Energy drinks part II

[JRT6]

There was a thread recently about gatorade and how well the low carb and electrolite drinks work. I just read an article in the Aug/Sept issue of Tactical Response by a guy whose web site is www.poweringmuscles.com. In it the author goes over the history of carb recovery drinks and compares the old drinks to new ones like Accelerade that add a bit of protein. Apparently in two studies they found the protein group to perform 28% better than the carb only group in a all out cardio exercise to failure. The second day of the test both groups were tested again w/o any drink at all other than water and the protein group then did 40% better. Clearly indicating that a little protein may spare some serious muscle and help recover in cardio events.

I don't do the type of cardio where I have to hit a drink every 12min but if I did I think I would try a Accelerade type product.

[krj]

I've read similar studies - some that reinforced what this guy says, and others that found no difference between the carb-only drinks and the carb/protein combination drinks. So I think that the jury is still out officially on the deal.

Having said that though, intrinsically it makes sense to me, in terms of performance and staving off energy depletion during long workouts to do a combination of both carbs and protein.

Most adventure racers I know carry with them a lot of carbs (and you'd be surprised how much of that is simple carbs - cheap, lightweight, high calorie and fat content), water (and the ability to filter water on the trails), and some type of energy drink (usually something made up, then powdered stuff with them to add to water as they progress during the race/training). Many (including me during very hot weather particularly) also go through a bunch of electrolyte tabs.

The general rule of thumb is to eat something every hour (in an attempt to stave off not only hunger but also glycogen depletion) and to drink every 10 minutes.

Without fail though, almost all racers are "carbed-out" by the end of the race and their bodies are screaming for protein. If there's opportunities to down protein at transition areas during the race (sometimes there are, sometimes there aren't) most racers are downing eggs, tuna, salmon, soups etc. - "real" food instead of the crap we eat while we're out there.

Including some form of protein during long workouts (via either food or drink) makes sense, as once your muscle energy stores are totally depleted your body will turn to both fat and muscle for energy - less efficient, and in the case of muscle, certainly not desirable.

Again, for high intensity endurance workouts less than one hour, water should do the job just fine. But once you get beyond an hour (and particularly in the case of training during very hot weather) a watered down sports drink (during your workout) will help to replace lost fluids, provide you with calories to slow down glycogen depletion, and help to replace the multitude of minerals that you lose through sweat. Most of us can just eat a carb/protein combination after exercise, and do just fine - but with very long workouts, trying to eat/drink some protein just seems to make sense to me.

[JRT6]

The author of the web site claims he trained two of medalists in the marathon, or one of the other long distance runs, in the Olympics in Athens

[Highwaystreets]

If that is indeed true then that is very interesting to know. does anyone know how much protein is in those drinks?

[PTI]

Some things to keep in mind. Were the studies done by a reputable medical or scientific organization and published in their journals? Were the studies "double blind" studies? The small print at the bottom of the web page says the news letter is sponsered by PacificHealth Labs, makers of Accelerade and Endurox5. Not to take anything away from the company but it looks like a giant advertisement to me.

[JRT6]

If that is indeed true then that is very interesting to know. does anyone know how much protein is in those drinks?

6-7 grams that's it.

PTI,
Recently two out of three researchers admitting to doctoring research results and most studies are done by concerned interests so instead of blowing things off on that pretense try the stuff for youself and it works or not....