Most athletes and sports nutrition specialists leave positive comments on the topical issue of whether it is possible to drink during a workout.

The extreme importance of hydrating the body during exercise helps not only maintain sufficient energy levels in the tissues, but also prevent them from dehydration.

The easiest drink to drink while exercising is water. Many fitness gurus and trainers advise you to quench your thirst with it if you plan to dedicate an hour or less to training. But in the case of prolonged intensive training, only supporting the hydration of the body is not enough, since along with sweat a person loses many micronutrients, the supply of which needs to be replenished.

So, what is better to drink during intense, and at the same time the most productive workouts?

Flavored or fortified drinks, protein shakes or energy drinks – these options are offered by manufacturers today, covering the entire spectrum of needs for those who want to maximize the performance in the gym. How to choose the right drink?

The burning question: is it possible to drink during a workout?

Doing this is vital! Fluid loss due to sweating during intense sports leads to thickening of the blood, hard work of the heart and blood vessels. At the same time, less oxygen is pumped into the muscles, which causes premature fatigue and negatively affects the duration and effectiveness of classes.

Drinking during a workout, due to the hydration of the body, allows you to get maximum energy and enhance the benefits of sports activity.

What is the best way to quench thirst during exercise?

As you know, pure drinking water without gas is considered a classic choice for moisturizing the body. Many athletes love this unpretentious cool drink that has no calories and quenches thirst well.

If you do fitness or moderate-intensity workouts for an hour or less, then you can drink a glass of it every 15-20 minutes.

The exact individual need of your body for water can be calculated by weighing yourself before and after a standard exercise. We divide the resulting difference by 3-4 fluid intakes and get the desired amount of water to maintain a normal level body hydration.

On the shelves of sports nutrition stores you can find a wide range of sports drinks, energy drinks, a variety of flavored, fortified liquids to quench thirst, replenish energy and maintain muscle activity.

Flavored drinks and odorless

A real find for those who do not like to drink ordinary water are flavored drinks with a favorite taste for every athlete. It is better to drink them during and after training in a cool form, as American experts advise. Напитки с улучшенными вкусовыми свойствами помогают увеличить объем выпитого и получить достаточный уровень body hydration.

But you need to pay attention to the labels for such drinks. The content of additional components – sugar or its substitutes – may cause a refusal to purchase, since the calorie content of sweetened liquids is significantly higher.

Glucose during training is a necessary component only in cases of heavy and prolonged exercise, when the supply of glycogen in the muscles is depleted and it is necessary to restore its balance.

ABC of fortified drinks

Some sports drinks contain vitamins in addition to electrolytes. How do these vital elements affect the quality of sports activities?

In fact, drinking fortified drinks during a workout does not have a significant effect on the body with the help of vitamins. The athlete receives only hydration from the water contained in the drink. Vitamins from these enriched liquids, if your diet is balanced, can be superfluous and cause hypervitaminosis.

When drinking fortified drinks, you should make sure that:

They are free of sweeteners (including aspartame and other sugar substitutes). It can only be consumed during intense training and in moderation;
An excess of vitamins can interfere with the absorption of other nutrients or cause symptoms similar to food poisoning. Hypervitaminosis with water-soluble vitamins passes quickly with the help of drinking plenty of clean water, but significantly increases the burden on the kidneys.
In this case, it is better to drink plain water, adding lime or lemon juice, orange or strawberries, and other berries to it.

The whole truth about sports drinks…

Everyone who does gymnastics for more than an hour (from one and a half to three hours) needs to restore, in addition to fluid, the balance of micronutrients – sodium, potassium and chlorides. Sports drinks help increase energy during your workout without having to absorb and digest your food!

They offer the athlete’s body everything it may need before, during and after intense physical training:

Hydration. Two hours before going to the gym, you need to drink 0.5 liters of a sports drink to ensure sufficient hydration of the body and remove excess fluid from it. During training, you need to start drinking fluids as early as possible, at regular intervals, to maintain a normal level of moisture;
Energy. Carbohydrates added to energy drinks – sweetened sports drinks – help fight fatigue: Gatograde Co. contains 6% carbohydrates (14 g per 250 ml) – the optimal concentration of carbohydrates for replenishing fluid and restoring energy;
Electrolytes and beneficial nutrients – sodium, potassium and chloride excreted by the body through sweat, which helps to replenish their supply.

In addition, commercial sports drinks fall into three different categories: isotonic, hypotonic, and hypertonic liquids, depending on the components and their concentration:

1. Isotonic. Contain liquid, sugars from 4 to 8% and electrolytes. Their task is to supply energy during training and restore hydration levels.

2. Hypotension is a liquid with a low concentration of electrolytes, as well as sugar or sweeteners (less than 4%). Rapid hydration of the body.

3. Hypertension. The liquid contains many electrolytes and more than 10% sugars. Replenishment of glycogen stores after training.

Sports drinks during training containing caffeine are useful when exercising on equipment. American experts believe that these energy drinks increase endurance, speed up reaction speed, improve concentration, motor skills, stimulating the athlete’s high performance.

Official sports medicine has limited the use of caffeine to 5 cups of Starbucks (each containing 260 mg of caffeine per 360 ml of liquid). But a can of RedBull, for example, contains only 70 mg of caffeine, 106 kcal of carbohydrates, and 193 mg of sodium. Other energy drinks – taurine, ginkgo biloba and ginseng – have not been tested on athletes today or the consequences of their use have not been studied.

Guarana is a concentrated caffeine, the seeds of which contain up to 6% of this natural stimulant, so it is allowed to use energy drinks based on it, but in moderation.

Excess caffeine causes a state of anxiety in the body, so doctors advise not to abuse it and regulate its amount for personal comfort.

Can You Drink Protein During Your Workout?

After an intense power load, experts recommend drinking protein shakes. Protein at this time promotes the growth of muscle fibers and the restoration of muscle structure after catabolism (destruction) processes that occur when they are stressed during training.

Bodybuilders minimize catabolic changes in tissues during long-term strength training with bcaa cocktails during training. But due to the heaviness in the stomach that occurs after the use of amino acids during physical activity, not everyone can drink them. Therefore, if proteins during training cause problems in the gastrointestinal tract, then you can drink them after class.

Athletes claim that protein shakes, drunk between sets, not only help maintain adequate hydration of the body, but also increase training performance.

The question is not whether you can drink during a workout, as this is vital, but which of the drinks is most suitable for your level of activity and personal preference.