Question: What do you think about sports drinks? Should I be drinking a bottle of Gatorade after a workout or would water be a cheaper, equally valuable hydration method?
- Excited Freshman, wants to be like Mike
Answer: The main difference between drinks like Gatorade and water is that the sports drinks provide carbohydrates and electrolytes. The carbohydrates help to replenish the energy that you lose during exercise and the electrolytes provide important minerals such as potassium, chloride, and sodium to help renew the supply lost while sweating.
While sports drinks ultimately provide superior hydration to water, these benefits are often unnecessary for all but the most intense athletes. Many scientific studies have shown that providing the body with these nutrients during exercise does help to increase athletic performance. However, these studies simulate physical exertion far more intense than what most people experience at the gym. For the most part, water should be good enough to hydrate your body, assuming a healthy and appropriate diet for your level of activity.
My advice would be to save some money and stay away from sports drinks for athletic purposes in all but the most extreme circumstances. It's good to keep in mind, however, that Gatorade makes a good substitute for soda, due to its decreased caloric quantity per serving. Gatorade only has 50 calories per serving compared with at least twice as many for most sodas.
Q: I want to get toned, but I don't want to get big. You always write about lifting to get huge, and these articles generally seem targeted towards males. But I'm a girl who is worried about having masculine arms and shoulders. What would be the best way to get toned without worrying about massive muscles?
- Freshmen girl, scared of big guys grunting
A: The myth of getting huge from weightlifting seems to be a common female misconception. Let's correct this one right now.
The bottom line is that almost all females lack the endogenous testosterone to really build massive amounts of muscle. Ladies, look around at the guys in the gym. Every single one of them is trying to get as big as humanly possible. Don't most of them look scrawny and pathetic? And they have significantly more testosterone running through their veins than those girls on the elliptical. So put to rest those ideas about developing massive deltoids like Alton from the Gauntlet and start focusing on how strength training can be beneficial for you.
Weightlifting can help build small amounts of muscle that will help raise metabolism, as muscle is more metabolically active than fat. Also, you get a metabolic increase following exercise, in addition to fat burned while exercising. I would even argue that in some cases, you are more likely to lose a few pounds of flab doing resistance training than spending hours on the elliptical. Strength training is the best way to tone your muscles and tighten up those problem areas.
This isn't to say that a female seeking to tone up should use the same lifting program as male friends trying to get huge. While those guys should be lifting in moderate rep ranges with a minute or so of rest between sets, you should focus on increasing the intensity of your strength training workout.
Due to the crowds that regularly plague the fitness center, I wouldn't recommend trying a full circuit training regimen, but I would recommend using some of the principles of circuit training to up the intensity of your session while still providing a resistance workout. Try breaking your whole workout into supersets - one exercise right after another. Don't rest between supersets. Move on immediately to your next group of exercises. Focus on working compound motions, such as lunges and hip lifts, for your lower body, and multiple exercises, such as a bicep curl into a shoulder press (in one continuous motion), for your upper body.
By combining compound motions into supersets, it's possible to get a full body resistance training workout in 30 to 40 minutes. At the end of this workout, your muscles should feel tired and your heart rate should be elevated. It's good to work up a sweat while lifting, and you may find it more intense - and also more enjoyable - than spending 45 minutes (because I have seen many of you ignore the 30 minute limit) on the elliptical machine.
