They contain salt and sugar, which aren't necessary after a leisurely walk or light fitness activities. Too much salt and sugar can be detrimental, but may be necessary to replenish after intense sport. Dehydration also decreases athletic performance and is a risk to health.

Electrolyte beverages are recommended to offset dehydration and these associated issues. The National Academy of Sports Medicine NASM recommends using electrolyte beverages when intense exercise exceeds 1 hour in duration or is taking place in hot, humid environments where sweat rates are significantly increased.

Electrolytes in sports beverages help you maintain fluid balance and are essential for normal muscle contractions. Losing electrolytes can lead to early fatigue and muscle cramping, but drinking electrolyte beverages during exercise can prevent this from occurring as well as enhance performance.

Not surprisingly, electrolytes are a key ingredient in several of these dietician-recommended best pre-workout drinks.

Electrolytes drinks are sodium-enriched sugar-sweetened beverages, so they should only be used after exercising or when ill to replenish glycogen stores and any sodium that's lost through sweat.

If they are casually consumed daily as a standard beverage, the diet can become too high in sugar and sodium, which can lead to chronic health issues including heart disease. The added sugars are also linked to tooth decay, especially when paired with poor oral hygiene.

Because these beverages contain electrolytes, consuming too much can result in high levels of sodium hypernatremia or potassium hyperkalemia.

Too much sodium can affect blood pressure levels. Meanwhile, hyperkalemia can cause life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, muscle weakness, or paralysis. Potassium-enriched beverages should be avoided by people with severe renal disease or other underlying conditions that increase their risk of hyperkalemia.

In addition to sport beverages, electrolytes such as sodium and potassium can be found in many foods. The best way to get enough electrolytes is through consuming a varied diet of nutritious foods and beverages.

Sodium can be naturally occurring or added to food. Most of the sodium in our diet comes from processed, packaged, and restaurant food. Even sweet foods such as baked goods contain sodium as sodium bicarbonate baking soda , so foods don't need to taste salty to be a source of sodium.

Potassium is found in vegetables, fruits, beans, lentils, fish, poultry, beef, and dairy foods. Specific vegetables and fruits that are high in potassium include bananas , oranges, melon, squash, spinach, broccoli, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and dried fruit such as apricots, raisins and prunes.

Electrolyte drinks are recommend for quick rehydration during and after sport. It may be difficult to eat foods during exercise, so drinks are an easier choice. For electrolyte replenishment before or after working out, try one of these best supplements for runners.

Electrolyte drinks contain fluid, carbohydrates, and electrolytes such as sodium and potassium, and are used to help with rehydration after intense exercise or during illness.

There's no need to use these types of drinks after a causal workout, since they contain sodium and sugar that are only required after high sweat loss or intense exercise. If you are unsure if an electrolyte drink is right for you, talk with a healthcare provider about your needs.

You also can talk with a registered dietitian or even certified personal trainer for advice on electrolyte replacement. Electrolytes are minerals that naturally occur in many foods and beverages. Consuming a varied diet is the best way to get electrolytes. For example, potassium is found in bananas, dried apricots, and oranges.

After intense exercise that lasts for 1 hour or more or has a high volume of sweat loss, the best way to replenish fluids and electrolytes is with an electrolyte beverages that contains water, carbohydrate, sodium and potassium.

The best source of electrolytes will likely depend on the electrolyte you want to replace. The best source of sodium is salt, which is found in most foods. The best sources of potassium include dried apricots, lentils, squash, potatoes, and bananas.

The best sources of calcium include milk, cheese, yogurt, canned salmon, leafy greens and fortified beverages. Rowlands DS, Kopetschny BH, Badenhorst CE. The hydrating effects of hypertonic, isotonic and hypotonic sports drinks and waters on central hydration during continuous exercise: a systematic meta-analysis and perspective.

Sports Med. Orrù S, Imperlini E, Nigro E, et al. Role of functional beverages on sport performance and recovery. Cheuvront SN, Kenefick RW, Luque L, Mitchell KM, Vidyasagar S.

Are oral rehydration solutions optimized for treating diarrhea? Nutr Health. National Library of Medicine, Medline Plus. Fluid and electrolyte balance. Fluids and hydration. National Association of Sports Medicine.

Nutrition for athletes: Gaining understanding of sports nutrition. Heart and Stroke Foundation. Sugar, heart disease and stroke. von Philipsborn P, Stratil JM, Burns J, et al. Environmental interventions to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and their effects on health.

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. Published Jun Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Library of Medicine. Sodium, potassium and health. National Institute of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements.

By Cara Rosenbloom, RD Cara Rosenbloom RD is a dietitian, journalist, book author, and the founder of Words to Eat By, a nutrition communications company in Toronto, ON. Use limited data to select advertising.

Create profiles for personalised advertising. Use profiles to select personalised advertising. Create profiles to personalise content. Use profiles to select personalised content. That's because carbohydrates tend to make up the majority of the 'stuff' diluted into most sports drinks.

Hypotonic drinks should therefore be your preferred option if the primary goal of your drink is hydration rather than delivery of large amounts of energy. Well I've summarised the best way to approach combining your hydration and nutrition plans in this blog - any questions, drop us an email and we'd be glad to help.

In , we also added the Energy Drink Mix to the range. The drink mix delivers the critical trifecta of carbs 60g per litre , fluids and electrolytes 1,mg per litre. It's primarily designed for high intensity efforts lasting ~ hours, though it can also be a useful contributor to your energy needs during longer sessions too.

It delivers a steady stream of rapidly digestible energy along with fluid and a significant level of sodium to combat dehydration and any electrolyte losses. There's a lot of research out there pointing to the fact that having some glucose and plenty of sodium in a drink can facilitate faster absorption of the fluids.

This is because as well as via osmosis a passive process , water can be moved across the wall of the small intestine along with sodium and glucose via a method called active transport. Active transport is best thought of as a 2nd, separate 'doorway' from the gut into the bloodstream which can only be accessed with the right key, that being the right combination of sodium and glucose.

This is in fact the basis on which ORS Oral Rehydration Salts - used to treat very dehydrated people in a medical setting - are formulated, with great success. This is, of course, in addition to the fact that the sodium ends up replacing that which is lost in sweat during prolonged exercise, so it's something of a double win at times when sweat losses are very high.

Andy Blow is a Sports Scientist with a BSc Honours degree in Sports and Exercise Science from the University of Bath. An expert in hydration, he has co-authored a number of scientific studies and books. He was once the Team Sports Scientist for the Benetton and Renault Formula 1 teams and remains an adviser to the Porsche Human Performance Centre at Silverstone.

Andy has finished in the top 10 of IRONMAN and IRONMAN Subscribe Get performance advice emails. Get advice. Knowledge Hub.

Different types of sports drink and when to use them By Andy Blow. As with most things in life this all boils down to a couple of key trade offs Shop at precisionfuelandhydration. Andy Blow Founder and Sports Scientist. Was this article useful? Share this article Facebook.

Isotonic--Roctane Energy Drink mixed in 17 ounces ml water instead of recommended 21oz ml. There you have it, the low down on tonicity, osmolality, and how to choose the right sports drink concentration for you. Your cart is empty Add some items and start optimizing your perfomance today. Update View Cart Checkout.

Shop Learn About Log in Twitter Facebook Instagram TikTok YouTube. It depends on the intensity and duration of your workout. But Nick Morgan, head of sport science at Lucozade, believes sports drinks can be useful for shorter workouts, too: "If you've had a good high-carbohydrate meal in the three-four hours before your workout, you probably don't need a sports drink", he says.

According to Martin Gibala, an associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada, there are two key ingredients in a good sports drink: "Carbohydrate, which provides fuel for working muscles, and sodium, which helps to maintain fluid balance. But formulation is key. A sports drink should also contain approximately 50mg of sodium per ml, along with smaller amounts of the other electrolytes, such as potassium and chloride, which are lost in sweat.

Morgan highlights another important consideration: palatability. Confusingly, no. Energy drinks - including Red Bull - and soft drinks - such as Coke and Pepsi - come into this category, which makes them unsuitable for use during exercise.

In , the American College of Sports Medicine, an international authority on sport science, revised its guidelines on fluid intake during physical activity, no longer suggesting specific volumes per hour. So what's the best way forward? Martinson advises calculating your own personal 'sweat rate' see below so that you can determine how much you need to drink.

According to Joseph Verbalis, Professor of the Department of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center, you should also listen to your body.

Record your nude pre-training weight in kg Record your nude post-training weight, towelling off sweat first. Opt for a or minute session, during which you don't consume fluid. This makes the maths easier!

Subtract your post-training weight from pre-training weight to work out the weight lost, and multiply by 1, to convert to grams. This, ironically, originates from the same mechanism that makes hypotonic drinks so good for fluid delivery; osmosis.

However, the current science points to the fact that hydrogels are unlikely to be any better than any other concentrated drink at reducing GI distress or boosting performance. When a hypertonic drink lands in your gut from your stomach, the concentration of fluid in your intestine itself tends to becomes hypertonic.

Your body then has to first move water out of the bloodstream back into the intestine to dilute the solutes in there down to a level that allows absorption of nutrients and fluids back across the gut wall into your body. It's moving water out of the blood into the gut when what you actually want to do is increase your blood fluid levels.

From personal experience, this is something that can make you feel a bit sick and even more thirsty when what you intended by drinking was exactly the opposite!

In simple terms, the fluids in hypotonic drinks tend to be absorbed into the bloodstream the fastest, but they deliver lower amounts of carbohydrate per unit volume.

That's because carbohydrates tend to make up the majority of the 'stuff' diluted into most sports drinks. Hypotonic drinks should therefore be your preferred option if the primary goal of your drink is hydration rather than delivery of large amounts of energy.

Well I've summarised the best way to approach combining your hydration and nutrition plans in this blog - any questions, drop us an email and we'd be glad to help. In , we also added the Energy Drink Mix to the range. The drink mix delivers the critical trifecta of carbs 60g per litre , fluids and electrolytes 1,mg per litre.

It's primarily designed for high intensity efforts lasting ~ hours, though it can also be a useful contributor to your energy needs during longer sessions too.

It delivers a steady stream of rapidly digestible energy along with fluid and a significant level of sodium to combat dehydration and any electrolyte losses. There's a lot of research out there pointing to the fact that having some glucose and plenty of sodium in a drink can facilitate faster absorption of the fluids.

This is because as well as via osmosis a passive process , water can be moved across the wall of the small intestine along with sodium and glucose via a method called active transport.