Your chest flares out from the healthy pump of an intense pec workout and your biceps look like they’re twice the size they were when you woke up this morning. Sitting on the edge of the weight bench, you grasp a towel to wipe the sweat off your brow. Unfortunately, some of that salty sweat sneaks into your eye, and you squint in pain. And you’re very thirsty.

So you strut to the water fountain, all while sneaking a peek at your super-sized muscles in the wall-high mirror to your left. You gulp down water like you haven’t had a drink for days, desperately trying to replace the water you just lost.

But how about something different today? How about something to replace those valuable electrolytes you’re always hearing about?

With plenty of options available in today’s sports drink market, it’s simply a decision of what your body needs and what sport you just took part in.

But are sports drinks all the hype the companies claim they are? Do you really need them to stay at the top of your game or are they simply overpriced doses of sugar, calories and a waste of your cash?

Jeff Lemmer, an exercise physiologist in the department of kinesiology, said sports drinks are helpful in some cases, but for the average recreational beverage, they don’t have many benefits.

“For some long distance events, they do have some benefit and that’s due to the carbohydrates,” he said.

A recent study published in the April edition of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise said athletes can prevent fatigue 37 percent longer if they drink sports drinks that contain electrolytes and carbohydrates. The report also claims athletes who drink sports drinks run faster, have better motor skills and are mentally sharper.

At the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, athletes are tested on by sweating and measuring the weight they lose. Based on those results, the sports drink company found a way to replace the large amounts of sodium and potassium that become depleted during exercise while adding a solid dose of sugar to give muscles a quickly-burning source of carbohydrates for energy.

Gatorade “is designed to rehydrate you and to keep you hydrated, replacing everything you lose in your sweat,” said Greg Kedziera, a Gatorade consumer response representative.

Mindy L. Millard-Stafford, a professor and co-director of the School of Applied Physiology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has done numerous studies on the effects of sports drinks on athletic performance.

She said that in terms of traditional sports drinks, which are carbohydrate and electrolyte-formulated mixes, the effects depend on the individual.

“Rather than some of the newer age drinks that have added nutrition plus performance enhancing aids, it really is true that the sports drinks absorb more rapidly than say, a fruit juice or a carbonated soda,” she said.

“One of the important things is the moderate concentration of 6 to 8 percent carbohydrate, and typically there are a couple of different types of carbohydrates in these drinks.

Kedziera said the sodium content in Gatorade is partially designed to make people more thirsty because many won’t feel thirsty if they just drink water.

And because of that, they won’t drink at all.

But the salt triggers the body’s thirst mechanism, and forces it to want to keep rehydrating itself and helps to prolong the absorption of liquid.

Kedziera said he recommends drinking 20 to 30 ounces of sports drink per hour of exercise, depending on the event.

“If you drink plain water, you will probably turn off your drinking mechanism prematurely before you’re fully hydrated,” Millard-Stafford said.

Lemmer said one important thing to look for when choosing a sports drink is making sure the sugar being used is not fructose, since it requires water to absorb, and actually steals water from the body.

“It’s better to get something that has glycogen as the primary sugar because it absorbs easily across the stomach,” he said.

But no-preference sophomore Chris Toloff, a member of the men’s cross country team, said that during races he usually drinks water because sports drinks tend to fill him up more.

“I think water is better for you because it goes through your system and doesn’t just sit in your stomach,” he said. “After a race, (a sports drink is) definitely good for you because it replenishes your electrolytes, and I’m a big Gatorade fan.”

But as far as if sports drinks can help every athlete, Millard-Stafford said it depends on the specific context or even the individual.

“Someone who is really well trained probably won’t need the added carbohydrates until after an hour of exercise,” she said. “That could be modified and an individual may benefit sooner if he’s been doing a lot of heavy training, and the glycogen stores aren’t quite replenished.

But it is difficult to measure scenarios in every sport, especially team sports, Millard-Stafford said.

“That’s probably the hardest thing to tweeze out in the lab,” she said. “Most of our studies have been with high-performance cyclists or marathon runners, and when they don’t get enough carbohydrates and drink water instead, they definitely can’t perform as well.”

But with new types of drinks hitting the market all the time that claim to improve athletic performance, Millard-Stafford said there are some basic prerequisites people should watch out for.

In order to reap the benefits of these drinks, she said a drink should have a moderated concentrated carbohydrate that accounts for 6 to 8 percent of the drink’s calories and some amounts of sodium and potassium.

“All of these other additives that may or may not be in there haven’t really seemed to provide any additional advantages at this point, but there are a lot of studies being done,” Millard-Stafford said.

“There’s always new products coming out and they’re always being tested, so stay tuned.”