I often get questions about nutrition during training and racing. Which sports drink or bar gives you the best advantage in competition? The truth be known is that sports drinks and bars are heavy on the hype and pretty light on the delivery of what they promise. In fact most sports bars are little more than candy bars packaged differently. All the same, people go for it believing that brand "X" will give them that little extra boost.
If you were to watch most sports drink and sports bar adds you would most definitely believe that it is your brand of sports drink/bar that makes the difference. Even if you were to read most literature out there you would find that certain brands of sports drinks/bars are critical to your success. However, after taking a closer look at who is doing this research the interpretation of the results become very suspect. After all, most cigarette companies research back in the day found cigarettes to actually be beneficial to your health. Why not? They were selling cigarettes, right? So one must look at today's current research that is supported by large sport drink companies with the same skepticism. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case. Most athletes really believe that a sugar loaded sports drink or a candy bar disguised as a "sports bar" is going to improve their performance. This simply is not the case.
You are much better off taking along a trusty banana or piece of dried fruit on that next long brick or bike workout. You will be a lot better off than sucking down large amounts of processed sugars and artificial flavors. Granted, some sports drinks and bars are more healthy than others but you will be hard pressed to find much research that supports the idea of eating natural foods over mixes and bars. Granted the mixes and bars are easier to carry and easier to absorb into your system but again, this is only because you have become use to using them as in this way. If you trained with dried fruit you probably would just as easily find that as convenient as a gel or sports bar.
One last reason to consider natural whole foods as your major energy source during your workouts lasting longer than an hour is the money factor. If you price your sports drink mixes and bars they will soon burn a hole in your wallet.
So go the natural route with your nutrition even while training. Don't buy into the hype out there that is basically designed to promise something for a price but then not really deliver. That goes for you recovery drink mixes as well. Better to simply make a fruit smoothy and throw in some sugar if you must for your recovery drink. It tastes much better, is much cheaper, and is the best recovery drink you can buy and sports drinks brands
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