Gatorade, I pit thee.

I’m fairly athletic. I spend a lot of my time involved in endurance type of sports: Swimming, cycling, running. Not ironmand distances but long enough to make hydration something to take seriously.

I’ve tried Gatorade a number of times, as well as some other sport drinks including Accelerade and the like. The only thing these drinks leave me craving is more of the same. Not because they give me a noticeable performance improvement but because they give me the worst case of pasty mouth. They’re like a fucking drug. No matter how much you drink, you crave more. They tell you it’s because your body is craving it… lies. The only thing that drinking this stuff gives me is bad cramps from over hydration.

Solution: Water. Nothing works like water. That and a carb shot for a longer distance. On a really hot day, I make some iced mint tea for the fresh cooling/soothing feeling in the mouth and stomach.

Fuck you Gatorade. Fuck you and your latest commercial that blatantly and falsely claims that “most athletes don’t know how much water they loose”. Most athletes know exactly how much they lose and how much they need to replenish and when.

Gatorade is for hangovers. Fuck you, athlete-type person!

Start drinkin’, then talk shit about the “Liquid of Life”. Ass!

:smiley:

Maybe it makes you thirstier because it’s full of salt?

Well, yes. I didn’t think I need to do a chemical analysis to pit effectively. Salts, fructose sugars, food colouring… whatever… it just makes things worse during exercise. Now after… even for a hangover… maybe.

I find that drinking just a couple swallows of Gatorade maybe half an hour before a big soccer match or distance run can give me a little bit of an extra kick. But to hydrate during an event? Water, please!

What the hey, I am sick with a cold and I have some time, so here is AWFTS:
http://rgp.ufl.edu/publications/explore/v08n1/gatorade.html

Figures, the freshman always get to be the guinea pigs!

Thank og for the digital temperature readers of today!

Somehow the scene from the original movie “the absent-minded professor” appears in my mind, the one where he is preparing the shoes for the team.

Regarding the OP: Overhydration, is a condition in which the body contains too much water, in this case I would not be so quick on blaming Gatorade, IANA doctor but it seems that missing your sodium and potassium is the main reason why one can get cramps during exercise or at night.

As several cyclists recommended in this feedback:
http://www.cyclingsite.com/collected_wisdom/touring_info/concerns/electrolytes.htm

If you dislike Gatorate, try V-8.

I’ve run 5 marathons, and I agree wholeheartedly. All these sports drinks just make me thirsty as all get out.

Carb Boom and water, baby. It’s what gets me through.

Google hyponatremia.

That’s a condition where you sweat out so much sodium, and just replace with water that you dilute your blood or some shit like that.

It’s not as uncommon as you may think for endurance atheletes.

First warning sign: INSTANT DEATH!

Seriously, sometimes I’ll just use a little salt and sugar dissolved in water.

Sometimes I use this Electrolyte drink that doesn’t taste too good.

It’s important to replace salt. You don’t need a lot of it but you do need it.

Keep in mind, I’m talking about bike rides in the 2-5 hour range. That’s a lot of electrolyte loss.

Agreed. This is what bugs me about those drinks. I know there are things in there I need, but man.

What’s the electrolyte drink you use? I had a training buddy use something like that, but I’ll be dipped in shit because I can’t remember what it was called.

What is the second one?

BRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Persistent body odor.

I’ve always used Cytomax when cycling, and have never noticed this phenomenon. Maybe they use a little less salt? However, you have to mix it up yourself before each ride, so it’s kind of a pain.

I believe they purposely engineered it so that it wouldn’t slake your thirst. Apparantly when people drink water their bodies send signals that they’re no longer thirsty even though in actuality they might need more liquid. Or maybe that’s just Gatorade propaganda.

Marc

I also use Cytomax (when running), and it works well for me. With all these drinks, you need to make 'em at the correct concentration, which is weaker than one might think.

I don’t use Gatorade on principle - it’s basically just sugar, at eeek! times the price.

Ultra runners will often eat real food, e.g., boiled potatoes with salt, soup, pretzels, bananas, etc.

Hyponatraemia is basically caused by people forcing liquid down them according to real or imagined optimal fluid intake rates (rather than drinking ad lib). Shouldn’t happen over shortish distances, nor with ad lib drinking with intake of adequate electrolyte amounts.

Plus, you don’t actually sweat in pastel. Their commercials are giving false hope to those of us that wish to perspire in green and purple.

Medical folklore. The body isn’t so horribly engineered that you’d be in desperate need of more liquid yet not be thirsty. That’s what thirst is for.

I find Gatorade and the like only make a difference if I’m exercising in 95+ weather (not uncommon here) for an hour or so. Just drinking water will give me a headache. But, I think commercial Gatorade is far too strong. I usually buy the powdered stuff and mix it at half strength.

When I wa playing competitive juniors tennis (and nowadays, too), I always used one of those ubiquitous green Gatorade bottles, but I used a combination of 1 part good old OJ to 3 parts tap water. Between the two, I found that I was pretty well-hydrated, and didn’t get noticeably weaker.

Anecdotally, most tennis pros have endorsement deals they have to support, so they have the logo-ed bottles, but most of them are filled with straight water. If you spend enough time on a nice, hot tennis court, you learn what works.

When I played soccer, we sucked orange segments and drank water.

I try to eat an orange or a banana before a match to load potassium to avoid cramping.

I agree. In my experience, things such as energy gels and power bars provide plenty of what I need, as long as I also drink water with them.

The worst part about energy drinks is that they tend to leak out of the bottle and dribble down to the bottom bracket shell (where the shifter cables run). The resulting stickyness makes the bike shift poorly.

The other bad thing about them is when you forget to rinse out the bottles after a ride and let them sit around for a few days. Yuck. Never happens with plain water.