The two types of sports drinks

Performance drinks and energy drinks; marketing still maintains the confusion between the two words. Both are attractive as they seem to boost performance and give bonuses to the consumers. Brands are misunderstanding people through their marketing plans which are relatively close. Thus, here is a quick overview to differentiate and understand, at first, the two types of sports drinks distribute in France.

Performance drinks:

This type of drinks is addressed to athletes/sport people. They are made to overcome tiredness and dehydration while doing exercise and replenish glycogen reserves during endurance exercises. The most known on the French market are Isostar, Gatorate, Overstim, Aptonia, Powerade. They are mainly composed by the followings:

• Water for rehydration
• Fast and slow assimilation sugar to respond to the various type of effort
• Mineral salts
• Vitamins
• Antioxidants

However, those drinks are useful for intensive sport practice but not for everyday use, especially because their calorie intake is pretty high.

Energy drinks:

Energy drinks such as (Red Bull, Monster, Dark Dog…) are supposed to give a boost in order to improve memory, concentration and tiredness for a short lapse of time. They contain water, sugar, some vitamins, caffeine and sometimes taurine and plant extracts known for their anti-fatigue properties (green tea, guaran, ginseng). Energy drinks are mainly aimed for young people but are increasingly suspected to cause high-dose adverse effects (sleep and heart rhythm disorders, headaches, hypertension...). Even if those brands are deeply present into sport world, there have been and still exist controversial report to prevent the usage of energy drinks for athletes.

Yoann Quardel