Byline: Jenny Deam News Staff Writer
In the early 1960s, football coaches at the University of Florida had a problem. Their team, the Gators, was fading in the second half of games. Small wonder, considering the heavy gear they wore and the sweltering tropical heat.
The coaches turned to university medical and science departments for help. Researchers began analyzing players' sweat and found they were losing enormous amounts of nutrients. So in 1965, Dr. Robert Cade concocted a drink made basically of the sodium, potassium and carbohydrates the athletes were sweating away. It became the team's secret weapon. It was called Gatorade.
Legend goes that the earliest batches tasted rather vile, so one of the coaches' wives added lemon flavoring to make it go down a bit easier. By the 1966 season, the Florida Gators became known as a ``second-half team.'' When they beat Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day, losing coach Bobby Dodd told a Sports Illustrated reporter, ``We didn't have Gatorade.''
It's the kind of story that spin doctors in corporate public relations departments can only dream about. ``This brand was raised on science and PR,'' said Andy Harrow, a spokesman for Gatorade.
Today, Gatorade - the original formula first bought in 1967 by Stokley-Van Camp and taken over in 1983 by Quaker Oats - commands 80 percent of the sports-drink market and continues to grow right along with the nation's fitness craze. It's a fixture on National Football League sidelines and at other sports events. The image of athletic prowess seems completely intertwined with a cup of the neon-colored liquid.
But is a sports drink really necessary?
Nutritionists and sports-medicine experts are mixed on the answer.
Much depends on who's doing the drinking. For some casual and recreational athletes, good old-fashioned water will probably work fine.
If, however, you're pushing your body for longer than an hour at a time or if your body is already low on carbohydrates and fluids, you really do need the kind of nutrient replacement supplied by noncarbonated, non-caffeinated sports drinks.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi have also jumped on the sports-drink bandwagon, introducing their own versions, called Powerade and All Sport, respectively, which, like Gatorade, fall between the recommended concentration of 5 percent to 9 percent sugar. Too much sugar will sit in your stomach and not be absorbed into your bloodstream for energy.
The key, be it a sports drink or tap water, is rehydrating the body. That's especially important when exercising in warm weather or in dry climates like Colorado's. And typically, most of us don't get enough or get the wrong kind of liquids.
``The rule of thumb is: If you're thirsty, it's too late,'' said Lee Gray, an athletic trainer for University Sports Medicine who works with athletes at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver.
Dehydration can lead to muscle cramping and decreased performance. It is also the first indicator of more serious conditions, such as potentially fatal heatstroke.
Guidelines from the American College of Sports Medicine say that you should drink about 16 ounces of liquid two hours before exercising, adding another 8 to 16 ounces 15 minutes before on especially warm days. During exercise, you should drink 4 to 6 ounces every 15 minutes. Once your workout is complete, you should drink 16 to 20 ounces for each pound you lost.
``The `after' is very, very important,'' said Amy Roberts, a physiologist at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine.
``The worst thing in the world you can do is to drink alcohol or a caffeinated beverage,'' Gray said. Both are diuretics, which can actually dehydrate you more.
Some sports drinks are better than others. Gray and Roberts advise against those with fructose, a type of sugar, because they can cause stomach cramping.
But what about water? It's been around the longest; isn't it the best?
Again, it depends on the person and the situation. You can run a marathon and rehydrate only with water, but you probably won't make the best time and may feel lousy afterward, said Tracy Horton, an assistant professor at the Center for Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
The biggest problem with water, experts say, is that most people won't drink enough of it to truly rehydrate their bodies. Studies have shown that, given the choice, most people, especially children, will go for a beverage that has some taste.
The other problem is that many exercisers work out without adequate nutrition beforehand, especially those who exercise in the morning. Roberts calls it operating ``without fuel in the tank.'' That's why drinks infused with added carbohydrates are important, she said.
Still, athletes have been around a lot longer than sports drinks have. The latter are a relatively new - and extremely lucrative - phenomenon. The difference these days, the experts say, is that most recreational athletes don't have training tables set before them, as did the sports teams of yesteryear.
It helps to have someone riding herd on our habits.
Becky Unger, a former mountain-bike tour guide who works at Wheat Ridge Cyclery, said she used to insist that people on her rides drink an energy sports drink before they left, during lunch and after they finished. In addition, she pushed them to drink water in between.
She said that as a tour guide, she felt responsible for the health and safety of her riders. ``Heatstroke in the middle of nowhere? Really bad,'' she said.
Still, it was often hard to push fluids, because people would forget to drink or be bored with plain water. Sometimes she would add mint to bottles of water to get them to drink more.
``On a long day,'' she said, ``if I wasn't really militant about them drinking, I would have a lot of people sitting in the sag wagon by the end'' - the truck that follows the pack, picking up stragglers.
CAPTION(S):
Color Photo (2)
Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs douses himself with water during a game against the Rockies last week. When it comes to drinking fluids, though, athletes often turn to sports drinks. By Joe Mahoney / News Staff Photographer.
CAPTION: Lida Simon of Romania gulps water as she runs toward victory in the women's elite category of the Bolder Boulder race in May. By Glenn Asakawa / News Staff Photographer.
