up for debate. Ingesting CHO during endurance exercise will delay glycogen depletion and improve endurance. This has been proven countless times in laboratories all over the world, using very strict protocols (randomised, double blinded, placebo etc). The results are nearly always the same; CHO ingestion significantly increased time to failure.

Can you link to some studies leftism?

leftism

Requoted from a previous response but here are just a few papers. There are countless others though! This was a huge area of research in back the 80's and 90's and you'll find it in any modern exercise physiology text book. Common sense really, if an engine is burning fuel and you keep supplying the engine with fuel from an external source, it'll probably run for longer...

Coyle EF, Coggan AR, Hemmert MK, Ivy JL. Muscle glycogen utilization during prolonged strenuous exercise when fed carbohydrate. J Appl Physiol. 1986 Jul;61(1):165-72.

Burke LM, Hawley JA, Wong SH, Jeukendrup AE. Carbohydrates for training and competition. J Sports Sci. 2011;29 Suppl 1:S17-27.

Burke LM, Kiens B, Ivy JL. Carbohydrates and fat for training and recovery. J Sports Sci. 2004 Jan;22(1):15-30

Costill D and Miller J. Nutrition for endurance sport: carbohydrate and fluid balance. International Journal of Sports Medicine. 1980; 1: 2–14.

Bergstrom J, Hermansen L, Hultman E, Saltin B. Diet, muscle glycogen and physical performance. Acta Physiol Scand 1967; 71:140–150

leftism

You can also check out an extensive section on CHO replenishment on Will Hopkins website www.sportsci.org

sherlok

C3PO wrote: »

Try getting them out of your pocket, unwrapped and eaten while trying to race though!

ooh, imagine the crumbs! and if it rained....

lalorm

smacl wrote: »

I always found on longer spins that the Hi5 4:1 was doing me some good, but the benefit could be entirely psychological. I tried powerbar drink over the winter, but didn't feel as good so moved back. Also tried a couple of months of plain water, and noticed reduced performance on daily turbo sessions (~1hr).

Must try moving back to water, and spend all those extra calories on cheap beer and kebabs instead.

I completely agree that if you are training with just water on a turbo for an hour, you will feel a reduction in performance, but before anyone jumps in and says "that's rubbish" it will depend on the intensity of the training. If you are just doing a steady recovery spin on the turbo, then water is probably ok. If however it's a high intensity interval session and you are not holding anything back then a sports drink is a must. Same goes for the length of a spin. No way could I go for a 100km 3hr spin on only water.
Ever go to the gym and find yourself yawning for no reason? Thinking why and I feeling tired? That's a sign of depleting BCAA's. Once the body has used up the BCAA's found in your blood, it has to try and get it from the reserves in the muscle. To do so, it has to breakdown the muscle to get at it. That's when you start to feel tired and start yawning. So that's bad. High 5 4:1 has BCAA's in it and it and it seems to work for me.

Regards recovery food's, it really doesn't matter so much what you take in, it's when you take it in. After exercise the body is primed to replenish glycogen stores rather than fat stores. That said, alot of us don't really know how much we need and also which food types are the best for us. Alot of cyclists still think in terms of Carbs, but Protein is also important for muscle repair. I can't eat solid food after a race or hard training session so a protein recovery shake suits me. Also my legs recover faster when I take the protein shake. Also Non Alcoholic Erdinger is being marketed as a recovery drink! Was over at a Triathlon in Hamburg last year and they were dishing it out to people after they finished.

What the BBC docu was really saying is that for the general Joe Soap that goes to the gym once or twice a week and does a little running and then a little bit of this and that, they don't need any supplements, but for the serious athlete these sports sups can help with training so they can push harder and with recovery.

For me, I feel that the sports drinks, recovery shakes etc are working for me. I feel better after taking them than if I don't, but that's just my 2cents.

petethedrummer

C3PO wrote: »

Try getting them out of your pocket, unwrapped and eaten while trying to race though!

Try spreading a bit of butter on them when the bunch suddenly puts the hammer down!