A few are actually designed to rehydrate better from sweat loss and are supposed to be supplemented with equal parts water (IE Gatorade).

Many others, though, are just "juice."

Either way: Unless you're doing something to get sweaty, you would do better health wise with just water.

No but plants crave electrolytes.

By the time you are experiencing an acute electrolyte imbalance the time is generally passed for a quick fix, and you are well into heat exhaustion and dehydration. Anyone who has experienced beat exhaustion can tell you this - it can take hours of sitting down and sipping fluids or even IVs to properly recover.

You will generally get enough electrolytes even for rigorous outdoor activity just by eating three normal meals. The exception to this is if you will be doing high intensity workouts for long enough that it requires skipping a meal, then replacing the meal with glucose and salt supplements can keep you from fading or "bonking" as cyclists call it. But even then the conventional cycling wisdom that you need to do this for any ride over 30 minutes is silly, and likely influenced by doping regimes which deplete athletes much faster than normal.

Any time someone talk about electrolytes, I cannot stop thinking about That movie.

The only drink you need is water.

If you go hiking or biking, mix 4 soup spoon of sugar, the juice of one lemon and a pinch of salt in 1L of water. Much healthier and cheaper than those overpriced chemical drinks.

If you eat a somewhat balanced diet and you're not an elite athlete or working all day in the sun, you're most likely getting all the electrolytes you need — and more — from food. And you can skip the sports drinks.

So unless your career is athlete or in the sun all day. There is no need to drink electrolyte drinks.

As someone who has been oustide all day hiking, those electrolyte drinks do help with recovery.

You don't normally because they aren't for hydration at all other than there is water involved. The history of their development coming out of the Florida Gator football program is quite interesting.

When you sweat you lose more than water. If you've tasted sweat you probably noticed it's salty. So after exercising for long periods you need to replenish more than water to keep your body balanced. That's where electrolyte drinks can help, providing a lot of those salts and minerals as well as some water.

There are a ton of caveats though because they don't hydrate you. In fact, it is my understanding they can be dangerous if you're actually dehydrated. People experiencing heat exhaustion or dehydration should only drink water, recovering their electrolytes only after they recover.

Water is the primary thing you should be drinking to hydrate yourself. If you're doing light exercise and feel like it would help, it's probably better to water it down and focus on more water.

I’ll go on a spin bike for 60 to 90 min at a time and sweat profusely for most of that time, and never needed an electrolyte drink.

However, they do seem to help with hangovers, but chances are it’s more about the water in them than anything.

They legitimately make a noticeable difference to me when hiking. But really only after 6-7 hrs of hiking or if I'm going backpacking for several days. Otherwise water with normal snacks is plenty.

I drink them because I have a serious problem staying hydrated. It sounds weird but I hate the sensation of drinking water – always have, and forcing myself to drink more rarely works.

I can drink juice and soft drinks without issue, but that’s not exactly a healthy way to live. Supplementing my low water intake with a sugar free sports drink goes a long way.

No.