Hydration Drink Failures

Hydration Drink Failures

It seems like every month there’s a new hydration drink on the market, but virtually every one of them fails in one of three ways:

Loaded with Sugar
Sweet drinks are cheap to make and taste good, but if you’re doing anything endurance related you will perform much better using complex carbohydrates and limiting your simple sugars. This video explains why. So why do so many companies make this mistake? Because sweet drinks sell more, and it’s all about making money. Just look at Gatorade: 100% simple sugar and the biggest selling sports drink on the market, but most serious athletes know that it’s not the best. Complex carbs are not as sweet and cost more. The better the drink the more niche it becomes, so you won’t sell as much of it. If maximum profit is your priority, you stick with simple sugar formulas.

Guilty drinks include:
Gatorade, Skratch, Tailwind, Osmo, Nuun Endurance, Accelerade, etc.

Artificial Sweeteners / Sugar Substitutes
Trying to make a good performing drink with complex carbs, but still make it sweet to sell more, companies turn to artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes. These ingredients are typically found in small amounts in diet products, but when used in a sports nutrition product they can have nasty side effects. Hammer HEED for example lists Xylitol as the second ingredient – meaning there’s more than just a little in there. Then drink 2 or 3 bottles on a long bike ride or run and you’ll wonder why your stomach doesn’t feel right. Just Google the side effects of Stevia, Xylitol, Sucralose, etc. Gas, GI discomfort, bloating, nausea.

Guilty drinks include:
Hammer Heed (Xylitol), Cytomax (Stevia), Nuun (Stevia), Accelerade Hydro (Sucralose), etc.

Magical “Secret” Ingredient or Formula
This one is self explanatory and we’re not even going to acknowledge them here. They can easily be spotted by their extremely high price and NO independent research to back up their bogus claims.

e-Fuel: Just Clean Energy!
With e-Fuel we didn’t reinvent science or load it down with sugar and artificial garbage. e-Fuel is low in sugar and loaded with complex carbs … and there’s no artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners, it’s just clean energy!!

Enjoy!

– Mike

Mike Mathewson
President
Crank Sports, Inc.