Sports Drinks Can Benefit Athletes

 

The main components of sports drinks — water, carbs and electrolytes — are each important for different aspects of exercise performance.

Water and electrolytes are lost in sweat, and it’s important to replace them, particularly during long-duration exercise (10Trusted Source).

Your body stores carbs in your muscles and liver called glycogen, which is used for fuel during exercise (11Trusted Source).

Consuming carbs before or during exercise can help slow down how quickly your body runs out of its own carbohydrate stores (10Trusted Source).

Sports drinks are designed to provide these three important ingredients with the goal of improving exercise performance or recovery (8Trusted Source).

Many studies have examined the effects of sports drinks on exercise performance, and much of this research has been conducted in athletes.

Short-Duration Exercise

It’s not fully clear if sports drinks are beneficial for short-duration exercise.

One report examined nine studies of intense cycling or running lasting 30–60 minutes (6Trusted Source).

Six of the studies showed that sports drinks benefited exercise performance. However, all participants were trained athletes performing intense exercise.

One study in trained cyclists found that a sports drink improved performance by about 2% during one hour of intense cycling, compared to a placebo (12Trusted Source).

Despite these findings, there is not strong evidence to support the benefits of sports drinks for short-duration activities, such as jumping, sprinting and agility exercises (13Trusted Source).

Similarly, clear benefits have not been demonstrated for weight training (14Trusted Source, 15Trusted Source).

Team Sports and Intermittent Exercise

The usage of sports drinks is very common in team sports like soccer, basketball and football.

These sports involve intermittent activities, which alternate between intense exercise and rest.

Some research shows that ingesting carbohydrate drinks like sports drinks can reduce fatigue and improve performance in sports like soccer and rugby (13Trusted Source).

Other studies have examined cycling for periods of 1.5–4 hours with periodic rest.

One report found that 9 out of 12 studies using this type of exercise showed better performance when sports drinks were consumed, compared to a placebo (6Trusted Source).

Prolonged Continuous Exercise

Unlike intermittent exercise, continuous exercise is performed with no rest periods.

Many studies have examined the effects of carbohydrate beverages like sports drinks during continuous exercise lasting 1–4 hours or longer, such as running and cycling.

The majority of these studies show improvements in performance when consuming these beverages (6Trusted Source).

Likewise, athletes in team sports that are most similar to prolonged continuous exercise, such as soccer, are most likely to benefit from sports drinks (13Trusted Source).

These improvements may be due to the fact that sports drinks provide carbs for energy as your body’s stores get low and help prevent dehydration (10Trusted Source).

How Many Carbs?

Generally, the number of carbs that may be beneficial increases as the duration of exercise increases.

Research has shown that small amounts of carbs (fewer than 30 grams per hour) may improve exercise performance in events lasting 30–75 minutes (10Trusted Source).

It’s recommended to consume up to 30 grams per hour of carbs, or about 16 fluid ounces of a sports drink with 6% carbs, in sessions lasting 1–2 hours.

Sessions lasting 2–3 hours may benefit from more carbs — up to 60 grams per hour (10Trusted Source).

However, these recommendations are for continuous high-effort activity without rest. The same guidelines don’t apply to certain intermittent activities like weight training.

Summary

In athletes, sports drinks may improve performance in various types of exercise, with the clearest benefits being seen for prolonged exercise without rest. The number of carbs that may be beneficial increases as the duration of exercise increases.