Great response. You win the internet...

Back to reality, your point is that humans don't need any fuel to perform. Useful advice.

mmm coffee.

I think the study is interesting but not conclusive. Like most studies it adds to a larger body of research.
I'm reminded of a discussion I had with an energy drink representative. Which was built upon while I was studying this sort of thing.
Most (industry funded) studies use a time to exhaustion protocol and participants are fasted before the study. no-one races like this.
So a time trial or race is a better predictor but if the participants are not fasted there's largely no difference in performance.
So the energy drink/gel/bar thing I more about convenience than outright performance. We can use real food if that suits you or the huge choice of energy products.
We are generally performing outside of what a lab test is prepared to do. How many subjects will do an Ironman in lab conditions? So trial and error is the name of the game for us.
For "normal" people exercising for an hour or less there is very little need for energy products. Companies has done an amazing job of promoting them to normal people who don't need them.
As for comparing them to sugar drinks. Who here has not drank flat cola as an "energy" drink? Very effective, palatable and available.

So, how do you make flat coke?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Half coke and half water. Lemond wrote about this in his book. It's what he drank and on the bike, the cola gave it a good flavor without the fizz, which can be harder to drink fast.

Swimming isn't a sport. Therefore, it stands to reason that a "sports drink" would not be beneficial.

If you're making it in bulk, use raw Coke syrup and must mix with water.

For personal use just leave an opened Coke in fridge for a day.

Damn. How much did you get for your kidney?

Am I the only one who remembers?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

monty wrote:
My overall point is that what you drink (unless it contains some drug) is not going to make one bit of difference in a study like this
mmm coffee. ///

mmm coffee is a drug, at least the caffeinated versions. In fact just saw in the news this week another kid died from an overdose of caffeine. And when I say drugs, I mean legal and illegal.

Am I the only one who remembers?
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Nope. I'm finding it especially funny that they are trying to answer you seriously.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

was in a study a couple of years ago just to get the free Vo2max test and they did a biopsy in both quads, six samples each from the same location. No long term damage, but my quads felt very bruised for several days and they still hurt some two weeks later. The researchers said this was odd, but then again, they were digging pretty deep but the 5th and 6th samples. It hurt. I don't recommend it.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

Hello milesthedog and All,

Thanks .... does not sound like desirable elective surgery ... unless sacrificing self for science ....

Hmmmm .... I was thinking it would probably leave some scar tissue ........

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

I didn't read the article, but I have to wonder: why the sport of swimming was chosen?

The pool temperature I am imagine helps with temperature regulation. So, drinking water or anything else to replace lost fluids or to help regulate core temperature is minimal during a swim.

As far as need for calories go, do we believe that glycogen stores would have been consumed with 75 minutes of swimming? I cannot imagine...

:) yeah should have read the article, but saw the comments on Tri and running and just couldn't make the leap

Heck the second one is going to hurt if you really did the first max effort (ie race effort).

no scar tissue and cycling performance has improved since, so the effects a month+ later are completely gone.

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wovebike.com | Wove on instagram

This is another problem with this type of study, they really are not max efforts. If they were the times would have exploded all over the place, and you would not have such a small variance. What they need to say is that they were max efforts taking into account that you know you have to do 10 of them at a pace as close as possible.

You are right, if truly max efforts, about 1/2 way through they would need the ladder to get out of the pool, and later swims would be over 2 minutes. They would be so blown that the curve on times would look like a plane falling out of the sky. And it would be a unrepeatable exercise, at least for comparison sake.

Oh good point! I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for pointing that out.