This article looks at the effect of drinking beer before exercise
What’s the deal?
Picture the scene: you just arrived at your race event and you’re thirsty, but you’ve forgotten your pre-race drink containing electrolytes. You can either have water, or you could head to the finish area and grab a beer or a non-alcoholic beer… What should you do?
What did they do?
7 football (soccer) players were recruited and instructed to consume 700 mL (about 25 fl oz) of either water, beer or non-alcoholic beer. 45 minutes later, participants ran on a treadmill for 45 minutes, at 65% intensity. Blood samples were taken at the start and end of exercise.
What happened?
Drinking non-alcoholic beer maintained the level of electrolytes (sodium and potassium) throughout exercise. In contrast, drinking water maintained only the potassium levels and drinking alcoholic beer did not maintain either electrolyte.
What can you tell me about the people?
Participants were male, with an average age of 19. They all had over 6 years of football experience and had excellent VO2 Max values.
What else should I know?
Sodium and potassium are key electrolytes when it comes to sports performance. Our bodies work hard to maintain a nice balance of these electrolytes, but exercising will temporarily upset this balance, especially in the muscles. Electrolyte-based sports drinks help to maintain this balance and have been shown to improve sports performance.
What will I do differently?
I do not like beer, so unfortunately the headline finding of this experiment is a little lost on me. I do have a habit of drinking water prior to exercising though, so perhaps I’ll consider avoiding that in future!
Acknowledgements
This research was published in June 2016 by M Castro-Sepulveda and colleagues from Universidad Finis Terrae in Chile.
This article highlights our personal take on their research, but there is so much more information available! Check it out here and see what you think!
Abstract Athlete 