Water vs. Sports Drinks: Which Is Better For Thirst, Exercise, Summer Heat?

It may not be sexy. It may not be colorful. It may not have a theme song. But for years, decades, and centuries, plain water has helped quench the thirst of humans. Nowadays, though, many advertisements seem to be telling you that water ain’t enough and that you should be drinking sports drinks instead. Of course, the main component of a sports drink is still water, since stuffing your mouth with dry powder wouldn’t do much to quench your thirst. But the big question is whether that extra stuff that’s in sports drinks is worth the potential extra cost.

The claim is that this extra stuff will improve your performance in sports—hence the term sports drinks—and other types of physical activity. So what’s this extra stuff? Is magic, The Force or something else?

Many sports drinks do have sugar

Well, one extra non-water component that many sports drinks have is carbs. Yes, those kinds of carbs as in carbohydrates, which can comprise 6 to 8% of what goes down your gullet when you consume a sports drink. This is typically in the form of sugar—namely glucose, sucrose or fructose.

The rationale behind putting such carbs in your drink is that during exercise your body uses sugar for fuel. Unless you happen to be eating a doughnut while running, your body will rely on glycogen stores in your muscles and liver for sugar. The thought is that these glycogen stores could get depleted with intense physical activity, leaving your body craving for more fuel for better “performance.” That fuel can come from consuming sugar that happens to be mixed with water.

Of course, sugar water is essentially what many sodas are. And drinking sugar is basically drinking calories. That may not be super appealing to you since, you know, one of the common objectives of exercise is to burn calories to either lose or maintain a certain body weight. So, drinking calories may be sort of defeating some of the purpose of getting physical activity. Therefore, in recent years, manufacturers have been selling more low- or zero-carb sports drinks—ones that have little to no carbs in them.

Most sports drinks have electrolytes

The other common non-water component in sports drinks is electrolytes, most commonly sodium and potassium. When you sweat you can lose such electrolytes. That’s why your sweat tastes salty, assuming that you’ve tasted your own or other people’s sweat. (We won’t go into why you may have tasted other people’s sweat.)

It is indeed important to maintain proper sodium and potassium levels in your body. Low levels of sodium in your blood, otherwise known as hyponatremia, can lead to low energy, muscle weakness, muscle spasms, muscle cramps, nausea, vomiting, headaches, confusion, seizures or comas. Obviously, being in coma will likely affect your sports performance. But so will many of the other aforementioned symptoms of hyponatremia.

Low potassium levels in your blood, otherwise known as hypokalemia, can also be problematic. Hypokalemia can affect your energy levels and cause muscle spasms, cramping and weakness. When severe, low potassium levels can affect conduction of the electrical signals in your heart, leading to arrhythmias.

The big question: how much do you sweat

But what are your chances of becoming hyponatremic or hypokalemic while exercising or in the midst of a heat wave? How much sodium and potassium might you lose when getting physical activity? During one hour of physical activity, the average person may produce somewhere from a third of a liter to two-and-a-half-liters of sweat.

Of course, the specific amount that you sweat will depend on different factors. For example, you may sweat more if it is very hot where you are exercising or someone very hot is exercising next to you. Nevertheless, you probably already have a decent sense of how much you’ll perspire when you get active. If you do find yourself puddling far more than two-and-a-half liters of perspiration in the course of an hour, you may want to see a doctor and get screened for a medical condition.

Losing a couple liters of sweat or so is probably not going to be enough to tip you over to hyponatremia or hypokalemia, assuming that the levels of sodium and potassium in your blood started out within normal ranges. Therefore, if your physical activity lasts less than an hour, it is probably not necessary to use a sports drink to replenish these electrolytes. Water should be enough to keep you hydrated. Plus, you should get plenty of such electrolytes once you eat something.

The electrolytes in a sports drink can be helpful if your physical activity lasts much longer than an hour and is particularly vigorous. Again, it all depends on how much electrolytes you are losing primarily through sweat. There are other ways electrolytes can leave your body, such as through diarrhea. So, if you are having diarrhea-especially lots of watery diarrhea—it is important to keep your electrolytes properly replenished. And sports drinks can help in such a situation. Of course, if you are having lots of diarrhea while playing football, wrestling, or doing some other sport, you may want to stop playing for your benefit and the benefit of your teammates and opponents.

Alternatives to sports drinks

Keep in mind that sports drinks aren’t the only beverages with electrolytes. For example, milk, tea, juice and gravy can have them as well. Of course, not all of these beverages may be practical to drink while exercising, as you don’t see that many people ladling gravy into their mouths while they’re running on a treadmill. Other beverages may also have carbohydrates too, if you feel that you need a little extra sugar boost.

Not all beverages will offer proper hydration, though. Anything with caffeine or alcohol can cause you to pee more. And increased urination is a number one reason why drinking caffeinated or alcoholic beverages might actually make you more dehydrated.

Therefore, it is always important to know what exactly is in what you are drinking. Before putting anything in your mouth, review the ingredients and Nutrition Facts label. In addition to electrolytes and potentially carbs and extra calories, a sports drink may have other stuff such as artificial coloring and preservatives.

That being said, a sports drink may be a reasonable option if you will be losing lots of electrolytes without having other ways of replenishing them. But in most other cases, plain water will be plainly enough. Just because something has the words “sports” in its name doesn’t mean that it is automatically better to use when you are playing sports.