Drink Choice of Athletes

Drink Choice of Athletes

Eric Rippetoe

Drink Choice of Athletes

What drinks do athletes prefer after working out? Would they choose the sports drink (Gatorade), soda, chocolate milk, or just plain water? It’s important to stay hydrated, but also to get vitamins and proteins, so which is the best choice? The best thing for you to drink aside from water after a workout is actually chocolate milk (Stager). From experience I know that my team is not the best when it comes to taking these facts into consideration.

Research shows that adolescents and teenagers get the least amount of water than any other age group. That they would rather have drinks with processed sugars in it such as: soda pop, Gatorade etc. These are especially bad for you after a workout, because your body needs water to process those sugars, meaning that if your body does not have the right amount of water it has to work harder to process the sugars that you intake. I hypothesize that the SUU men’s basketball will drink more of the processed sugar drinks (soda, and Gatorade) than the drinks that are healthier (water and chocolate milk) after the workout.

Methods

After our team workout that we have every Friday I put a cooler filled equally with 12 sodas, chocolate milks, Gatorades, and bottled waters at the end of our bench. I then gave the team directions to only take one drink. The object of this experiment is to see which kind of drink the SUU men’s basketball team prefers after this workout. I counted the amount of drinks before the workout and again after the players took a drink.

Results

With 12 of the following drinks provides the following results were received:

3 bottles of water
2 cans of soda
5 sports drinks
2 chocolate milks

The players were told to take one drink and one drink only, As the workout concluded the players followed direction taking one drink. Seven out of the twelve players chose the processed sugar drinks.

Discussion

I hypothesized that the players on SUU men’s basketball team would choose the drink with the more processed sugar in them. The experiment supported my hypothesis because 7/12 players chose processed sugary drinks. I believe that the reason that they chose the more sugary drinks was because they are use to those drinks and also don’t know the details about them.

The study was limited because it was only one team and also I could have provided more drinks. It was also limited because it was only one sport other sports could have different preferences.

This was an important study because if all athletes are drinking these drinks with the processed sugars than they could limit their body to certain things. Something as simple as changing what you are drinking could show significant improvements not only in their game but in their overall health.

References (made up)

Buzz Killington J. (2014) The Sugars in Your Drink. Nutrition’s journal 14(4) 2-9

John James J. (2012) Water is key. Finest Sports Recovery Journal 12(3) 22-40