Sugar in Sports Drinks: Carbohydrates, Exercise, and Marketing
Author: Ukrainian Psychological Hub · Published: September 29, 2026 · Editorial Policy
Sports drinks contain sugar primarily because carbohydrate can be useful fuel during demanding exercise. In a traditional carbohydrate-electrolyte sports drink, sugar is doing a nutritional job: it supplies carbohydrate that can be oxidized during exercise, contributes calories, and creates sweetness that can affect how willingly people drink the beverage. It is not the same thing as caffeine, and it does not make a sports drink automatically necessary for every workout. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis of 136 studies found that carbohydrate consumed during endurance exercise improved performance overall, with larger effects in longer-duration exercise. The evidence supports carbohydrate as an exercise-fueling tool in the right context.
The other half of the answer is just as important: many people do not need a sugared sports drink for ordinary thirst, a short walk, routine desk work, or an easy workout. Water can often cover the fluid part of the task. Electrolytes and carbohydrate are separate ingredients with separate functions, and a zero-sugar sports drink may provide fluid, flavor, and electrolytes without providing carbohydrate fuel. The best choice depends on what the drink is being asked to do.
This article separates four questions that sports-drink marketing often compresses into one: Do you need fluid? Do you need sodium or other electrolytes? Do you need carbohydrate during the activity? And do you simply prefer the taste or identity of a sports drink? Keeping those questions separate makes the label, the exercise science, and the psychology much easier to understand.
Why Do Sports Drinks Contain Sugar?
Traditional sports drinks were designed around a combined problem: delivering fluid while also delivering carbohydrate and electrolytes during or around exercise. Carbohydrate is a major fuel for moderate-to-high-intensity exercise. During longer efforts, exogenous carbohydrate can help sustain carbohydrate availability and support performance. The recent evidence base is substantial rather than brand-specific: Ramos-Campo and colleagues reported a significant overall endurance-performance benefit from carbohydrate feeding during exercise, while a 2026 contemporary review describes the mechanisms as including support for plasma glucose, carbohydrate oxidation, and the ability to sustain required exercise intensity.
That does not mean that more sugar is always better. The amount of carbohydrate that is useful depends on exercise duration, intensity, training status, gastrointestinal tolerance, the rest of the athlete's fueling plan, and the concentration and type of carbohydrate in the drink. A 2026 review of endurance fueling emphasizes personalization and notes that very high carbohydrate intakes used by some elite endurance athletes go beyond what is yet firmly established for broad use.
Sugar also changes the sensory experience. Sweetness can make a drink more appealing, and flavor, temperature, sodium, familiarity, and mouthfeel can influence voluntary drinking. The National Athletic Trainers' Association notes that palatability and beverage temperature can affect fluid consumption in physically active people. A separate systematic review found that cooler drinks were generally preferred and consumed in greater amounts than warmer drinks during exercise. Palatability can therefore matter for drinking behavior, but palatability is not the same as physiological necessity.
What Counts as a Sports Drink?
There is no single ingredient list shared by every product sold with athletic imagery. A conventional sports drink usually combines water, carbohydrate, sodium and sometimes other electrolytes, flavoring, acids, and colors. Some newer products contain little or no sugar. Others are positioned more specifically as electrolyte beverages, hydration drinks, or high-carbohydrate endurance products.
Sports drink vs electrolyte drink
An electrolyte drink can contain sodium, potassium, or other minerals with very little carbohydrate. A traditional sports drink commonly combines electrolytes with meaningful carbohydrate. That distinction matters because electrolytes do not replace carbohydrate's fueling role, while carbohydrate is not required merely for a beverage to contain electrolytes.
Sports drink vs energy drink
Sports drinks and energy drinks are different categories. Sports drinks are generally built around hydration, carbohydrate, and electrolytes. Energy drinks are commonly built around caffeine or other stimulant-associated ingredients, often with sugar as well. Calling both products 'energy' can blur the mechanism: the carbohydrate in a sports drink supplies metabolic fuel; caffeine produces stimulant effects through a different pathway. The distinction is especially important when interpreting feelings of alertness or a perceived 'boost.'
Sports drink vs oral rehydration solution
A medical oral rehydration solution is formulated for a clinical rehydration purpose and should not be treated as interchangeable with a commercial sports drink. This article stays with exercise and consumer beverages. Illness-related dehydration, severe heat illness, vomiting, diarrhea, fainting, confusion, or other medical symptoms belong to clinical assessment rather than sports-drink optimization.
How Much Sugar Is in Sports Drinks?
There is no category-wide number. Sugar content varies by brand, flavor, format, country, serving size, and product line, and formulations can change. The useful habit is to read the current Nutrition Facts label rather than remember one number for 'sports drinks.'
Current U.S. manufacturer pages illustrate the range. Powerade's standard product page lists 21 grams of Total Sugars and 21 grams of Added Sugars per 12-fluid-ounce serving. Powerade Zero is a separate zero-sugar product line. Gatorlyte's current 20-fluid-ounce ready-to-drink product page lists 12 grams of total sugar, while Gatorade Zero powder is marketed with 0 grams of sugar per serving. These examples show why 'sports drink' does not tell you the sugar amount by itself.
Serving size matters just as much as the printed grams. If a label reports 21 grams of sugar per 12 ounces but the bottle contains more than 12 ounces, the amount consumed depends on how much of the bottle is actually drunk. The same logic applies to powders: the final carbohydrate concentration depends on how much powder is mixed into how much water.
On U.S. labels, Total Sugars and Added Sugars are not two amounts that should be added together. FDA explains that Added Sugars are included within Total Sugars. A drink showing 21 grams Total Sugars and 21 grams Added Sugars contains 21 grams of sugar total for that serving, not 42 grams. Our guide to reading sugar on a Nutrition Facts label walks through serving size, Total Sugars, Added Sugars, % Daily Value, and ingredient lists.
What Sugar Does During Exercise
Carbohydrate provides fuel
The central exercise-science reason for sugar in a sports drink is carbohydrate availability. Carbohydrate from glucose, sucrose, maltodextrin, fructose-containing blends, or related sources can contribute to exogenous carbohydrate oxidation during exercise. In endurance contexts, this can help sustain work when carbohydrate demand is high. The 2024 meta-analysis found a performance benefit across endurance studies and larger effects with longer event duration.
Sugar is not a stimulant
A sweet sports drink can feel energizing because it provides carbohydrate, calories, flavor, and a familiar performance cue. That experience should not be translated into a caffeine-like 'rush.' Carbohydrate metabolism and stimulant arousal are different mechanisms. A person can also feel more capable simply because a hard session is better fueled, because dehydration has been corrected, because the drink is cold and palatable, or because the product is strongly associated with sport.
The mouth can be part of the performance response
Exercise nutrition is not only about what eventually reaches muscle. Research on carbohydrate mouth sensing suggests that oral carbohydrate cues can sometimes produce small, context-dependent performance effects even before large amounts of carbohydrate are metabolized. This is one reason it is too simple to describe a sports drink as merely 'sugar water.' At the same time, these findings do not prove that sweetness itself is a universal performance enhancer, and they do not justify routine sugary drinks outside relevant exercise.
More carbohydrate is not automatically more useful
Contemporary endurance practice sometimes uses high carbohydrate intakes during very long events, but the upper end is specialized. The 2026 review by Morton and colleagues notes that older guidance commonly capped targeted intake around 90 grams per hour for exercise lasting roughly 2.5 to 3 hours, while emerging research explores higher intakes in trained athletes. The review explicitly treats higher intakes as an evolving, personalized area rather than a blanket recommendation. A single bottle label therefore cannot tell an athlete what the entire fueling plan should be.
Sugar, Electrolytes, and Hydration Are Three Different Jobs
A sports drink can combine fluid, carbohydrate, and electrolytes, but those ingredients should not be treated as synonyms. Fluid replaces water. Carbohydrate supplies energy. Sodium and other electrolytes contribute to fluid balance and replace some minerals lost in sweat. A person may need one of those things, two of them, or all three.
The best recent evidence does not support a one-formula-fits-everyone rule. A 2025 systematic review of carbohydrate-electrolyte solutions for exercise-associated dehydration included 19 controlled trials and found that solutions containing up to 9% carbohydrate may improve rehydration compared with water, although results varied across studies. This supports the plausibility of combined solutions while preserving the important point that formulation and context matter.
Hydration itself also requires judgment. The National Athletic Trainers' Association position statement emphasizes individual variability in sweat rates and fluid needs and warns against both underhydration and excessive fluid intake. Drinking enough to gain body mass during exercise can indicate overconsumption. A sports-drink label is therefore not a substitute for an individualized hydration plan in demanding conditions.
This distinction explains a common paradox: a carbohydrate-containing drink may be useful because it delivers fuel during prolonged exercise, even when a lower-carbohydrate drink might be preferred when the goal is primarily fluid and electrolyte replacement. 'Best for fueling' and 'best for hydration alone' are separate questions.
When Can a Sugared Sports Drink Be Useful?
A sugared sports drink becomes more plausible when exercise is long enough, hard enough, or repeated often enough that carbohydrate delivery during the session is useful. The strongest evidence concerns endurance and prolonged high-intensity work rather than casual activity. The more a session taxes carbohydrate stores, the more relevant a carbohydrate-containing beverage can become.
Examples include a long run or ride, sustained field-sport practice, a tournament with repeated games, a long training session in heat, or an event where eating solid food is inconvenient. In these settings a drink can combine fluid, carbohydrate, sodium, and palatability in one portable format. That convenience is a practical advantage, not proof that the beverage is nutritionally superior in every setting.
Individual tolerance matters. A drink that works well for one athlete may feel too sweet, too concentrated, too acidic, or too heavy for another. Competition is a poor time to discover that a new beverage or concentration causes gastrointestinal discomfort. For high-level endurance training, competition, large sweat losses, recurrent cramping concerns, or complex medical conditions, sports-dietitian or sports-medicine guidance can be useful.
When Is Water Usually Enough?
For ordinary thirst and many short or low-intensity activities, water is a perfectly reasonable default. A 25-minute walk, a relaxed mobility session, a short recreational workout, or sitting at a desk does not automatically create a need for carbohydrate-electrolyte fluid.
The practical question is not whether sports drinks are 'good' or 'bad.' It is whether the ingredients match the task. If the person is already eating normally, the exercise is brief, and carbohydrate availability is not limiting performance, a sugared drink may simply add calories and sweetness without a meaningful exercise-fueling benefit.
This is also where context protects against marketing overreach. A product associated with elite athletes can feel relevant to any activity that looks athletic. The physiological requirement does not expand just because the bottle is carried into a gym.
Are Zero-Sugar Sports Drinks Better?
Zero-sugar sports drinks solve a different problem. They can provide fluid, flavor, and electrolytes without meaningful carbohydrate. For someone who wants a flavored electrolyte beverage but does not need carbohydrate fuel, that may fit the task well. For an athlete deliberately using a drink to meet carbohydrate needs during prolonged exercise, zero sugar removes the very ingredient that provides that fuel.
So 'better' depends on the goal. A zero-sugar version can be more appropriate for everyday hydration or lower-energy needs; a carbohydrate-containing version can be more useful when carbohydrate delivery is part of the performance plan. The words zero sugar do not make one product universally healthier, and the words sports drink do not make carbohydrate universally necessary.
Sweeteners also differ between products. A zero-sugar beverage may use high-intensity sweeteners, and taste response varies widely. If the comparison is really about non-sugar sweeteners, it should be evaluated substance by substance rather than assuming all sweeteners have identical evidence.
How to Read a Sports-Drink Label
Start with the serving size and the amount you will actually drink. Then check total carbohydrate, Total Sugars, Added Sugars, sodium, and the ingredient list. If the bottle contains multiple labeled servings, scale the numbers to the amount consumed. If it is a powder, follow the mixing instructions before comparing concentration with a ready-to-drink product.
For U.S. labels, FDA's Added Sugars definition and Daily Value are labeling tools. Added Sugars is a subset of Total Sugars, and the standard Daily Value is 50 grams on a 2,000-calorie reference diet. The % Daily Value helps compare packaged foods and drinks, but it is not a personalized sports-fueling prescription. Our Added Sugar guide explains the regulatory category in detail, while How Much Sugar Per Day? separates Total Sugars, Added Sugars, and WHO free sugars.
The ingredient list answers a different question: what carbohydrate sources are present? Depending on the product, these may include sucrose, glucose, dextrose, fructose-containing syrups, maltodextrin, or other carbohydrate ingredients. Two beverages can have the same grams of carbohydrate while using different mixtures.
Sodium should be read in milligrams per serving and in relation to actual volume consumed. A higher sodium number is not inherently 'better'; sweat sodium losses vary widely. The beverage should be assessed within the athlete's overall food, fluid, climate, sweat, and exercise context.
Is Sugar in Sports Drinks Bad for You?
The useful answer depends on use. Carbohydrate consumed during prolonged exercise as part of a fueling strategy is a different exposure from routinely drinking a sugary sports beverage at a desk, with meals, in the car, or throughout the day because the bottle carries an athletic image.
At population level, the evidence on sugar-sweetened beverages is relevant to routine consumption. A 2024 umbrella review of meta-analyses found that higher sugar-sweetened-beverage consumption was associated with a range of adverse health outcomes. That evidence is mostly observational at the umbrella-review level and concerns a broad beverage category; it should not be converted into the claim that a specific amount of sports drink used during exercise causes a specific disease.
Body-weight evidence is stronger than a simple association story. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis combining prospective cohorts and randomized trials found that adding sugar-sweetened beverages increased body weight and reducing them reduced weight relative to controls. Again, this is broad sugar-sweetened-beverage evidence. It does not erase the performance context in which carbohydrate can be functional.
The practical distinction is frequency, amount, and purpose. The same carbohydrate can be useful during a long race and unnecessary during a sedentary afternoon. Health interpretation changes with the behavioral pattern, not with a moral label attached to sugar.
Sports Drinks, Calories, and Weight
Sugar contributes calories. If a sports drink is added on top of usual intake without being matched by exercise energy demands or reductions elsewhere, those calories still count. That sounds obvious, but sports branding can make beverage calories psychologically easier to overlook.
Liquid calories are also easy to consume quickly, especially from large bottles. That does not mean liquids produce no satiety, and it does not mean one sports drink causes weight gain. The stronger evidence concerns repeated patterns of sugar-sweetened-beverage intake and energy balance over time. Our Sugar and Weight Gain article explains the evidence on calories, drinks, appetite, and dietary patterns without treating sugar as a single-cause explanation.
For an endurance athlete burning large amounts of energy, calories in a sports drink can be the point. For someone buying the same bottle after a short, easy session, the same calories may be incidental. Context changes the nutritional function even when the label is identical.
Sports Drinks and Teeth
Sports drinks can expose teeth to both fermentable carbohydrate and acids, but the clinical evidence specific to sports drinks is more uncertain than popular warnings often imply. A 2026 systematic review of energy and sports drinks included 10 studies with 5,805 participants and judged 70% of the included studies to be at high or serious risk of bias. The relationship between sports drinks and dental erosion was inconsistent, and evidence for caries outcomes was inconclusive.
That evidence status matters. It supports attention to oral exposure without supporting a simple claim that any sports drink use inevitably causes erosion or cavities. Frequency of sipping, total exposure, acidity, oral-health status, diet, saliva, and dental care can all matter. People with dental disease, enamel erosion, dry mouth, or other individual concerns should get advice from a dental professional rather than relying on a beverage category label.
The Psychology of Sports-Drink Marketing
Sports drinks sell a physiological function and an identity at the same time. The packaging is usually surrounded by cues of movement, endurance, sweat, teams, speed, winning, elite bodies, and recovery. Those cues can make a product feel appropriate before the consumer has asked whether the activity actually requires carbohydrate or electrolytes.
This is not speculation about advertising content. A 2022 content analysis of 315 sports- and energy-drink advertisements found frequent peripheral cues involving sports and celebrities and common performance-related beliefs in the ads. The study describes what advertising contains; it does not establish that any one advertisement causes a specific behavior.
Adolescent data show why the distinction between association and causation is important. In a cross-sectional U.S. survey of 501 adolescents ages 14 to 18, greater perceived healthfulness of sports drinks was associated with casual sports participation, athletic identity, social-media advertising exposure, and higher consumption. Because the design was cross-sectional and relied on self-report, the study cannot prove that advertising caused those beliefs or that the beliefs caused consumption.
The likely consumer-psychology pattern is a performance halo: a product linked to elite sport can inherit some of the positive meaning of exercise itself. 'Used by athletes' can quietly become 'healthy for me' or 'needed after exercise.' That inference is precisely why label literacy matters. The bottle should be matched to the task, not to the prestige of the imagery. Our Sugar Marketing Psychology article develops the broader mechanisms of packaging, claims, cues, and choice.
Sensory Psychology: Sweetness, Salt, Acid, Flavor, and Temperature
Sports-drink preference is a multisensory experience. Sweetness interacts with acidity, saltiness, aroma, color, temperature, mouthfeel, and learned familiarity. A drink can taste refreshing partly because cold temperature, tartness, flavor, and context are working together.
Sweetness also has no fixed psychological meaning. During a hard or prolonged session, a familiar sweet flavor can signal available carbohydrate and can be welcomed. At rest, the same sweetness intensity may feel excessive. Repeated exposure, expectations, thirst, recent food intake, and individual taste sensitivity all shape perception. Our Sweetness Perception article explains why the same sugar concentration can be experienced differently across contexts.
Temperature is especially practical. A systematic review found that cool or cold drinks were typically preferred over warmer drinks and were often consumed in larger volumes during exercise. This does not mean every athlete must drink ice-cold fluid; it shows how sensory conditions can change voluntary intake.
Color and brand can alter expectations before the first sip. A vivid color can suggest a flavor, intensity, or 'hydration' identity; a familiar logo can reduce uncertainty; a product associated with past training can become part of a pre-performance ritual. These expectation effects are psychologically real even though they do not change the grams of carbohydrate printed on the label.
Habit, Context, and the Meaning of 'I Need a Sports Drink'
Repeated pairings can turn a product into a cue-driven habit. Gym bag, practice field, convenience-store stop, hot weather, a particular bottle color, or the end of a workout can all become triggers for the same purchase. Once the sequence is learned, the drink may feel like part of exercise itself.
That habit can be useful when it reliably supports a carefully planned endurance routine. It can also detach from its original function and spread into ordinary daily drinking. The psychological question is therefore not whether the habit is 'good' or 'bad,' but whether the learned routine still matches the physiological task.
A simple self-check is to name the purpose before opening the bottle: fluid, sodium, carbohydrate fuel, flavor, convenience, or habit. More than one answer can be true. Naming them makes the choice legible.
Sports Drinks for Children and Teenagers
Youth sports create a particularly strong overlap between physiology, family rules, coaching culture, and marketing. A teenager in a long, intense tournament in heat is in a different situation from a child carrying a sports drink to school because the brand is associated with athletes.
The evidence on adolescent beliefs also shows that athletic identity and advertising exposure can be associated with seeing sports drinks as healthier. That makes it useful for parents, coaches, and young athletes to discuss the function of the drink directly: What is the duration and intensity? Is water available? Is carbohydrate actually needed during the activity? Is the beverage being used as fuel, or simply because it looks like the 'sports' choice?
Children and adolescents should not be diagnosed, labeled, or judged from beverage preferences. For demanding youth sport, heat exposure, medical conditions, recurrent symptoms, or questions about individualized fueling and hydration, pediatric and sports-nutrition professionals can provide context-specific guidance.
How to Choose a Sports Drink for the Task
First decide whether the activity creates a meaningful carbohydrate demand. Longer and harder exercise makes carbohydrate more relevant; short and easy activity makes it less relevant. Then decide whether sweat and heat make electrolyte replacement a practical concern. Finally, decide what concentration, flavor, temperature, and format you will actually tolerate and drink.
A carbohydrate-containing sports drink can be convenient when you want fluid, carbohydrate, and sodium together. A zero-sugar electrolyte drink can be convenient when you want flavor and electrolytes without carbohydrate. Water can be enough when the task is simple. Food plus water can also meet needs when eating is practical.
For serious endurance events, hourly fueling should be planned across the entire intake—drinks, gels, chews, bars, and food—rather than selecting a beverage in isolation. The 2026 endurance review shows why modern carbohydrate strategies are increasingly individualized by duration, sport, training status, tolerance, and carbohydrate mixture. A bottle is one component of a fueling system, not the system itself.
Common Myths About Sugar in Sports Drinks
Myth: More sugar means better hydration
Hydration and carbohydrate delivery are related but distinct. More carbohydrate does not automatically mean better fluid replacement. Beverage concentration and the person's goal matter.
Myth: Zero-sugar sports drinks are the same as traditional sports drinks
They can overlap in water, flavor, and electrolytes, but a zero-sugar product does not provide meaningful carbohydrate fuel. That difference can be irrelevant during easy activity and important during prolonged exercise.
Myth: A sports drink is always healthier than soda
The categories have different intended uses, but branding does not cancel sugar, calories, acids, or serving size. For everyday drinking, the label and the pattern of use matter more than the athletic imagery.
Myth: Electrolytes cancel out the sugar
Electrolytes do not neutralize calories or turn Added Sugars into a different regulatory category. Sodium and carbohydrate perform different jobs.
Myth: Sports drinks work because of a sugar rush
Carbohydrate can support exercise performance through fuel availability and related mechanisms. Describing that as a generic 'sugar rush' collapses several physiological and psychological processes into a popular phrase.
Myth: Everyone who sweats needs a sports drink
Sweating creates fluid and electrolyte losses, but the amount varies greatly, and carbohydrate need depends on the exercise task. Water, food, electrolyte beverages, or carbohydrate-electrolyte drinks can each be appropriate in different contexts.
Practical Scenarios
A 30-minute walk
Water is usually enough if the person begins normally hydrated and the conditions are ordinary. A sugared sports drink is unlikely to provide a meaningful performance advantage for most people in this scenario.
A 45-minute moderate gym session
Many people can use water and normal meals. A sports drink may still be chosen for taste or convenience, but that is different from saying it is physiologically required.
A two-hour endurance session
Carbohydrate becomes more relevant. A traditional sports drink can contribute to the athlete's carbohydrate and fluid plan, but the amount should be considered alongside other foods or gels and individual gastrointestinal tolerance.
A tournament with repeated games
Repeated bouts can make fluid, sodium, and carbohydrate logistics more important. A sports drink may be practical because it is portable and easy to consume between or during games. Total fueling across the day still matters.
Long exercise in heat
Fluid needs and sweat losses can increase substantially. Individual hydration planning becomes more important, and both insufficient drinking and excessive drinking can create problems. Carbohydrate needs still depend on the exercise load rather than heat alone.
Everyday thirst at work or school
The sports context is absent. If the goal is simply hydration, water or a noncaloric beverage can usually do that job without the added carbohydrate. This is the setting in which a performance halo can most easily turn a specialized product into an automatic everyday drink.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is there sugar in sports drinks?
Sugar provides carbohydrate that can be used as fuel during exercise, adds calories, and contributes sweetness and palatability. It is most relevant when exercise is prolonged or demanding enough for carbohydrate delivery to matter.
Do sports drinks have a lot of sugar?
Some do and some do not. Current products range from traditional carbohydrate-containing formulas to zero-sugar versions. Read the serving size, Total Sugars, Added Sugars, and total carbohydrate on the current label.
Is sugar in sports drinks bad for you?
Context matters. Carbohydrate can be functional exercise fuel during long or intense activity, while routine sugar-sweetened beverage consumption outside that context can add calories and contribute to broader dietary exposure. One category label cannot replace amount, frequency, and purpose.
Do I need sugar in a sports drink?
Not always. If the goal is only fluid or electrolytes, a zero-sugar option or water may fit. If carbohydrate is part of a prolonged-exercise fueling plan, a carbohydrate-containing sports drink can be useful.
Are zero-sugar sports drinks better?
They are better for some goals and less useful for others. They can provide fluid, flavor, and electrolytes without carbohydrate, but they do not replace carbohydrate fuel when carbohydrate delivery is the reason for using a sports drink.
When is water enough instead of a sports drink?
Water is often enough for ordinary thirst and many short or easy exercise sessions. Longer duration, higher intensity, heat, heavy sweating, repeated sessions, or deliberate carbohydrate fueling can make a sports drink more useful.
Is a sports drink the same as an energy drink?
No. Sports drinks are generally formulated around fluid, carbohydrate, and electrolytes. Energy drinks commonly center on caffeine or other stimulant-associated ingredients. Sugar can appear in either category, but the intended mechanisms differ.
Does Added Sugars mean the same thing as Total Sugars?
No. On a U.S. Nutrition Facts label, Added Sugars is included within Total Sugars. Do not add the two numbers together.
Can sports drinks cause a sugar rush?
The popular phrase is a poor description of exercise fueling. Carbohydrate can supply usable energy and support performance in the right context, while perceived energy can also reflect hydration, temperature, flavor, expectation, and the activity itself.
How much sports drink should I have during exercise?
There is no universal bottle amount. Fluid and carbohydrate needs vary with duration, intensity, climate, sweat rate, body size, training status, other food and fluid intake, and tolerance. Serious endurance plans are best built around the whole session rather than one product.