Health Benefits Of Isotonic Drinks

Any form of physical exercise and activity is good for your heart weight, weight loss, and even your overall fitness, but at the same time, it makes your body sweat profusely thus releasing a lot of fluid from your body at once. Even though sweating is good for your body as it helps in maintaining your body temperature, sometimes it can lead to the excess of natural minerals required by your body, which in turn may lead to problems of dehydration and heart stroke.

The Isotonic drink is a powerhouse of those natural nutrients which your body loses with sweat fluid. It also helps excellently in preventing injuries related to exercising and also keep illness caused because of loss of excess fluids at bay. But the question arises here is what exactly an isotonic solution is and how it can help in regaining lost fluids? Let’s try to find this out!

What Is An Isotonic Energy Drink?

An energy drink which is a blend of water, carbohydrates and electrolytes are called as isotonic sports drink. Such drinks contain a very high concentration of carbohydrates, which often comes from sources like sucrose, fructose, and glucose.

How An Isotonic Rehydration Formula Works?

Those who are involved in intense physical activities like weight training, cycling, sports, etc. often experience fatigue, which in most cases is caused because of loss of muscle carbohydrates. Isotonic drinks help in boosting the endurance of your body, which in turn keeps you going for a longer period of time. Once you start feeding isotonic drinks to your muscles you can actually delay the fatigue and bring up to 20% improvement in your performance.

Benefits of Isotonic Drink

Though such drinks are usually considered the powerhouse of health benefits, there are certain health benefits which are found in isotonic drinks that help them differ from other health drinks options available in the market. Some of the prominent health benefits of isotonic sports drink are enlisted below:

Good Source of Electrolytes 

Among many isotonic drink benefits, the most prominent one is its abundance in electrolytes, which are basically essential minerals that help in maintaining a healthy acid-base balance in human body cells which are made up of sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, bicarbonate, phosphate and sulphate. A study published in 1998 in Netherlands’ International Journal Of Sports Medicine, compared caffeinated drinks, low sodium mineral water, and an isotonic carbohydrate-electrolyte solution to find out its effect on elite cyclists. Volunteers who were given isotonic drinks retained more magnesium, calcium, and sodium in their bodies, which is considered enough to compensate for the sweat and urinary loss happened during their physical activity.

Powerhouse of Glucose 

Isotonic drink for athletes is often referred to as wonder drink because of its rich content of carbohydrates glycogen. The carbohydrates glycogen present in isotonic drinks gets easily converted into glucose, which is then stored in your lives/muscles, this reserve of glucose requires less oxygen to burn for fuel generation as compared to any other protein or fat. If you are into rigorous workout and weight training, the carbohydrate store in your body will get depleted at a rate of three to four grams per minute, which can easily exhaust your body’s fuel supply in around 2 hours. Your body ordinarily takes 24 to 48 hours to naturally replenish those reserves, but with an isotonic drink, the glycogen balance will return in your body more quickly.

Improves Hydration

Consuming water during exercising and any other form of physical activity seem logical as you sweat a lot, but the excess of water may lead to bloating and also, water does not contain carbohydrate or electrolytes. Including drinks with higher carbohydrate level in your workout decreases the rate at which your stomach gets empty. Isotonic drinks take the same time as water to empty your stomach, but they reduce urine output, encourage fluid retention and also prevent dehydration.

Boosts Endurance 

A research done by the University of Edinburgh put a great deal of effort in measuring the effectiveness of isotonic sports drinks on young athletes who consumed it both before and during the exercise. The results that were published later in the “European Journal of Applied Physiology” in 1990 stated that athletes who were under isotonic hydration demonstrated high intensity consistently and their stop-start activity was also up by 24 percent as compared to those athletes who drank a placebo solution.

After going through all the benefits that this isotonic sports drink has to offer it seems like a good alternative to the mighty water if you are planning to embark on the bodybuilding journey.