Your Enhanced Performance is Just a Couple Sips Away

You’re sitting on your living room couch watching your favourite TV show. A gatorade commercial comes on, you see your favourite NHL hockey player Erik Karlsson drinking a bottle of gatorade and all that goes through your head is “wow I want to be just like him”. So there you are at your next hockey game. It’s half way through the third period and your team is down 1-0. You get off the ice after a long hard fought shift, and while you’re on the bench you try to refuel by drinking some gatorade. But have you ever asked yourself why gatorade gives you energy?

What is the purpose of gatorade?

Figure 1: When body temperature increases, a negative feedback loop occurs to bring the body temperature back down. The blood vessels dilate to allow more blood near the surface of the skin for heat loss. The sweat gland releases fluid and heat is removed when it changes state. The fluid evaporates and heat is lost into the environment.

The practice before your next game, your coach tells you to drink lots of water the night before and throughout the day of your game. They aren’t just saying this to be a nuisance but in fact it’s for you to perform better during the game. Without the intake of fluid  before, after and during physical activity, there will be a lot of water loss through sweat (refer to figure 1) and there will be no fluid to keep the body hydrated. Gatorade fixes this problem, and on top of that, it improves performance and productivity. But why? Why does gatorade result in performance enhancement but water doesn’t? Gatorade is composed of sugar (carbohydrate), salts (electrolytes) and water. All these components combined, along with flavouring, allow for an effective performance enhancing energy drink.

How does the sugary drink affect our body?

Many parents are against gatorade because they are sugary drinks and they believe water is better, so they send their kids off to their hockey game with a bottle full of water. Little do they know, the sugary part of the drink is what helps their kids during physical activity. The 6% carbohydrate and salt in gatorade allows for rapid fluid absorption which is the process of absorbing water into the blood. Every stride you take on the ice, every drop of sweat that leaves your body, means you are losing fluid through the skin and through the lungs. This causes dehydration which then leads to less blood pumped to the heart, muscles have less access to oxygen and by-products of exercise such as lactic acid or carbon dioxide are not eliminated from the body as it should.  Therefore, every sip you take out of your squirt gatorade bottle is is extremely important in maintaining the body’s homeostasis because it increases fluid absorption.  

It’s the worst feeling ever!

We all know that feeling when you wake up at 5:45 am because you have to pee but you try to hold it in until 6:30 am which is when your alarm  goes off so that you don’t have to unwrap yourself from under the blankets that are keeping you cozy in bed. You wonder why this is happening and you realize it’s because you decided it’d be the best idea to drink a glass full of water right before you went to bed. This is because water and beverages with caffeine promote water loss through urination. On the other hand, the sodium present in gatorade helps maintain body fluid therefore ensuring rapid re-hydration and the fluid will not be rapidly excreted.

Now you must be wondering… how does gatorade enhance performance??

Figure 2: The carbohydrates present in gatorade supplies the muscles with energy through the process of cellular respiration. Through many aerobic processes, Adenosine Triphosphate is created and is the source of energy that goes to the muscles in the body.

The sugar all the parents complain about in gatorade is sucrose and glucose-fructose. Through the process of cellular respiration, these carbohydrates are turned into energy used to fuel the muscles which allow for a longer and harder work out. (Refer to figure 2) This means that in the third period of your hockey game, when you have to give it your all, your muscles will be fueled and good to go for the rest of the game. In addition, the electrolytes, charged ions, present in gatorade are essential to an athlete's performance. Electrolytes are responsible for maintaining the balance of fluids between the intracellular membrane and the extracellular membrane which is extremely important when it comes to hydration, nerve impulses, muscle function, and pH level. Therefore, without these electrolytes, your body may not be able to make that extra push needed to beat your opponents to the puck.

The salts present in gatorade also result in a good tasting beverage which encourages constant drinking of Gatorade and therefore athletes are refueling more. It encourages them to keep drinking until they are completely rehydrated, whereas with water, it has no flavour and therefore athletes will drink the bare minimum to keep them going. The flavour enhancing salt, balances with citric acid which allows for the maintenance of proper pH levels in the body which prompts more fluid intake.

Now everything has a down side….

Gatorade is extremely beneficial when you drink it at the proper times but it can be harmful if you drink it on a regular bases without doing a lot of physical activity. Gatorade does have a lot of sugar in it which means if you are drinking it on a regular basis because it “tastes good” rather than drinking it for the athletic performance benefits, then you have a higher chance of getting diabetes. It has been scientifically proven that there is a correlation between the consumption of gatorade and child obesity. For this reason, Gatorade, and any other drink, should be taken with precaution and for the right purposes.