Perhaps of greater importance in athletes of any age, but especially youth, is to encourage a balanced diet , snacks as needed, and adequate water that will best enhance physical and mental performance.

Pediatricians should discuss the use of sports drinks with their young patients and parents to ensure that all are aware of the health risks, and if used, are monitored carefully.

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Home Nutrition News What Should I Eat? Sports Drinks and Health Research has shown benefit of sports drinks in adult athletes though not conclusive as some studies show no benefit , but research in children is lacking.

The drinks may also be perceived as healthy because they are allowed to be sold in schools and sporting events, so may be consumed in excess. Bottom Line Water that is calorie-free and accessible without cost to most people is the beverage of choice taken with and between meals.

Energy and sports drinks in children and adolescents. Paediatr Child Health. Those types of events are a great example of the importance of electrolytes for sports training.

Something like a yoga class or a quick minute workout will only need rest and water to rehydrate. But some people sweat more than others or live in hotter, more humid climates where sweating occurs regularly.

A sports drink with electrolytes is a great way to rehydrate and balance your fluids after more strenuous exercise or sweating. The best strategy is to diversify how you intake minerals.

Electrolytes are everywhere in whole foods, which is the cleanest way to get the minerals you need. You can find sodium in foods like pickles, olives, beans, bread, and soups. Without enough sodium, athletes can feel week and experience low blood pressure.

These symptoms can impact your abilities to perform, which is why sodium is one of the most important electrolytes for sports. We all know dairy products are rich in calcium, but vegans can also find them in leafy greens, soy products, chia seeds, and fortified dairy-free milk and cereal. Calcium is excellent for bone health, which athletes need, but it can also support heart function, muscle contraction, and nerve signalling.

Magnesium is vital for muscle function, and without enough, athletes may experience fatigue, cramping, and an irregular heartbeat. You can easily find magnesium in spinach and other greens, plus beans, lentils, salmon, and nuts and seeds.

Muscles also love potassium, as it helps them contract properly. Potassium is especially important for the muscles of the heart and digestive system. We all know we can find it in bananas, but we can also source it from broccoli, potatoes, citrus fruit, and fish.

More traditional sports drinks often get a bad reputation and quite rightly so — because they tend to be heavy on the sugar. There are many variations of ultra-hydrating electrolyte drinks.

At Bindi, we have several options. Bindilyte is a LOW SUGAR powder that supplies the electrolytes without the extra sugar and carbs.

Electrolytes plus carbohydrates for sports are essential for more substantial, prolonged exercise, so we also have our regular sports hydration powder. It gives a bit more support to sports training, but still with less sugar than traditional sports drinks.

And for athletes on the go, you can grab our single-serve packs. All the energy you need to achieve peak performance is right here.

Figure 7. Multimeter dial set to the milliamp mA range, represented by the "m". Be careful not to get this mixed up with the "m" on the other side of the dial.

That setting is for measuring voltage, not current. Troubleshooting For troubleshooting tips, please read our FAQ: Electrolyte Challenge: Orange Juice Vs. Ask an Expert Do you have specific questions about your science project? Our team of volunteer scientists can help.

Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot. Post a Question. Try other sports drinks and juices. What is the conductance of fresh-squeezed orange juice? What about the conductance of lemonade? Try making your own sports drink, starting with orange juice.

If the carbohydrates in the orange juice are higher than they are in the sports drink, dilute the juice with distilled water so that the carbohydrates are about the same as they are in the sports drink. How does the conductance of the diluted juice compare to that of the sports drink?

Standardize your readings, using tap water as a reference. Divide all of the current measurements for each trial by the current you measured for the tap water. Tap water will have a conductance of 1. The fruit juice and sports drinks will then have conductances that are multiples of the tap water's conductance.

If you are having trouble with this project, please read the FAQ below. You may find the answer to your question. I am not sure if my multimeter is set up correctly. How should it be configured? My multimeter always reads What am I doing wrong? What does it mean if I am getting a negative current reading on my multimeter?

Why are my multimeter readings going up and down? The current readings on my multimeter seem very low for all of my samples and there is not much variation between them. What should I do? I am not sure if the values I am getting are correct. How should I be making my calculations and what is the range that my results will probably fall in?

Why is it important to keep the wires on the conductance sensor from moving? What is the purpose of dipping the sensor in distilled water? Should I replace the distilled water between tests?

How can I tell if I blew the fuse in my multimeter? My multimeter's screen just remains blank when I turn it on. Is it broken? Q: I am not sure if my multimeter is set up correctly. A: The multimeter dial has a lot of different settings, which may seem confusing at first.

In this project, you will only use the green "μ" and "m" settings, which measure direct current in the microamp μA and milliamp mA ranges, respectively. These settings are shown in Figures 5 and 6 of the procedure.

You also must make sure the black multimeter probe is plugged into the port labeled "COM", and the red probe is plugged into the port labeled "VΩMA". You will not need to use any of the other settings on your multimeter for this project.

If you want to learn more about what the other symbols mean, refer to the Science Buddies resource How to Use a Multimeter. Q: My multimeter always reads A: A number of issues may result in a reading of If just one connection is loose, this will prevent the circuit from being complete, and the multimeter will be unable to take a reading.

Double-check all of your alligator clips. Make sure all the connections are snug with metal-on-metal contact do not clip to any of the plastic, since plastic is an insulator. You might not have your multimeter on the correct setting. The currents flowing through the liquids in this experiment are very small, so your multimeter must be set at a high sensitivity.

Use microamps μA for distilled water, and milliamps mA for the other liquids. See Figures 5 and 6 in the Procedure for instructions on how to set your multimeter. You might not have your multimeter's probes in the correct ports.

Make sure the black probe is in the port labeled "COM" and the red probe is in the port labeled "VΩMA. The 9 V battery in your circuit might be dead.

This is unlikely if you are using a fresh battery from your Science Buddies kit, but the battery could drain if you accidentally left the circuit connected for a long time. If the reading is below 7, your battery may not have enough power for this project and you should use a fresh battery.

The wires on your conductance sensor may have become compromised in some way. There should be no material collected on them; if there is anything collected on them, clean and rinse them well and try again.

Your multimeter may have blown a fuse. The fuse contains a thin wire that burns out if too much current flows through it, in order to protect the rest of the multimeter's circuitry. When the experiment is set up as described, but the two sensor wires in the liquid touch, it will blow the fuse, so be sure they do not touch.

If your multimeter was working well and then suddenly started reading See the first bullet point above. See the question "How can I tell if I blew the fuse in my multimeter?

Q: What does it mean if I am getting a negative current reading on my multimeter? A: The wires in the circuit may be connected incorrectly, resulting in current flowing "backwards" through your circuit. Double-check all your connections against Figures 3 and 4 in the Procedure.

For example, if you connect the battery backwards switch the red and black leads , or get the red and black multimeter probes switched, that will result in a negative current reading. Q: Why are my multimeter readings going up and down?

A: A few possibilities could explain why your readings are fluctuating; you can determine what is happening in your experiment by how much the readings are changing.

It is normal to have very small fluctuations for example, the reading stays around the same number but increases or decreases slightly. In these types of experiments with multimeters, it can be very difficult to get an entirely stable current. If your measurements decreased quickly, you may have encountered a problem with electrolysis.

The most common reason that athletes give for replacing sodium during exercise is the prevention or treatment of muscle cramping, with the view that the more sodium you lose, the more you need to replace regardless of fluid intake and losses.

Despite many anecdotal stories of success with this approach, scientific evidence has time and time again failed to demonstrate this link. This evidence includes:. Observational studies of miners and other workers doing hard, repetitive, manual labour in hot conditions in the early 20th century would experience cramping, which seemed more likely to be caused be excessive consumption of plain water rather than dehydration or electrolyte losses.

In some cases salt tablets or intravenous saline may have relieved cramping, but this is likely related to the balance of water and sodium rather than a sodium deficit per se more on this below.

Studies of athletes at endurance and ultra-endurance races, where blood samples and questionnaires were undertaken in those who did or did not cramp. These studies found no relationship between hydration status, use of salt replacement products or blood electrolyte concentrations between those who did and did not cramp.

It has been acknowledged however that these blood tests were often not taken at the time of cramping, but often several hours later.

Laboratory studies where sodium has been given with or without fatiguing exercise, and the level of electrical stimulation of muscles to cause them to cramp has been measured. Previous work suggests that those who tend to cramp during competition are also those who cramp more easily with electrical stimulation.

These studies suggest that dehydration or a large sodium deficit per se does not change cramping risk using this method. The most recent scientific view of cramping during exercise is that it is most likely a complex syndrome, with multiple different factors that can lead to changes in the nerves that control muscle contraction.

These factors are broad and include muscle fatigue for various reasons , and changes in the function of the nervous system itself this can include pain, certain health conditions and medications, physical and psychological stress.

So as discussed previously with exercise induced gastrointestinal syndrome , it is almost too simplistic to blame cramping on one single factor. In the past few years however, a small group of studies have emerged that suggests that sodium may still play a minor role in cramping risk for some people.

In people who were already dehydrated from exercise, consuming a large amount of plain water as opposed to a sodium containing drink appeared to increase the risk of cramping when induced by electrical stimulation.

It is still unclear exactly how or why, but one likely explanation is that when large amounts of plain water are consumed, the drop in blood osmolality causes much of the water to rapidly enter the tissues of the body, and the sudden expansion in the size of cells may play some role.

It also plays an important role in regulating the overall amount of water in the body, by influencing both how much how is lost or retained by the kidneys, and our thirst and desire to drink. A true sodium deficit, however, appears to not be an important factor for athletes during the timeframe in which exercise is performed.

Furthermore, our modern diet is so abundant in sodium that a true deficiency over days or weeks is considered virtually impossible, especially when you consider that both the sweat glands and the kidneys can and will adapt to minimise sodium losses if required.

Whilst sweat sodium losses during exercise vary significantly from person-to-person and day-to-day due to a range of factors, the ultimate need for replacing sodium during exercise is to balance out fluid intake and losses and maintain an appropriate osmolality, rather than preventing a actual sodium deficit.

In most cases this does not require any sodium due to the way the sweat glands remove proportionally more water than sodium, and so sodium during exercise is more about taste than physical need.

However, in very long duration exercise when water is aggressively replaced, there can be an important role for purposeful, targeted sodium replacement. Since many messages about electrolytes are targeted towards athletes participating or competing in events less than 4 hours, it is fair to say that the message as it is portrayed in the media and by many companies is more hype than it is backed by scientific evidence.

Miller KC. Without enough sodium, blood pressure may drop or you can become dehydrated. For those who workout intensely or sweat profusely, it may be necessary to add an extra pinch of table salt to your meals.

Sodium is found in your favorite salty snacks and most canned and packaged foods. If you meet any of the criteria listed in the bullet points above, try adding some of these salty foods to your diet:. Everyone knows calcium as the mineral responsible for bone health.

Calcium helps with nerve signaling, blood clotting, hormone secretion, muscle contraction, and normal heart function. Without ample calcium consumption, the body pulls calcium from the bones, causing them to weaken overtime.

While calcium helps muscles contract, magnesium causes them relax. Magnesium also allows muscles to take in oxygen and plays a role in maintaining a normal heartbeat and muscle function.

Women need to milligrams of calcium per day, while men need to milligrams. Not eating enough magnesium may negatively affect athletic performance and can cause weakness and even muscle spasms.

A vital part of hydration and muscle contraction including heart muscles, digestive muscles, etc. Similar to the other electrolytes, a potassium deficiency can cause muscle weakness, cramping, and abnormal heart rhythms.

By incorporating whole grains, fruits, veggies, lean sources of protein, and adequate water, most of us can meet our electrolyte needs. Be sure to drink water before, during, and after your workouts to ensure proper hydration, energy, and muscle function.

A balanced post-workout meal or snack can easily replace lost electrolytes and aid in recovery. I started playing competitive basketball once a week about a month ago, so I should probably purchase some sports drinks that have electrolytes soon.

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Why Are Electrolytes Important For Athletes? Table of contents What are electrolytes? When do you need electrolytes? Do they help performance?