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Showing posts from June, 2013

Cheap Homebrew Sports Drink

I drink a lot of carbohydrate and electrolyte beverages. Why? 1. They taste good, so I want to drink them; and drinking more keeps me hydrated. 2. Carbohydrates are a very important energy source for active people -- before, during and after exercise. 3. Glucose promotes water absorption from the small intestine. 4. They also provide electrolytes - promoting water retention and electrolyte balance. I've tried a lot of them, sometimes forking out more than a dollar per serving for products like Gatorade, Hammer's Heed, PowerBar's Perform, First Endurance's EFS, and so on... But I've recently started experimenting with making some of my own drinks for performance and recovery. The best thing about making your own drinks is that you can customize it to be any flavor, any concentration (though the consensus is generally that ~6% CHO is the best concentration for gastric emptying and intestinal absorption), and you know and can control exactly which ingredient