How to Make Homemade Sports Drink with Carbs and Electrolytes

Unlock the secrets of sports nutrition as we explore the often-confused sugars—glucose and dextrose—with insights from nutrition expert Kristen Arnold, MS, RDN, CSSD. Then we'll delve deeper into the world of maltodextrin and learn how mixing carbohydrate sources can drastically enhance your athletic performance. As a bonus, we'll provide Kristen's recipe for a homemade sports drink that's easy to make, features inexpensive ingredients, and is easily customizable.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Are Glucose vs. dextrose the same thing?
• Maltodextrin as a carbohydrate source for sports drinks
• Glucose + Fructose for increased rate of absorption 
• Kristen Arnold's simple, inexpensive, and effective sports drink recipe
• Brand name sports drink examples
• Making your own high carbohydrate sports drink

RESOURCES
- Episode 192: Do Regular Cyclists Benefit From Super High Carbohydrate Intakes? https://youtu.be/WyrGWlEMBEM
- Slow vs Fast Carbs:
- Ratios of sugar combinations in sport drinks
- Never Second 2:1 ratio from Asker Jeukendrup
- SuperHigh Carb
- Beta Fuel
- Glucose vs Fructose vs Sucrose
- Kristen Arnold's website 

SPORTS DRINK RECIPE
(makes two, 16-oz bottles)
- 32oz Water
- ¼ tsp table salt
- 4 tbsp Maple Syrup
- Flavor of choice (1 oz fruit juice, a squeeze of lime juice, a few drops of peppermint oil… experiment with your favorite flavors!)

Nutrition Facts: (per 16oz)
Calories: ~104kcal
Carbs: 27g
Fat: 0g
Protein: 0g
Sodium: 308mg

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HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Chapters

• 0:07 Difference Between Glucose and Dextrose
• 14:43 Training Podcast Promotion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

From the team at CTS. This is the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now on to our show. Welcome back, time Crunch fans. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, here to answer your questions from you, our audience, but as it turns out, it stretched me a bit on everything that I knew and it encouraged me to read up on the latest research and reach out to some friends and experts in the field of sport nutrition to fully answer it. Now that I have you on the edge of your seat, let's hear the riveting question. All right? So here it is Glucose versus dextrose. Hey, friends, love the podcast. Thanks for this. Here's a quick question that I can't seem to answer with my internet searching that I bet you can all answer.

Speaker 1: 1:37

From a fueling perspective. What's the difference between glucose and dextrose? Some internet sources say that glucose and dextrose are exactly the same thing. Others say that dextrose is. Some internet sources say that glucose and dextrose are exactly the same thing. Others say that dextrose is a form of glucose. When I search for glucose on consumer websites, amazon for example, my search often returns products that say dextrose rather than glucose on the label. I'm interested in making my own sport drink and these sources suggest that it doesn't matter if I buy glucose powder or dextrose powder. But I recently heard a guest on a different podcast recommend not drinking Gatorade because it contains dextrose instead of glucose. Can you all say whether there is really a difference between them? Many thanks for the excellent podcast. And that's coming from Dan. Yeah, hey, dan. Thank you for the question and yes, we can answer that here.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Glucose and dextrose are recognized in the body the same way. They're both monosaccharides, so that means that they're simple sugar molecules that can't be broken down any further, and they have the same chemical formula, c6h12o6. Now here's where my inner nerd got really excited, to use my chemistry minor from college. Technically, dextrose or D-glucose has a different orientation of its molecular structure. They are what we call isomers. But I'll stop there, because that the granular detail of isomerism doesn't really matter when it comes to a sport drink for performance and absorption in the body, and I probably can't really even do it justice with my handful of semesters of chemistry 20 years ago but they are the same composition.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Focus on this. Our body absorbs it, receives it, uses it. In the same matter as glucose translation, it's the same thing we entered. Now we do interchange dextrose and glucose often, so it's super confusing. So where does this come from? It super doesn't matter. But look up dextrorotatory and I think I butchered that but D-E-X-T-R-O-R-O-T-A-O-R-Y, and that will describe the optical orientation of the isomer that we're talking about, and it like shifts that to the right and that's what they call the D designation. Like I said, that's above my pay grade and it doesn't matter when it comes to the absorption and utilization, but it is fun to read about, if, if you think that's fun. So all that to say. So that answers that question for you, dan.

Speaker 1: 4:22

But let's take it a step further though, as it pertains to drink mixes. Maltodextrin is another common ingredient in sport drinks and it's just a bunch of glucose molecules linked together, but when we ingest this, it's still absorbed at the same rate as glucose and dextrose Okay, same things, around 60 grams an hour, but it's less sweet than pure dextrose or glucose. So, dan, I say that to tell you, don't be scared of labels or people that tell you not to drink dextrose. It's fine, it's all glucose. Okay.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Now, real quick, to kind of the optimal absorption If you add fructose to that combination. So if you have a glucose fructose combination in your sport drink mix, that does elevate the absorption up to around that 90 grams and maybe even beyond. So that's where the ratios come into play. We'll talk about more of that, more of that here in just a minute. But all of this stuff that I just said, I did reach out to nutrition expert Kristen Arnold of Sport Nutrition for Women, who's been on the podcast several times, and I just wanted to verify all of that like nerdy stuff and factual stuff with her, and she gave me the stamp of approval on that. And not only did I ask for that, I asked her for the most simple home recipe for a sport drink mix that she could provide, and she did.

Speaker 2: 5:55

If you're making your own drink mix, you want to remember that you want multiple sources of carbohydrates, so that means glucose and fructose. Table sugar is actually sucrose, which sucrose is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. So if you made a drink mix that was one part glucose powder and one part table sugar, you effectively get a four to one ratio of glucose to fructose effectively get a four to one ratio of glucose to fructose. Now, the reason that I normally use that ratio is that most athletes have a harder time digesting fructose, and so it's a more conservative ratio. Some athletes can go all the way up to two to one, so two parts glucose to one part fructose. And it's really important to make sure that you're experimenting and that the drink mix that you're making works for you. So the recipe that I have in there is relatively high in sodium and electrolytes and then also contains up to 90 grams of carb for a 20 ounce bottle.

Speaker 1: 7:12

I'll read the recipe now. So here's what I'm calling Kristen's simple homemade drink mix recipe. So this makes two 16 ounce bottles of water, so 32 ounces total. Here's the recipe 32 ounces of water, one quarter teaspoon of table salt, four tablespoons of maple syrup, and then add the flavor of your choice. This could be an ounce of fruit juice, a squeeze of lime juice, a few drops of peppermint oil or experiment with whatever your favorite flavors are. Okay, and the nutritional facts behind this is per 16 ounce bottle so that's one serving is you've got about 104 calories, total 27 grams of carbohydrate, zero grams of fat, zero grams of protein in around 300 milligrams of sodium.

Speaker 1: 7:54

One thing you'll notice about Kristen's recipe it uses maple syrup, no fancy powders or mixes. Why and what is maple syrup? It's primarily sucrose, which is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose in a one-to-one ratio. This is essentially table sugar. Now, there's nothing wrong with drinking this it performs well. But our body has to break down sucrose into glucose and fructose via the mouth and the small intestine in order to use it At the ratios Kristen provided above. Your body shouldn't have any issues with this at any intensity on the bike.

Speaker 1: 8:31

For me personally, I, you know. So maybe I'm just lazy, but I buy my own drink mixes. I find it to be more simple, less to worry about, and I also have high carb mixes for longer endurance days and, with you know, hard efforts kind of like intermittent throughout the day. And I also have high carb mixes for longer endurance days and, with you know, hard efforts kind of like, um, intermittent throughout the day. And I also have moderate carb mixes for the shorter, more intense days or sometimes for me personally, like a hotter day. Um, the moderate carbohydrate mixes perform really, really well. So we're brand neutral here on the podcast. So here's some examples that work for my athletes and or myself Higher carb drink mixes so we're talking 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrate per bottle or per serving. We're talking about, like the scratch, super high carb, never second 90. Or the SIS beta fuel for good examples. Moderate carbohydrate mixes Now, these are anything between 25 grams and 60 grams of carbohydrate per bottle. This is your scratch hydration, never second 30. Or Morton one 60.

Speaker 1: 9:38

If you're making your own sport drink mix and you want to go beyond what Kristen Arnold recommended, I suggest using a two sugar combination with glucose and fructose in the ratios of two to one or up to one to 0.8. Now I've linked to good research and further reading about both and how they perform in laboratory settings. I use both personally, I have athletes that also use both in in drink mixes and they both work. So explore it for yourself, find what works best for you for the specific training day or race day, um. But if you're making your own drink mix, here we go.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Okay, first of all, play around with the different amounts of carbohydrates by using the ratios that I gave you above. So two to one or one to 0.8. If you're brewing, say, for example, a 60 gram drink mix batch, that would look like 40 grams of maltodextrin and 20 grams of fructose, and that's a two to one ratio. Or 36 grams of maltodextrin and 24 grams of fructose that's the one to 0.8 ratio. Now a chef friend of mine told me uh is suggested trying sodium citrate for your sodium of choice. It's a little bit more mild and has a slight tartness, uh, with subtle saltiness, and you can try one to two grams per bottle um at first and then scale up from there. So one to two grams is about 250 to 500 milligrams of sodium per serving respectively. Now I'd aim for this quantity of carbohydrate on your training days. If you're, if you're making your own homebrew 30 to 60 grams for endurance days, that you're riding 90 minutes or less and that can be with some intensity or it's hot and humid out Go up to 90 grams for your long, harder days and I'll put a little asterisk there and say do you really need to go higher than that per bottle If your whole goal is kind of that? You know, 90 grams per hour and up to now. The reason I put an asterisk on there is for most of us amateur athletes, not in the pro tour, not doing grand tours and in 20 days of racing back to back to back.

Speaker 1: 12:00

Go ahead and listen to my podcast with Alex Hutchinson on high carb drink mixes and endurance training. Okay, so this 90 to a hundred. We know that to be the upper limit now of absorption and digestion in the human gut when you're blending the sugars together. Do we need to go beyond that? Do you actually absorb it and utilize it? Listen to that podcast. So. And then also a reminder of just use water or electrolytes on your easy days and you'll be, you'll be just fine. So play with the ratios, see what's right for you.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Overall, my advice on the mixology explorers out there is yeah, go buy some maltodextrin, dextrose and fructose and work with the right combination for your flavor preferences and demands. On the bike for training, racing or just going easy can be a very confusing place when we start talking about the best blend of carbohydrates or the perfect ratios of sugar for optimal hydration all those buzz terms. It's even more complicated when we have two words for the same thing, like glucose and dextrose, for example. So, dan, thank you for writing in with this question. It's really. It was really fun to go down that carbohydrate hole for the whole podcast today, but overall, I want to I want everyone to just keep it simple. Okay.

Speaker 1: 13:25

First of all, you can use what you have at home, as Chris and Arnold advise in the drink mix recipe that we provided. Number two buy your own drink mixes and don't worry about it. If you want to be lazy like me, okay, buy your own drink mixes and don't worry about it. If you want to be lazy like me, okay. And you can buy high carb or moderate carb mixes, and they're already optimized for all the performance needs without having to think more about it.

Speaker 1: 13:49

Finally, though, if, if you know, and I do encourage curiosity. So if you are curious and you want to save some money, you can buy in bulk and you can make your own drink mix at home. Now, this will take some work and some experimentation and you'll fail as you learn. But once you find the right combination, then it's rinse and repeat and you'll be saving money by not spending all that for the other drink mixes that are out there, typically speaking and I do have friends in athletes that make their own and and yeah, it is a lot cheaper. So, but just know that there's going to be some work on your end to find the proper ratios and flavors and things like that.

Speaker 1: 14:33

So, with that said, I want to thank you all again for not only listening to the podcast but sharing your questions, challenges and curiosities by writing into CTS.

Speaker 1: 14:43

If you're new to the show and you don't know about our Q&A platform, head over to trainwritecom backslash podcast and click on ask a training question. Your questions get sent directly to me and we do our best to answer those questions on upcoming episodes. So that's it. That's our show for today. If you like what you heard, please share it with a training partner or a friend, as that's the best way to grow the show and make sure that you keep getting the actionable training advice for your athletic journey. Be sure to come back next week for more and until then, keep getting out there and training right. Thanks for joining us on the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actionable training advice, head over to trainrightcom backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in-depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast. That'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.