Sports Drink

During hard racing and training it's a great idea to ingest some sort of sports drink. There are numerous commercial products available, who all claim to improve performance. The truth is that you can make it yourself, and in my opinion it tastes and works better. I find the commercial sports drinks to be too sweet during hard efforts and as a result I’m left with a sticky and dry mouth.

Try this instead:

Buy dextrose or glucose in bulk – you can get this very cheap at a health food store or a wine brewing store. Many sports drinks use a mix of both glucose and fructose, claiming it will allow for a higher uptake, but glucose is by far the better choice (all sugars need to be converted to glucose before it can be used by the body), and I think the real reason they add fructose is because of the taste. Glucose enters the blood stream rapidly, and helps carrying water and sodium across, and thus is helping you with hydration.

When mixing the sports drink you should be aiming for a concentration of about 4-8% - I usually mix mine at 6% (60g pr. liter of water). If you mix at a higher concentration it will hinder water update, which is a big deal during racing.

One thing that’s missing in this mix is electrolytes - to help with hydration. You can either buy electrolytes like the Hammer Nutrition Endurolytes and simply add it to the mix, or you can add a small amount of sodium and potassium chloride bought at a health food store.

Recent research has shown that a small amount of protein mixed in with the glucose will improve performance, but be sure to try this out in training first – you don’t want to have an upset stomach on race day. You can read more about it here http://www.precisionnutrition.com/research-aerobic-recovery-1