Sports drink over water in long duration exercise?

[Kakasgotskillz]

I know this has been discussed before, but I found something new in this book labelled: "Optimal Muscle Performance and Recovery", and in the section about dehydration and overheating, there was this part that interested me.

Pure water is acceptable for replacing fluids during exercise that lasts about 30 to 60 minutes, but drinking water is not the best way to rehydrate during exercise that lasts more than an hour nor after exercise. To restore the body fluids that you sweat out during exercise, you should consume a beverage that contains agents such as glucose and sodium, two ingredients found in most sports or energy drinks. Glucose and sodium help maintain blood volume and aid the absorption of water into your body. These two ingredients also increase thirst, which will prompt you to continue drinking - and the more you drink, the more completely you'll restore lost body fluids

So as this book is saying, sports drinks>water in soccer (because soccer in itself is 90 mins + extra time). But if you add sodium or glucose into water, will that even the scales?

[RoryBen]

But if you add sodium and glucose to water...

water + sodium + glucose = sports drink

surely? That's basically all they are. Plus some snazzy things like electrolytes etc, but sports drinks are mainly designed for hydration through the mechanisms you've described I think

[F_Torres]

The way I learned it at school, if your training session/match last longer than an hour and a hal you should drink some form of a sport drink. If its shorter than that, you only need water.