From Gatorade to creatine, a dietary supplement used by baseball sluggers Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire, ingredients and formulated products targeting weekend warriors, as well as professional athletes, have grown in popularity.

As with so many market statistics, estimates of the size of the sports nutrition market vary widely, depending on types of products included and distribution channels monitored. Nutrition Business Journal, for example, reported that sports nutrition products—in the form of supplements, bars and drinks—racked up $4.7 billion in consumer sales in 1999, a 10% rise over 1998. Slightly over half of this category consists of sports beverages.