Saturday, July 14, 2007

DIY Sports Drinks

I'm too mean to pay the money for sports drinks in liquid or powder form, and it didn't take too much research to confirm that the core ingredients and composition of these products isn't that special. Granted, they make have some extra finesse in terms of proportions, ingredients etc at the margin, but it seems possible to get at least 80% of the benefit for less than 20% of the price (I do like my Pareto's Law).

So now I tend to fill my hydration pack with:

  • 100ml concentrated orange squash OR 100ml sugar free equivalent plus 5 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/3 teaspoon salt OR now - the recommended dose of Elete Water


... made up to 1 litre with water. This makes up to an isotonic drink which provides some calories as well as water and salt (plus other electrolytes if you use Elete) in "body" concentration for optimum absorbtion. You can increase the juice/sugar concentration to get more energy per litre (but may compromise hydration) or reduce it to emphasise hydration.

Caveat: I have seen recipes that claim to be similarly "substitutes for big buck brands" that have much higher and much lower concentrations of both sugar and salt - but the proportions here seem to be the most common agreed. Please make sure you're happy about the makeup of what you're drinking before following any of these recipes.

If you want to get a bit more sophisticated, you may want to look at using calorie sources other than granulated white sugar - glucose, fructose, maltodextrine etc - like this and this.

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