Fuel for Training: Sports Drinks vs Home-made Formulas

Created On: 16 March 2011

Practicing the same ritual over and over, striving for improvement, can make you both physically tired and mentally fatigued. It's important to recognise that fuelling during training is just as important as in competing.

Here's a thought though - since you spend a lot more time training than competing, should you be using the same source of fuel for both instances?

I would say no, and here's why.

Sports drinks are basically used for providing energy to replace calories used. Yes, they use a variety of different carbohydrate sources to do so, some more effective than others, but this is essentially the end goal. So let's look at the metabolic process of exercise a little deeper. Exercise doesn't just use up calories, it also promotes acidity, lowering overall pH in the body. It is well documented that pH should be maintained for overall health, and I believe, recovery. Also, exercise creates a mass of metabolic waste that the liver must detoxify. Sports drinks are not designed to neutralise pH, nor to enhance detoxification. In fact, they actually contribute further to the metabolic process since they are acid-forming and contain artificial ingredients that the liver must also detoxify… this is physiologically an energy-expensive process that over time, could be detrimental to overall health, performance and, ironically, energy.

Whilst it is important to know how your body will respond to your chosen energy product prior to using it in competition, you would be well advised to formulate your own sports fuel for the majority of your training. This is simple, easy and cost-effective to do and is a concept used for many years by Ian Craig, editor of Functional Sports Nutrition Magazine. To read more on this subject and to get home-made sports drink formulas, please see page 6 HERE

About the Author:

Abby Harman is a qualified nutritional therapist, FLT practitioner and co-founder of Body Co.
Abby specialises in sport, working with her patients to optimise their results by identifying performance-hindering imbalances and taking a functional-medicine approach.
Living in the Lake District, Abby works predominantly with high profile athletes in the North - climbers, runners, cyclists and triathletes. See testimonials on website.
Provides expert nutritional advice to MyTriCoach clients
Co-founder of Body Co. - a combination of coaching, training and nutrition for elite athletes

Visit www.abbyharman.co.uk to find out more.

Tags: news,lifestyle,training

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