Tag: jockology

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Water, sugar, salt: the key ingredients in sports drinks

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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[UPDATE: See this post for a homebrew recipe]

New Jockology column posted here, on sports drinks:

If you’re an old-school type who thinks plain water is all you need, consider this puzzling fact: Rinsing your mouth with a drink containing carbohydrates will boost your athletic performance, even if you don’t swallow and can’t taste the carbs. [keep reading]

The column takes a look at which ingredients you need (and which you don’t) to keep you fuelled and hydrated during intense exercise. I’ve received a couple of e-mails already asking for recipes for “home-brewed” sports drinks. That’s an excellent question, and I’ll do a little research then post something in the next few days. In the meantime, if anyone has any recipes to suggest, please post them!

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Commuting calories: walk, run or bike?

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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New Jockology column now posted here:

THE QUESTION

Will I get a better workout by walking, running or biking my 5K commute to work?

THE ANSWER

Most commuters strive to be as efficient as possible. To get the best workout (specifically, to burn the most calories), you’re better off being inefficient. [continue reading]

A couple of interesting points have already been raised in the comments section, including one about what “net” calories refers to. In brief:

“Net” is referring to the total calories burned while moving a kilometer MINUS the number of calories you would have burned during that time just by being alive (your “basal metabolic rate”). Otherwise walking gets credited with burning a bunch of extra calories just because it takes longer.

As a rough approximation, running burns about 50% more GROSS calories per kilometre than walking, but twice as many NET calories.

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Jockology: exercises for strong bones

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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This week’s Jockology column (just posted) takes on a frequently asked question: What type of exercise is best for maintaining strong bones?

Once you reach adulthood, it’s basically one long fight against the slow but inexorable loss of bone strength – and the key to that fight, many of us assume, is weight-bearing activities.

But the latest research shows that resistance-training exercises like lifting weights can also play a crucial role in bone health – and in some cases are even more effective than weight-bearing activities such as elliptical training. [read the rest of the column…]

When my dad read the column this morning, he asked me if that meant that all the biking he does is no good for maintaining his bone strength. He’s correct that the research I presented suggests that biking isn’t as good as running (with its jarring impacts) or weight training (with its targeted strengthening of muscles) for bone health. But that doesn’t mean that biking, along with just about any form of exercise, can’t play a role in maintaining bone strength. I’d certainly rather that he spend an hour a day biking (which he enjoys) than grudgingly shift to doing leg weights (which he doesn’t enjoy) a few times a week.

For most people, bone strength is just one of the factors to be considered in designing an exercise program. Unless you’re at a high risk of osteopenia, I’m hoping the information in this column will help you make subtle tweaks in your exercise program, rather than a radical overhaul.

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Jockology: compression garments

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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This week’s Jockology column on compression garments is now up on the Globe site. I’ll be interested to see what people think, because it covers a lot of ground. The science behind compression socks is very different from the science behind compression shorts — not to mention Allen Iverson’s compression arm sleeve, and the full-body compression suits that companies like Skins are hyping — so it’s hard to generalize about whether compression garments in general work.

I was pretty skeptical when I started researching this column, but I uncovered a lot more research than I expected — and I also heard some pretty ringing endorsements from, among others, William Kraemer, one of the very big names in sports research. On the other hand, given the impossible-to-blind nature of compression garments, I can’t quite shake my worries that it’s all a big placebo. Anyone have personal experience with this stuff?

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Supplements, part two

THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!

My new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Also check out my new book, THE EXPLORER'S GENE: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, published in March 2025.

- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)

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The second part of the Jockology series on supplements is now up on the Globe and Mail site, taking a look at probiotics, vitamin D and ZMA. I expect to get some disagreement on this one — ZMA, in particular, has a very strong following, and vitamin D is the hottest supplement on the planet these days. In both cases, it seems clear that correcting deficiencies can have an enormous effect, both on performance and on health in general. But the existing research hasn’t convinced me that athletes need more than anyone else.

That being said, these questions are far more complex than the “true” or “false” labels that appear in the newspaper column. So if you think I’ve missed some key information or gotten it wrong, let me know!