What to Drink Around a Hard Session

The drinks aisle of a supplement shop is where the most money gets spent on the least benefit. Most sessions need water. A few need more than that, and it is worth knowing which.

Before training, caffeine is the only ingredient with a reliable effect, and two hundred milligrams roughly ninety minutes out is plenty for most people. Citrulline and beta-alanine have modest evidence at honest doses. If a pre-workout will not tell you how much of each it contains, it is selling the tingle rather than the effect.

During training, anything under an hour needs water and nothing else. Past that, or in real heat, sodium becomes the limiting factor long before carbohydrate does. An electrolyte drink at a sensible sodium concentration will do more for a long session than a sugary energy drink.

Afterwards, the famous thirty-minute window is much wider than it was once sold as. What matters is that protein and carbohydrate arrive at some point in the next few hours. A shake is convenient when appetite has not returned yet, which after a hard session is often the real problem.