Sports Nutrition
November 24, 2009
By Matt Gillis
Table of Contents
Water vs. Sports Drinks
Water vs. Sport Drinks
1
Negative Affects of Sports Drinks on Athletes
1
Unsafe Weight Loss in the Sport of Wrestling
2
Carbohydrate Loading
2
Vitamin Supplements
2
Healthy vs. Unhealthy Athletes
3
References/ Works Cited
4
Hydration is incredibly important to the body, especially during vigorous exercise of any kind. Our bodies are made up of 95% water, because of this fact proper hydration keeps our bodies at a healthy temperature, allows our internal organs to function well, and keeps us operating at our optimum levels. Dehydration can lead to heat many things that can negative affects on the body both in the short term and the long term. Because your body is not getting the water it needs in order to function at its best, it will begin to perform more and more poorly; this often ruins the purpose of exercise in the first place. Dehydration can also lead to heat exhaustion and heat stroke, because in order to conserve fluids your body will
stop sweating thus it will not be able to cool down naturally. Because hydration is so important it is also important to choose the right fluids to put into your body. Besides water, there is also a wide variety of sports drinks on the market that boast their benefits to be even better than those of water. Some of these claims are, in a way, correct. Sports drinks like Gatorade contain nutrient like salt that your body loses during exercise, water does not. It is recommended that if you are exercising for less ninety minutes to regularly drink water throughout the course of your exercise, if you are exercising for more than ninety minutes you should begin to drink a sports drink such as Gatorade.
Negative Affects of Energy Drinks on Athletes Energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster, and Rock Star have the ability to give the drinker large boosts of energy in a very short period of time. This can be very helpful to athletes who are tired and do not have the energy required to perform well in
their activity. However, energy drinks boost the drinker’s energy due to large, unhealthy amounts of sugar, caffeine, and other unnatural chemicals. These ingrediants take affect very quickly, but they also stop working very quickly as well , often leaving
the drinker with even less energy than they started with. If an athlete were to consume an energy drink just before a game or practice, they would run the risk of “crashing” and losing all of their energy in the middle of their exercises.