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Posts Tagged ‘hydration’

A new line of Ironman-branded premium sports drinks developed by the sports nutrition experts at PowerBar® is being launched today. Ironman® PERFORM™ sports drink features PowerBar’s state-of-the-art C2MAX carbohydrate blend, found to deliver 20 to 50 percent more energy to muscles and improve endurance performance by eight percent.

Designed for athletes who take part in intense workouts, or who exercise in the heat or humidity and experience significant fluid and electrolyte loss, the new Ironman PERFORM sports drink also enhances performance by delivering essential electrolytes, including 190 mg of sodium per serving, to replenish what athletes lose in sweat and to help avoid skeletal muscle cramps and dehydration. The convenient ready-to-drink beverage is also made with natural flavors and without the use of high fructose corn syrup.

“I have been testing out the new Ironman PERFORM sports drink in training and it has a light taste and was easy on my stomach,” said Ironman champion Samantha McGlone. “Ironman PERFORM is the most convenient way to meet all my hydration and nutrition needs during hard racing and training. It will be key for me to now have its performance-enhancing formula on course when it counts this season.”

Nestlé Performance Nutrition and its PowerBar® brand, along with the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), are working together on the new line of Ironman-branded sports drinks, an extension of PowerBar’s longstanding global partnership with Ironman and its role as the official global energy bar and energy gel supplier of all Ironman and 70.3 events.

“We have a fundamental goal and shared mission with Ironman, which is to help athletes perform at their best,” said Phil Annett, Global Business Head at Nestlé Performance Nutrition. “Applying the latest sports science to get the right balance of performance benefits, taste and stomach comfort in the new Ironman PERFORM sports drink was a long yet essential development process designed to help athletes achieve optimum performance.”
Groundbreaking Research

C2MAX, the unique, high-octane carbohydrate formulation found in new Ironman PERFORM sports drink, was developed based on groundbreaking research published in the February 2008 issue of Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, the official journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. The study showed that consuming an optimized blend of glucose and fructose carbohydrates allowed athletes to perform better, increase fluid delivery and experience less perceived exertion following exercise. PowerBar, through the Nestlé Research Center, continues to support a series of follow-up carbohydrate performance field trials with lead research author Dr. Asker Jeukendrup and his team at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham. The aim of these trials is to apply this breakthrough science to the development of new sports nutrition tools, such as new Ironman PERFORM sports drink, for endurance athletes.

“Ironman is the pinnacle of endurance sports and we believe in having the latest tools available for our athletes,” says Ben Fertic, President and CEO of Ironman. “As Ironman celebrates its 32nd anniversary, we are excited to offer the world’s top athletes a new product that is designed to enhance their training and race day experience.”

Through the new agreement, Ironman PERFORM will be the official sports drink for the following events in 2010: Amica Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island, Ironman 70.3 Racine, Rohto Ironman 70.3 Miami, Ford Ironman Lake Placid, Ford Ironman Louisville, Ford Ironman Wisconsin, Ford Ironman Florida and Ford Ironman Arizona. Additionally, both the 2010 Ford Ironman World Championship and Foster Grant Ironman World Championship 70.3 events will include Ironman PERFORM on-course, and the product will be on course at upcoming Aflac Iron Girl events throughout the 2010 season.

PowerBar’s heritage with the sport of triathlon traces back to the company’s beginning, and triathletes worldwide have come to rely on PowerBar’s sports nutrition products for top-level training and competition. Through the company’s Team Elite™ ambassador program, Ironman and 70.3 athletes have contributed to PowerBar’s product development programs for elite athletes, and this new sponsorship and licensing agreement is a natural extension of the long-standing relationship.

The Ironman brand has become a sports icon around the globe as more and more athletes continue to take on Ironman and 70.3 events each year. Additionally, while Ironman consists of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-marathon, it symbolizes passion, performance and the aspiration to challenge yourself to the fullest.

It amazes me how many athletes don’t drink enough during training and racing. The excuses I hear go from the sublime to the ridiculous and with some of the early season races this year experiencing higher temperatures far above the norm It’s time to go back and take a serious look at this most important aspect of good health and performance.

Dehydration can be linked to so many things; diabetes and asthma to name just two. Dr F. Batmanghelidj wrote a best seller a few years back entitled Water & Salt. You’re Healers from within. In it he listed so many reasons why we needed water that it is hard to understand why people don’t realize why our bodies need it. Here are a just 7 extracts from his book that are relevant to us as athletes.

• It prevents DNA damage and makes its repair mechanisms more efficient.
• It increases the efficiency of the immune system including its efficiency against cancer.
• It clears toxic waste from the different part of the body for dispersal through our kidneys and liver.
• It’s the main lubricant in the joint spaces so helps prevent arthritis and back pain.
• It’s the best lubricating laxative. Need I say more?
• It’s essential to the body’s cooling and heating system.
• It’s needed for the efficient manufacture of serotonin – our feel good hormone.

So with just these 7 points (and there are loads more) we start to understand how imperative water is to our lives, even more so when we train on a daily basis. If you consider how much the body relies on water for our daily tasks, imagine the increase in energy while training when you apply yourself to increasing your water intake.

Yes I know loads of you our shouting out saying ‘my tap waters not good enough to drink and bottled water is too expensive’. Well that’s true. Water treatment these days includes a variety of measure including the much hated chlorine. Joke is Chlorine in its pure form is harmless to us. However throw it into water to clean it then it become toxic. It’s got to a point that in some countries chlorine in swimming pools is banned. Filtration systems at home are now the norm and while expensive to install, a healthier lifestyle ensues.

Anyway I digress….Water. How much do we need well the rule was 2 litres a day but that’s just a ball park figure. Dr Batmanghelidj advises using a formula of body weight in KG’s x 0.033. This is the amount of pure water that needs to be drunk over the course of the day. Sorry to burst you bubble but coffee doesn’t count. It acts as a diuretic.

Happy drinking!

This post courtesy of Jono Rumbelow – Certified Ironguides Coach