We all need a pick me up now and again; it’s just part of living in the modern world. Deadlines, assignments, bills, work, lectures, and meetings – they all drain us mentally and physically. Which brings me to what I feel is one of the most over hyped and under delivered areas of sports nutrition – energy drinks. Very few areas of the nutrition world get me as frustrated as this area does!! For the purpose of this article, I’m going to focus on two main areas of energy drinks. There are the standard drinks that you buy in any shop, and then the more specialised pre training drinks.
Energy Drinks
These bad boys come under many different names, each sounding cooler than the last one. From Relentless to Monster, Red Bull to Thunder, and all the rest in between. Before I pick them apart, I want to be clear here. Unlike other corners of the supplement world that promise you the sun, moon and the stars but ultimately fail to deliver, these drinks do exactly what they claim to do. They do give you a kick in energy to get you through that meeting, workout, lecture etc. It’s how they deliver that the problem. Let’s have a quick look at the 3 main ingredients here – caffeine, taurine and sugar.
Caffeine – I have no major issue with caffeine. In fact, a cup of coffee is near essential to me in my job from time to time. How caffeine works is a whole other article in itself that can be covered another time. All that needs to be said is that caffeine is one of only 4 sports supplements that are actually scientifically proven to work! Although I don’t have an issue with caffeine, I do have an issue with using these drinks as your source of it.
Taurine – Taurine is one of those things in life that we all seem to have heard of, but never seem to know what it is. We generally assume it is one of the reasons these drinks are so bad for you. Well, shockingly, this ingredient is actually quite good for you. Taurine is a derivative of an amino acid called cysteine, and taken in the right doses can actually help brain development, regulation of water and electrolyte levels in your blood and can also help keep your muscles hydrated, allowing you work out harder, for longer. However, 3000mg is all you need in a day. Most of these drinks contain far, far more than this. And have you ever tried stopping at just one red bull? Most of us have, most of us have also failed!
Sugar – When trying to get that lean, muscular physique, sugar is top on your rival list. Kind of like the Doctor No to your Austin Powers. Sugar does give you the kick in the butt energy effect you desire, but it’s also the main reason that you still haven’t developed that muscular body. Sugar spikes a hormone called insulin in your body, and when insulin is high, your body will simply refuse to burn any stored body fat. Kind of defeats the purpose of using these drinks, when the main reason you use them is to work out harder, and burn more body fat.
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So sugar is the big bad guy of these drinks. This is why those lovely companies invented sugar free options. Hurrah, healthy energy drinks?! This must be too good to be true!! Well, I hate to be a party pooper, but they are too good to be true. Not only are they not healthy, they don’t work!! When sugar is present, and insulin is high, your body clears the blood of sugar by rushing it into the blood cells. Not only does it rush the sugar in, it also rushes whatever else is present in with it. When the sugar is accompanied by caffeine and taurine, this gives you the energy boost. Without sugar, the caffeine and taurine just floats around the blood for a lot longer, and gives you a slow drip feed of caffeine rather than an instant hit. So that covers the lack of effectiveness.
Without the sugar it wouldn’t taste as nice. So instead of real sugar, you have the calorie and sugar free alternative of sugar - aspartame. Not only is aspartame calorie and sugar free, it’s also health free! It is both a neurotoxin and carcinogenic. It looks like a sugary duck, walks like a sugary duck, but instead of quacking like a sugary duck, it bites!
Pre – Training Drinks
From the drinks bad for you now, we move on to the drinks bad for you now and potentially lethal for you in years to come. Pre training supplements have become the newest craze on the block. Heck, even the names sound awesome – NO Xplode, Jack3d, C4, Superpump, and for the ultra hard core, Superpump Max!! Sounds great, and in some cases, they do deliver. Now, to be fair, some of these are worse than others. Most of these drinks work off one of two methods.
The first method being the slightly healthier option, but still disastrous! Sugar, caffeine and lots of vitamin B. Vitamin B is fine, that part is perfectly healthy. For the caffeine and sugar, I don’t think I need to repeat it so just read the above section about energy drinks.
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The second method uses the power of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a vasodilator. In plain English, this means that it widens your arteries, allowing more blood containing oxygen and nutrients to rush to your working muscles. This makes you stronger, faster and also makes you look much more defined as the veins now bursting full of blood erupt through your skin. However, the effects of it wear off very quickly when used frequently. Worse still, nitric oxide is one of the key treatments for cardiac problems. So if you’re unfortunate enough to have heart problems later in life, and have abused nitric oxide early in life, you will essentially be immune to its effects when you need it most. The drinks containing nitric oxide tend to be sugar free. This means one thing – aspartame. Again, see the above piece about the sugar free energy drinks to see why aspartame is such a no go.
The Alternatives??!
I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t use any energy boosters. At some point in the day, we all need that boost. I propose two solutions.
1. Two spoons of coffee, small amount of milk and boiling water. This gives you the boost of caffeine, and the milk provides a tiny bit of sugar to help the caffeine work faster.
2. Herbalife Green Tea. I don’t want to turn this into a sales pitch for myself, but Herbalife Green Tea is quite simply the strongest pre training drink I’ve ever consumed. Better yet, it does it through small amounts of natural sugar and guarana caffeine, which works faster and is healthier than standard caffeine. For more information about this product, get in contact with me.
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To wrap it up, if you are currently using the standard or pre training energy drinks as part of your workouts, please PLEASE stop! On that note, I’ll be back with you in the next day or two with information on vitamins and minerals. Until then, stay healthy guys!
Written by Maurice Walsh, BSc of Exercise and Health Studies
About the author
Maurice works as a personal trainer and lifestyle transformation coach at The Gym, Rathgar. He also works as a physique model. To get in contact with Maurice regarding training and nutrition go to www.facebook.com/totaltransformationfitness
To follow Maurice on Facebook, visit www.facebook.com/maurice.walsh87
