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What is Fitness Water?

Tricia Christensen
Tricia Christensen
Tricia Christensen
Tricia Christensen

Fitness water is now being made and marketed by a number of companies. Among them, probably the best known is Gatorade’s Propel® Fitness Water. If you look, you’ll find numerous other brands, many with a variety of ingredients and flavors, and most with claims that they are superior to drinking plain water.

Some fitness water types are flavored. Propel® for instance, comes in over ten flavors, and it does contain electrolytes, sugar, Splenda® or sucralose and a variety of other ingredients. Other types claim to help with fat burning by adding different herbs. Green tea extract is particularly popular, since it adds some caffeine to the water, which may slightly increase energy and physical output for those who work out.

Fitness water can help runners maintain their fluid and electrolyte balance.
Fitness water can help runners maintain their fluid and electrolyte balance.

You do really have to look at some of the different fitness water brands to see what they contain. The SoBe® company’s LifeWater® is hugely different from Propel. If you note nutritional information, LifeWater purports to have 50 calories per serving, yet a bottle of the stuff provides you with 2.5 servings, or essentially 125 calories. Though this water contains vitamins and electrolytes, it’s pretty high in calories as opposed to plain water.

Fitness waters have added ingredients including electrolytes, herbs, tea extract, and caffeine.
Fitness waters have added ingredients including electrolytes, herbs, tea extract, and caffeine.

Propel®, in contrast, cuts calories by adding Splenda® and has about 10 calories per serving. Again, there’s more than one serving in a container, so drinking a whole bottle of Propel® will add about 30 calories to your diet. This amount is negligible, but some people are wary of artificial sweeteners, particularly in light of studies performed that suggest diet soda may make people gain weight. Note that most diet sodas studied contained aspartame and not sucralose (Spenda®).

People who work out intensely need to replenish not only water, but also crucial salts and electrolytes lost through sweat.
People who work out intensely need to replenish not only water, but also crucial salts and electrolytes lost through sweat.

While you can purchase some fitness water by the bottle, other types are available in small packets that can be added to the water of your choosing. This may be a slightly less expensive way to consume this flavored water, and can allow you to use more environmentally friendly metal bottles instead of purchasing more plastic. There has been significant argument over the use of plastic bottles for water of any type, and some cities in the US have banned the sale of plastic bottles.

There has been some debate over the drinking of bottled water of any type.
There has been some debate over the drinking of bottled water of any type.

Some believe that fitness water is just a marketing technique. Others argue that some people simply have trouble drinking water, but will drink more if the water is flavored. If you are using fitness water, do be sure to read the ingredients. You shouldn’t give caffeine-enhanced types to young children, and some herbs in the more “natural” brands, may be of some concern if you have certain medical conditions or on some kinds of medication. For example, if you take the blood thinner Coumadin® (warfarin), you’d want to watch Vitamin K amounts in any type of fitness water you use.

Tricia Christensen
Tricia Christensen

Tricia has a Literature degree from Sonoma State University and has been a frequent WiseGEEK contributor for many years. She is especially passionate about reading and writing, although her other interests include medicine, art, film, history, politics, ethics, and religion. Tricia lives in Northern California and is currently working on her first novel.

Learn more...
Tricia Christensen
Tricia Christensen

Tricia has a Literature degree from Sonoma State University and has been a frequent WiseGEEK contributor for many years. She is especially passionate about reading and writing, although her other interests include medicine, art, film, history, politics, ethics, and religion. Tricia lives in Northern California and is currently working on her first novel.

Learn more...

Discussion Comments

bmessinger

Shaklee Performance (sports drink)has more science behind their product than any other company.

If you read the peer reviewed papers, you'll see that importance of proper hydration for oxygen transport during physically demanding exercise is only the tip of the iceberg.

Electrolytes: to maintain the salts that are missing when one goes into hyponatremia (as you mentioned with unaware marathoners drinking too much water).

Carbohydrates for steady fuel replacement: Three different types to stagger the absorption and burning rates.

See the Daedalus project that the MIT engineers put together, designing the first real human-powered flight. They had to find athletes capable of pedaling the aircraft for the experiment (over the Aegean sea from the island of Crete to Santorini {about 71 miles} as in the fable of Icarus).

Shaklee's team of scientists developed this performance drink so the athletes could perform this feat that turned out to be like running two marathons back-to-back! Talk about the power of proper "hydration"!

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    • Fitness water can help runners maintain their fluid and electrolyte balance.
      By: Maridav
      Fitness water can help runners maintain their fluid and electrolyte balance.
    • Fitness waters have added ingredients including electrolytes, herbs, tea extract, and caffeine.
      By: Jiri Hera
      Fitness waters have added ingredients including electrolytes, herbs, tea extract, and caffeine.
    • People who work out intensely need to replenish not only water, but also crucial salts and electrolytes lost through sweat.
      By: geronimo
      People who work out intensely need to replenish not only water, but also crucial salts and electrolytes lost through sweat.
    • There has been some debate over the drinking of bottled water of any type.
      By: Subbotina Anna
      There has been some debate over the drinking of bottled water of any type.