The back of a gel pack always says it should always be taken with water.
Is it not as efficient if I wash it down with a mouthful of sports drink?
Depends on the gel, and I’m guessing if it says take with water it’s not the kind of gel that can’t be taken with something else or nothing at all. Basically yes, most gels don’t absorb as well when taken with sports drink.
~Matt
Take with water is to rinse all the sugar off your teeth.
Take with anything you want if your belly can handle it.
another stupid question:
I mix 4 gels and a small amount of water in a flask and take it without water. should i still use water if I hydrate at the aid stations with Gatorade?
I thought the advice to take with water was to dilute the concentrated sugar about to hit your stomach. So the sports drink would be adding more sugar to the mix.
Thw drinking it with a liquid is to clense the palate. However, it depends on your stomach. If you take it with sports drink, it could be too much sugar and lead to G.I. Distress. It depends on the calories in the gel, the type of sugars and the sports drink.
For example, if it were a power gel, I’d take it with water, very fast acting simple sugars. Something like a Cytomax gel, I could take with sports drink (Cytomax) since the sugars are slower uptake, but I’d still likely use water. I would never take any gel with gatorade (that’s because I’d never use gatorade) since it’s got such a high sugar content, it’d be too many calories at once.
I’ve eaten GU, Hammer, Powergel and Cliff with Gatorade, Heed, Accelerade, Infinit and water.
The Heed and Infinit worked the best, with water next and then Accelerade and Gatorade
jaretj
I tried gel with sports drink only and it didnt’ work out too well for me.
It was on my first attempt at an IM length ride to work on nutrition I took too much gel and sports drink and not enough water. I felt like a stuffed sausage by the time I got off the bike and couldn’t run.
Last two long rides (110 +) I’ve made sure that I take a sip of water after every gel or sip of sports drink. In fact, my last long ride went like this:
Every 10 minutes take sip/drink of concentrated infinit. Follow with sip of water.
Every 5 minutes take sip of water.
Gels every hour after the first bottle of infinit and with water.
I have been leary of gels since the stomach thing a few weeks ago but have gotten back up to a gel an hour after 2 hrs of riding. This is always done with water. This weekend I will go back to the gel every hour with water afterwards and see how that works as the gel and Infinit should get me to the calories I think I will need to take in on the bike at IMoo.
So for me, it’s a big YES that I need to take water (not sports drink) after gels.
Go Gels don’t need water.
I think it depends on what you’re used to and what your stomach likes/dislikes. FWIW, I take Gu with water, gatorade, or coke w/o problems.
That’s really Dependant on “how much water”. You can mix gel with enough water to be fine drinking a sports drink. But “A little”, meaning enough to be able to get it out of the flask, is probably not enough. Typically they give an amount to drink with the water. If you mix that much with it than yes, otherwise, no.
~Matt
The back of a gel pack always says it should always be taken with water.
Is it not as efficient if I wash it down with a mouthful of sports drink?
No, it is not as efficient. You should dilute with water. It will help your gut to empty. GSSI has done a ton of research and they show how absorbtion rates go down when you take gels with gatorade.
Yes there are those that can eat sand and handle it. But why take the chance.