Sports Nutrition, body armor drink nutrition facts

    

The overall fitness may include some factors such as strength, endurance, flexibility, and breathing capacity. Physical fitness can be defined as the body's ability to perform low to high levels of physical training or activity without feeling fatigued and the ability to maintaining this level of training or activity throughout life.

Five main components that make fitness are - 

• Cardiovascular fitness
• Muscular strength
• Muscular endurance
• Body composition
• Flexibility

Fluid needs during exercise:

Exercise produces heat and doing heavy exercise can elevate heat production. The increase in body heat triggers sweating and sweat cools our body as it evaporates on our skin. Sweat rate is affected by the environmental temperature (extreme heat or cold), humidity (higher humidity increases sweat production but reduces the efficiency of evaporation), fitness level, type of clothing, and initial fluid balance.

Blood has to flow to the skin for avoiding the body from getting overheated, and evaporation of sweat can dissipate heat. While exercising, cardiovascular demand for blood to deliver fuel to working muscle may compete with blood flow to the skin.

Both the systems are stressed due to dehydration and making each less efficient. During heavy exercise without fluid replacement, dehydration can sneak in very quickly in athletes. Following things can indicate dehydration -

• At a given exercise intensity heart rate can get elevated
• Increase rate of perceived exertion during activity
• Decreased performance 
• Lethargy
• Concentrated urine
• Infrequent urination
• Loss of appetite

Hydration: 

When possible athletes should drink fluids at a rate that most closely matches their sweating rate. Active people must train themselves to consume adequate amounts of water before, during, and after exercise. Person-to-person electrolyte losses can vary depending on some factors like body weight, metabolism, and genetic makeup.

The goal of hydrating before exercise is to start physical activity with normal plasma active electrolyte levels. When hydrating before exercise, individuals should slowly drink beverages at least 4 hours before exercise, consuming beverages with sodium can help to stimulate thrust and retain needed fluids.

The goal of drinking while exercising is to stop excessive changes in electrolyte balance and excessive dehydration. Individuals who require rapid recovery from excessive dehydration can drink approximately 1.5 liters for each kilogram of body weight loss. Taking fluids that contain sodium and carbohydrates can enhance the palatability of fluid, delay fatigue, and promote retention of fluid.

Activity level	Environment	Fluid requirement (liter/day)
Sedentary	Cool	2-3
Active	Cool	3-6
Sedentary	Hot/Warm	3-5
Active	Hot/Warm	5-10

NOTE: These amounts may vary in different countries and in any adverse medical conditions.

Designable composition of sports beverages:

Characteristics	Comments
Fuel sources	Contain carbohydrate glucose, sucrose, and glucose polymers (maltodextrin)
Electrolytes	Contain sodium and potassium to replace sweat electrolyte loss, when exercise is longer than 3-4 hours. Electrolytes also enhance palatability.
Rapid absorption	Contain 6-8% carbohydrates. High carbohydrate concentration slows gastric emptying and intestinal absorption.
Palatability	Flavored beverages enhance consumption and electrolytes enhance the flavor of beverages.

Overload principle:

In order to improve the fitness level, athletes must place extra physical demand on the body this is referred to as the overload principle. To achieve an appropriate overload one should conceder three factors collectively known as the FIT principle. F stands for frequency, I stands for intensity, T stands for time of activity.

Frequency: 

Frequency means how many practice sessions per weak. Depending on goals of fitness or health the frequency of activity will vary. To achieve cardiorespiratory fitness working out 3-5 days a weak appears optimum.

Intensity:

Intensity refers to the amount of effort expended in an activity, we can describe the intensity of activity as - low, moderate, and vigorous. Low-intensity activity is those that cause a very mild increase in breathing, sweating, and heart rate. Moderate-intensity activities are cause increase breathing, sweating, and heart rate. Vigorous-intensity activity produces a significant increase in breathing, sweating, and heart rate.

Time of activity:

It refers to how large each session lasts, to achieve a higher level of fitness it is important that the activities be done for at least 20-30 consecutive minutes.

Endurance training:

Endurance training can increase endurance by as much as 500%. Aerobic capacity is increased by increasing the number of mitochondria when you increase endurance training and in turn, it increases the body's ability to deliver oxygen to them. This decreases the dependency on the anaerobic energy system, and also increasing the availability of glycogen reverses and delays fatigue.

Carbohydrate loading:

The carbohydrate source is very important as it is used as exercise fuel. The practice of carbohydrate loading or glycogen leading improves the exercise duration and maximizes the amount of muscle glycogen. Athletes who may benefit from maximizing muscle glycogen stores are those competing in marathons, long-distance swimming, etc. Current recommendations for carbohydrate loading include an intake of 60-70% from carbohydrates along with a decrease in exercise intensity and duration prior to competition.

Recommended carbohydrate loading procedure for the endurance of athletes: 

Days prior to an event	Carbohydrate content of the diet (gm/kg)	Exercise duration (minutes)
6	5	90
5	5	40
4	5	40
3	10	20
2	10	20
1	10	Rest day

NOTE: These amounts may vary in different countries and in any adverse medical conditions.

Day of competition only the pre-competition foods and fluids.

Carbohydrate intake before exercise:

Eating carbohydrates before morning exercise 2-4 hours helps replenish glycogen store and improve endurance, to minimize problems with gastrointestinal distress the carbohydrate and calorie content of the meal should be eaten when closer to the workout. Although, some can tolerate solid foods others prefer liquids to avoid gastrointestinal distress.

Carbohydrate intake during exercise:

During exercise, athletes can maintain the carbohydrate supply to the exercising muscle by consuming beverages with low to moderate amounts of simple carbohydrates. When an event lasts at least one-hour drinking fluids with 4-8% carbohydrates enable athletes to exercise longer.

Carbohydrate intake following exercise:

It can take 1-2 days after a sports event to reload glycogen stores and the type of carbohydrates and the timing are the main factors in the reloading process. Athletes who ingest 1.5 grams/kilogram of body weight within 30 minutes after exercise have been shown to experience a greater rate of muscle glycogen resynthesis than when supplementation is delayed by 2 hours.

The best way to replenish glycogen storage after intense exercise is to 1-1.5 gram carbohydrate/kilogram of body weight within  30 minutes after a workout, followed by an additional 1-1.5 gram/kilogram of body weight 2 hours later. Carbohydrate intake after exercise also benefits protein metabolism.

Average energy requirement for different categories of Indian sportspersons:

Group	Energy requirement (kcal/kg of body weight)	Average body weight in kilograms
I	70	80-90
II	80	65 (60-70)
IIA	70	65
IIB	60	60
IV	50	60

NOTE: These amounts may vary in different countries and in any adverse medical conditions.