Can Sports Drinks Stop Brain Fatigue?

Posted on July 23, 2009 in Consumer Goods, Health & Medicine, Recent Studies

English scientists recently studied how cyclists stave off fatigue by swishing around a sports drink. The added brain boost helped the riders power through their workout—and finish significantly faster than a water-consuming group.

The experiment, published February in the Journal of Physiology, involved eight competitive cyclists who completed a strenuous stationary bicycle ride in a lab. Half the group sipped and spit out sports drinks with carbohydrates, while the other half swigged flavored water. The cyclists who rinsed with carbohydrate drinks also had higher heart rates and power output. However, all eight felt they put out a similar effort.

The cyclists’ brains were more savvy: the areas of the brain associated with reward activated when the subjects swished a carbohydrate drink. Even though the riders never swallowed the drink, their brains expected a fuel payoff and helped their muscles work harder.

What does this mean for exhausted exercisers? Many physiologists now believe that fatigue happens in the brain as well as in the muscles. When you speed up at the end of a difficult workout, the brain is working in tandem with your straining muscles to reach the end. It might not hurt to reward yourself with a carbohydrate-rich beverage in order to give your brain that necessary boost.