To better understand the deciding factors behind our performance sports drink SWORD®, we've curated a series of blog posts. The goal will be to let you in on our thinking. What did we include in our original formula and why?
Overall we wanted to create something simple, naturally sourced, and easy to use. We each do different activities we love, and to do them more, we need endurance. So, the goal was simple, increase human endurance. Luckily with a Sports Medicine M.D. and a Muscle Physiology Ph.D. guiding the efforts, we knew we were headed in the right direction.
Taste
We will get into what makes our products so unique and how taste actually helps it work better for you.
Sodium
You have probably heard that electrolytes are an important component to a healthy diet, but what about for sport? There's one we all agree is king, and we choose to focus on it, but how much and why is what makes us unique.
Carbohydrates
Carbs are our brain and muscle's go-to fuel source. They provide us with useful calories to keep us moving. So how did we get long-lasting energy from quick-acting ingredients without the sweetness?
Osmolality
Have you ever had that sloshy feeling during exercise? That is osmolality gone wrong. We will describe how we do it right.
The Case for Calories
Add calories to burn calories? Maybe. Find out how more calories can be good and may even be able to help you achieve your goals.
Stick with us and you will not only understand what goes into SWORD®, but you will learn about your body, how it works and how SWORD® can help you push your boundaries.
]]>You are standing in your kitchen. You fill up your bottle of water and drop a scoop of SWORD® into it. After a quick shake you give it a taste. Hmm. Your first impression is that it's mild. Surprisingly mild. This is intentional.
]]>Hydration drinks you purchase from the convenience store are engineered to taste good while you are sitting on the couch. They are essentially non-carbonated soft drinks full of sweet simple sugars. SWORD® is engineered for use during hard work, not sitting on the couch. And, as you know, your body reacts differently to fuel when you are working hard.
The first difference happens in your mouth. When you are working, your heart rate is elevated. Blood moves from your core outward to meet the demands of your working muscles. Your tongue may be the recipient of some of that extra blood. That makes it more sensitive to taste. SWORD® tastes great when you are working. It doesn’t overpower your taste buds leaving that cloying residue in your mouth. It is there and then it is gone to do its job.
That leads to the second difference. Palatability is important psychologically. If you are working for hours, your ability to keep drinking is essential not only to your performance, but also to your health. If a drink tastes too strong, you start to dread each sip. It will feel like taking medicine. And, because of that, it will be difficult to maintain appropriate levels of fuel and hydration.
So, yes. SWORD® tastes mild. It is made that way to help you keep going when things get difficult. You probably notice that it also tastes slightly salty. We will address that in the next post.
This is the first subject in the SWORD 101 Series. Next read about why we focus on sodium electrolytes in our performance hydration.
]]>Sweat. It leaves white marks on your clothes. It burns your eyes. It corrodes your cables. It tastes salty.
Sweat is absolutely essential to exercise because it is our body’s most important means of cooling off. We produce a lot of it when we’re exercising – as you can see in Table 1.
These amounts are averages and for discussion purposes only. There is wide variation between people and how their sweat rates differ in environmental conditions. Generally, men sweat more than women, and we all sweat more the harder we work and the more heat stress we are exposed to in the environment.
Sport |
Average Sweat Rate (Liters / hour) |
Swimming |
0.4 |
Basketball or Soccer |
1.4 |
Running Cross Country |
1.8 |
Football (American) |
2.1 |
Long Course Triathlon |
|
Swim Leg |
0.4 |
Bike Leg |
0.8 |
Run Leg |
1.0 |
Sweat tastes salty because it is salty. It is full of electrolytes, especially sodium and chloride.
Table 2 lists the average electrolyte content of sweat. Again, these are averages and there is a great deal of individual difference. However, notice how much more sodium and chloride are in sweat than any of the other electrolytes.
Electrolyte |
Amount in Sweat (mg / Liter) |
Sodium |
805 |
Chloride |
1062 |
Potassium |
195 |
Calcium |
20 |
Magnesium |
10 |
So, why do we put sodium in SWORD®? For an athlete, sodium is king. Sodium (Na+) is an essential positive ion that can be found in almost every fluid in our body. It helps transmit signals down the nerves, from the brain to our muscles. It also helps our body maintain proper fluid balance. This is important for temperature regulation, ensuring maximal oxygen and nutrient movement to working muscles. There is plenty of debate about this, but expert opinion suggests it also has a large role in the development of muscle cramps. Despite a salty reputation, we choose to focus solely on the power of sodium for performance in our endurance drink mix SWORD®. We believe that those who are serious about their passion most likely consume a colorful balanced diet and shy away from the salt-infused food groups plaguing much of the processed and fast-food industry. In terms of the athletic performance benefit of sodium:
1) It has many important physiologic functions essential to peak athletic performance
2) It is the most prevalent (by far) positive ion in sweat
3) We can lose a lot of sweat (and therefore sodium) when we’re working hard.
4) Sodium is known to distribute water to the extracellular space and keep it there
5) Sodium is an essential component to the intestinal absorption of carbohydrate fuels
Why don’t we put other electrolytes in SWORD®? We recognize that their are 4 positively charged electrolytes lost in sweat, each with their own special function in our body. But the fact is, you’re just not losing that much potassium, calcium, or magnesium during most activities to warrant replenishment from a drink source during exercise. Research studies have shown that in order to warrant the replenishment of any additional K+, Ca+, and Mg+, one must be exercising vigorously non-stop for more than 4 hours. Now we know many people who drink SWORD® do exercise for 4+ hours, and in fact, our founders are two of them. If you're into the ultra endurance distances, we expect your diet to be rich in vitamins, minerals, and essential electrolytes which the body is designed to store for use on demand. During those 4+ hours of exercise, we also expect you to take in other forms of fuel and sustenance that contain K+, Ca+, and Mg+, adequate for the minor replenishment recommended. Furthermore, adding additional electrolytes just increases the osmolality of a fluid and increases the likelihood that it will upset your stomach. We believe in keeping things simple so you can keep pushing.
Bottom Line: We feel that for those 3 hours and 59 minutes in-between, the simplicity and power of a sodium-only fluid is the critical electrolyte to maintain speed, stamina, cognitive function, and a happy stomach. Consuming a well balanced diet and other sources of fuel that contain minor amounts of other electrolytes are an adequate source to compliment the electrolyte values lost in sweat. Consuming a sodium-only electrolyte fluid, as found in SWORD®, provides the essential ingredients to maintain efficient processes in your body that allow us to perform at our peak potential for hours on end.
Specifically why no Potassium electrolytes in SWORD®?
Potassium (K+), the other well known hydration electrolyte, like sodium carries a positive charge. The big difference comes down to it's size (~39 u) and physiologic function which preferentially maintains the hydration status of the intracellular space (See scientific reference). This means that when a free potassium sees a molecule of water, it latches on and then by concentration gradient, is moved inside our cells, taking water along for the ride.
During exercise, the most critical fluid compartment to maintain for an athlete is the extracellular space (the fluid outside of our cells, like our circulating blood volume). It is responsible for the transport of it's components like water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, lactic acid, glucose, and other vital elements needed to sustain cellular performance.
*If you think of this in real-world terms, our extracellular space is like the highway, our intracellular space is like a parking lot, and cars are like glucose, oxygen, carbon-dioxide, and lactic acid. During exercise, you want those cars moving on the highway to transport their essential components efficiently, not stuck in parking lots.
Consuming beverages that primarily contain potassium or high concentrations of potassium electrolytes can preferentially shuttle water away from the extracellular space and into the cells for storage, robbing the critical extracellular fluid space(s) of water and subsequent transport performance. SWORD® utilizes a physiologically relevant blend of sodium (NaCl & NaCHO) in a concentration extremely similar to published values of the average concentration of sodium lost during exercise (see above). Once absorbed, additional positively charged electrolytes found in drinks like coconut water, compete for the internal distribution of water against sodium, therefore creating fluid shifts, ultimately decreasing your athletic performance.
Bottom Line: While potassium is an electrolyte lost in sweat and is essential to the normal function of our body, in terms of maximizing athletic performance, additional ingestion of potassium just causes traffic jams. Potassium will compete with sodium to pull water away from our vital circulation, potentially slowing down the movement of essential molecules like oxygen, carbon-dioxide, and lactic acid, contributing to a decrease in efficiency and performance. A healthy and colorful diet will keep substantial stores of potassium to quickly replenish the little lost when we sweat, but do not belong in a drink when we're pushing our body to it's athletic limits.
Overall
Replenishing sodium electrolytes during exercise can support your overall ability to perform at your peak for hours. Sodium only ingestion from SWORD® will maintain superior hydration status by minimizing cellular fluid shifts, improving and maintaining your mental clarity, and minimizing excess fluid loss by the kidneys by holding it in our vital blood volume. Plus, if you regularly experience muscle cramps, consumption of SWORD® has been the new go-to method for athletes, athletic trainers, and medical professionals as a quick and easy way to avoid them completely or having to administer an IV to help. Furthermore, sodium plays a substantial role in delaying the feeling of fatigue and tiredness by aiding in carbohydrate absorption. Sodium works with water to limit gut distress with a low osmolality and reduces bloating by speeding carbohydrate absorption across the small intestine. Finally, sodium replenishment ensures responsive brain function even under stress and keeps our muscles contracting. So when you want dig deep at the end of the race and kick, you and the competition will be blown away by your endurance.
Get out there and work hard. Push your boundaries.
This is the second subject in our Sword 101 series. Read about Carbohydrates next.
]]>Admittedly, it is a little counter-intuitive to consume calories when your goal is to lose weight. Eat less, exercise more. But, calories aren't the enemy. They're a training partner that can help you achieve your goals. You may use the product slightly differently than someone competing in an ultra-marathon, but many of the same rules apply.
How do you use Sword if you're spending an hour or less exercising in order to manage weight and maintain your health?
We recommend you drink a half bottle (~10 ounces) about 15 minutes before you start exercising. This gives time for Sword to be digested and absorbed, ready to be put to work the moment you start moving. During your workout, drink the rest of the bottle to thirst. When you run out, refill the bottle with water if you're still thirsty.
Sword helps you with your fitness and weight loss goals for these reasons:
Steady blood sugar
When you exercise, your body burns through its primary fuel source, carbohydrates, to keep you moving. If you exercise and aren't replacing the sugars your body is burning, your blood sugar dips. This is the famished feeling you have post-workout. This is also a reason why people often eat too much post-workout. If you consume calories via Sword during a workout, your blood sugar will maintain a more stable level, and you will feel less hungry afterwards.
Consistent fuel
With consistent fuel, you will be able to work harder. If you can increase the intensity and feel just as good during the workout, you will burn more calories and build strength. Sword maximizes your workout time.
Recovery
In addition to fuel, Sword helps you stay hydrated. This is important for several reasons – including keeping you alive. Proper hydration is a key component of recovery. If you can recover more quickly, you can exercise more frequently. Frequency and intensity are two components in developing a habit that you can sustain over time. After all, it is no good if you lose a couple of pounds this week if it isn't sustainable.
This is the final installment in our Sword 101 series. Read about Room for Improvement in the Sports Drink next.
]]>When you use most sports drinks, you can feel the liquid sloshing in your stomach. This is osmolality gone wrong. We explain what this means and how to avoid it.
]]>There is a shared experience among most people who are engaged in athletics. You want to feel your best during the event. You take a sip of the sports drink provided. Mmm. Sugary. You finish the cup and move on. In a few minutes you can feel it. You can actually feel the liquid sloshing around in your stomach. “What is that?” you wonder.
That could be osmolality gone wrong.
You drink to thirst. The sugary drink goes into your stomach and then into your small intestine. There, it should be absorbed into your bloodstream so you can benefit from it. However, the concentration of the drink is higher than the concentration of your blood. Before it can be absorbed, the sports drink now has to be diluted. To do this, extra fluid is pulled from your bloodstream into your small intestine. In other words, fluid is moving in the wrong direction at first. Now we have concentrated fluid in the small intestine, additional fluid is being pulled into the intestine from the blood, and the brakes are being put on stomach emptying. This adds up to a lot of uncomfortable sloshing.
But, not only is the sloshing uncomfortable; the fluid isn’t doing its job. When you drink something you want it to replace what you are losing as quickly as possible. This is where SWORD® comes in. With an osmolality of 190 mOsm/L, that well below blood [~290 mOsm/L], it gets in there and does its job so you can do yours.
We have carefully considered everything that goes into SWORD®, partly because of our minimalist philosophy, but partly because any added thing increases osmolality and can cause problems for you. We want to maximize the fuel and the speed at which it can be absorbed by your body. Because we know you have one goal: to go farther, faster.
This is the fifth installment in our Sword 101 series. Read how adding calories to your activity can help you achieve your goals.
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Diet preferences come and go. They reflect our changing understanding of how the body works. Which is the right diet for athletes? Ketogenic Diet? Fat Adaptation? Paleo? Carbohydrate Loading?
The simple answer is that there is no single diet that is right for every athlete in every situation. Diets are as specific to athlete and event as training is. Your diet should follow your physiology and the specifics of your goal event. The key to unlocking your dietary needs is having the right tools and practicing with them, making small changes along the way; ultimately increasing your performance. SWORD® is designed to be that carbohydrate tool during training and competition; with flexible concentrations, so you can modify as you improve. Pushing your performance further, increasing your fuel, working harder. This way you can control your carbohydrate needs and how a fuel source like SWORD® works into your existing regimen. Many athletes still have questions about our newly developed fuel source and how carbohydrates in general play a role in their diet.
There are some misunderstandings about the role of carbohydrate in exercise, so let’s break it down. Carbohydrate is one of the three classes of macronutrients fuels used by your muscles to perform work. Of the three, it is the primary fuel source your body goes to when it needs energy. It is also used by many other organs in your body and is the preferred fuel for your brain.
Carbohydrates in its most basic form known as glucose, is stored in relatively limited amounts in the body as free floating in your bloodstream (blood sugar). As the body's fast-acting fuel source for on demand actions, we've developed ways to temporarily hold onto this glucose in localized environments where they can be called into action at a moment’s notice. Places like the surrounding muscle tissue and in the liver as glycogen.
During increasingly hard work, your muscles consume progressively more carbohydrate to the point that at higher intensities, carbs become the primary fuel for working muscle. At the same time, your brain continues to consume carbohydrate setting up a tug of war between the muscle and brain for your body’s limited supply of blood sugar. This can contribute to fatigue, particularly in longer events, and there are literally hundreds of well-performed experiments which demonstrate carbohydrate’s ability to delay that fatigue and improve performance. The challenge has been how to interpret all the scientific research and taking into consideration real-world application, how to create the right carbohydrate fuel source to delay fatigue. That is why we have carbohydrate in SWORD® , but not just any carbohydrate, well characterized and understood carbohydrates. Our founders did some of the ground-breaking research on these carbohydrates and from that developed the unique concentrations and natural sources allowing the body a new level of fatigue resistance and performance improvement.
In order for consumed carbohydrate to be of any benefit, it must get out of your stomach and into your bloodstream where it can be used by the brain and muscles. The two sources of carbohydrate in SWORD® is designed to do just that by purposely taking advantage of two different carbohydrate transport mechanisms found in the gastrointestinal tract to move them into the bloodstream. We have chosen to combine a specific plant strain maltodextrin starch with '3F' [Full Fruit Fiber] fructose to take advantage of these carbohydrate transporters; avoid the excessive sweetness of too much simple sugar; and keep the osmolality of the drink well below that of blood.
The amount of carbohydrate in SWORD® was also carefully considered. Too much and the drink becomes too sweet and difficult to absorb, leading to increased GI distress. Too little and you’re not delivering enough carbohydrate to provide a significant benefit to increase endurance. Our research and athlete feedback leads us to believe that we have hit the "sweet spot." Our 6% carbohydrate solution delivers about 60 grams of carbohydrate in every liter of SWORD® consumed. That is enough to make SWORD® the only carbohydrate source you need to consume during a race – or it can be used in smaller quantities and combined with other sources (food, gels, etc…) if you prefer.
Carbohydrate is an important fuel source to support hard work. Numerous studies have demonstrated its ability to improve performance and delay fatigue; some our founders were directly involved in. We've created a combination of carbohydrates that act as relentless work fuel. A unique combination that keeps your brain and muscles happy; your stomach quiet and calm; all from natural sources with flavors your taste buds will appreciate. What we've created is a tool. Use it to your liking during your training and competition. Join the wave of athletes who have found with SWORD® , they're capable of more.
This is the fourth installment in our Sword 101 series. Read about Osmolality next.