The Varieties
The higher the intensity of our workout, the higher sweat that our body produces. What is the best drink for our workout it depends on the duration and the strength required to perform in our specific sports.
The are various types of drinks in the market that we can choose, such as electrolyte drink, energy drink, vitamin water or just simply water.
In this post, I want to share the recommended fluid that are consumed in different types of sports. If we are just exercising for general fitness with moderate intensity such as jogging, stretching, few reps of dumbell curls, it is not necessary to drink sports drink and normal drinking water is sufficient.
The Intensity & Duration
The reason is because the duration for general fitness is mostly less than 1 hour. Therefore, our body do not extra nutrition such as sodium, or caffein to sustain our workout. Well, of course before any workout we need to have sufficient rest and taken our meal before we exercise.
If we are having a hardcore workout such as high intensity interval training or circuit weight training, caffein and sugar contained fluid is recommended such as sports drink labelled Energy Drink. In general term, energy drink usually is very high in sugar and sometimes high content of caffein. Both contents are very good source of energy in the form of liquid because we are not going to take solid food during workout to replenish our energy. Therefore, energy drink is recommended.
For workout more than 1 hour such as endurance sports, electrolyte drink is recommended due to the lost of a large amount of sweat from our body. Water itself is not enough because our body need sodium to retain the water. If our body is lack of sodium due to sweat loss, water goes inside our body system and we will sweat off immediately without retaining sufficient amount of water and cause dehydration. In common terms, electrolyte sports drink contains a large amount of sodium which endurance athletes required to rehydrate and retain water in their body for long duration of workout. A well hydrated body has lower chance of getting overheat and lower risk in muscle cramping.
Bottom line, I hope these recommendations will help readers to choose their fluid wisely and if you have new discovery and new products in the market, please share with me as I want to try new sports drink as well.馃槉