Enery drink usage.

jlmax

Just been thinking.....I ussually use High 5 energy drink during training and racing. Would it be of benefit to me to only use it whe racing and just use water for workouts. or does the energy drink help me get optimal training?

J

DR650s

I use energy drinks when riding for more than 1 hr, for less than that I don't believe I need them. Energy drinks are great for quickly replacing energy used while excersising but this has to be weighed up with your goals. If you are trying to loose weight then energy drinks can be counter productive when excersising for periods less than an hour. You should have enough energy stored in you body to excersise at near peak performance for around an hour, but after that time period your output may well start to drop off as you start to deplete your stores.

If you are very lean then wieght loss is probably not a concern, therefore you can afford to experiment with taking energy drinks earlier,and see if your output encreases while using them. Fat is not the primary energy used for cardio excersise and the body has to convert fat to use it, this is a slower process than using sugar, and performance levels will drop as the body has to use more and more fat compares to sugar to perform.

Also a good energy drink will contain more than just energy/sugar it should contain electrolites to replace those that you have lost through sweat, without these your performance will suffer, so look for a energy drink that also replenishes these.

trail jacker

Lucozade sport is great stuff and has everything:- electrolytes, salts, sugars etc.
i am a regular user on big rides (6hr+), but stick to water for the first 1.5hrs.

El Capitano

Another vote for the Lucazade Sport. For rides under an hour, I don't tend to use anything. Over that, I mix the Lucazade 50/50 with water (it's a personal taste thing).

The new Caffine enriched stuff is pretty good for Endurace Marathon type events, for keeping you going at stupid o'clock in the morning.

mozzle

Lucozade Sport is to sweet for me but like whats been mentioned 'Its a personnal thing'. For me on short rides I use Powerade, the Mango flavour, all the benefits of Lucozade but tastes a hell of a lot better, for me it does anyway

ride_whenever

I like a combination of the lucozade sports. For most training i use the hydroactive stuff, which has the electrolytes without the sugar. For really intense interval training and overly long training i'll use the sport carbo drinks sometimes in combination with the hydroactive. If i'm doing sprint training I'll use the carbo gel sachets to aid recovery inbetween intervals.