We have seen them in the World Cup in Russia and we will also see it in the Premier League soon. Some athletes, drinking a drink to hydrate, rinse their mouth with it for about ten seconds, and then spit the liquid without swallowing it. But why do they do that?
They are practicing what is known as carbohydrate rinsing. The drink they drink is not water (in that case surely if they swallow it), but some energy preparation.
And a study conducted in 2014 by a team at the UCHealth of Denver, revealed that rinsing the mouth with these drinks provides enough extra energy to continue doing physical activity for about an hour.
Of course, they could swallow the drink, but that could have an effect contrary to the desired one. And it is that, when ingesting it, the organism could need an extra gadtrointesitinal effort, generating more fluids to assimilate it, and that could affect the performance of the athlete.
