Why?
Back when I was coaching, I took a graduate school course in nutrition for athletes, and the topic of Gatorade (and other such drinks) was a big part of our talk on hydration and electrolyte replacement. The theory behind the creation of Gatorade was that the body lost electrolytes during performance, and rehydrating with a drink that contained electrolytes would help the body restore the critical electrolyte balance more quickly.
Notice the key words "rehydrate" and "restore." The idea was not to consume it before competition but rather during and after competition.
But that was just the theory. Not long after its creation, Gatorade sponsored a study to determine the ideal way to rehydrate during and after athletic performance. It was obviously confident that it would be pronounced the winner, but that was not what happened. The study indicated that although the body did indeed lose electrolytes during athletic performance, it actually lost proportionately more water than electrolytes. Thus the body's loss of electrolytes during performance had the opposite effect of what was expected--there were proportionately too may electrolytes in the body during and after performance! The study concluded that the athlete should rehydrate with plain old water to restore the balance, leaving the electrolytes to be replenished later, usually through a normal diet.
Taking additional electrolytes before an athletic performance would make the problem even worse.
The goal of hydration and rehydration should be the primary concern, and the original purpose of Gatorade was electrolyte replacement. I say the original purpose because I am not sure it even attempts to do that now. I think that if you look at the ingredients now, you will see that Gatorade is essentially sugar water--or maybe high fructose corn syrup water. (I don't have a bottle in front of me--just going from the memory of the last time I looked.)
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