It took them a long time and millions upon millions in advertising but the beverage world actually convinced people that Gatorade and other drinks like it are "sports drinks" and are actually good for you. These fruity concoctions are absolutely loaded with sugar and there is nothing sporty about them at all. It was all just clever marketing because at no point in time did the companies actually state that these drinks actually were performance enhancing health drinks, they just implied it.
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From having elite athletes in their commercials, to the ubiquitous coolers at every professional game, they really did a good job convincing the public that these beverages are something that the athletes themselves actually use. While I am sure that there are some people that genuinely do drink this stuff that are pro athletes, they are not doing it because it is an endurance enhancing product, they are doing it because they like the way it tastes.
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Generally speaking, Gatorade, Powerade, and all the others like them contain as much sugar as their carbonated counterparts like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. I don't think that anyone would accept that athletes are pounding Coke during games but because of the clever marketing the public believed that they were actually doing something beneficial for themselves by choosing a Gatorade for a beverage.
If you were in the process of doing a triathlon or something really intense like that, a Gatorade might benefit you because you need as much energy as possible but even then, this processed sugar water is not ideal.
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There is absolutely nothing in this bottles that your body can use in any sort of meaningful way and while the industry has started to step away from the full sugar versions and gone towards sugar-free or low sugar, the fact remains that even those have no benefit from a sport perspective. You are better off drinking water.
In fact, even though we see Gatorade coolers on the sidelines at every professional sporting event, those coolers do not actually contain the product that they are advertising. They contain water, because that is what you should be drinking... not some sugary garbage that is promoted by athletes.
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I find it a bit upsetting that my gym sells Gatorade and wish they would stop. They are probably obligated by some sort of contract where they got refrigerators for free or something. If you are drinking this stuff thinking that it is somehow improving your performance you could be right, but I don't think that most people are actually exercising hard enough for it to be a factor. If you drink this pre, post, or during a workout, you are most likely just giving your body empty calories that it now has to work against for you to benefit from the workout.
from athlete in my 20's to fat ass in my 30's to the strongest I have ever been in my 40's. I lost over 50 lbs and kept it off by making smart choices in my life with diet and exercise. None of these choices involved drinking sugary sports drinks