Fluid Recovery Drink–Final Review

Sorry for the delay in getting this review out to our readers, our IKEA kitchen adventure took a bit longer than expected.

After a week of using Fluid Recovery drink during our half ironman training plan, we’ve learned quite a bit about our body and about the effectiveness of this product in assisting recovery.  If you just found this article, you may want to check out our initial review of the Fluid Recovery drink, published last week.  If you’re new to FitEgg, we’ve been doing a series on nutrition products, specifically recovery product.  You can check out all of our nutrition reviews.

As we mentioned in the earlier review, the Fluid Recovery drink is packed with tons of complex and expensive ingredients, including 2500mg of glutamine per serving.  These high quality ingredients are essential to the performance of this product in your recovery.  However, as we mentioned earlier, the flavor was not our favorite part of this product.  We recommend the Berry flavor over the Tropical, but neither masks the protein supplement flavor.  The product was very easy to mix, though there was a little residue left after mixing.  The drink never upset our stomach or caused any gastrointestinal problem, but we found the product a bit acidic.  We’re stumped about this: it’s good to know that Fluid is focused on making their product functional and glad they didn’t include any artificial flavors to cover the flavors, but we had to water the product down a bit to neutralize the acidic flavor.  That said, we’re pretty sensitive to acids, so you might not have a problem.  We were pleased that even with the acidic taste, the product didn’t cause any stomach issues.

We found that Fluid works best when you follow the directions to the letter.  Following their guidance, we found that the product worked best when used in the 30 minute ‘recovery window’ immediately following your workout.  Even when we didn’t get the drink into our system in the window, we noticed a positive impact after high intensity workouts.   When we were able to consume the drink inside the ‘recovery window’ the benefits were more significant.

For example, we did a workout that should have left my quads worthless–an intense 2000 meter swim with speed kick drills, followed by an afternoon set of interval runs, and finally leg extensions, leg curls, and calf raises.  We were certain that we’d be extremely fatigued and sore the next day-in fact we’d normally be fatigued if not using a recovery product.  After using this product, between my swim and run and again after the lifting, I felt pretty refreshed that night and ready to workout again the next morning.  However, after a 35 mile flat ride with no coasting (our weakness–we’d take hill climbs any day) we were pretty stiff the next day, even after using Fluid’s Recovery drink after the ride.  It’s impossible to know if we’d have been in worse shape after that ride, but we certainly hoped to be more rested and recovered.

Either way, after a week of solid use, this product is beneficial to any triathlete in training.  It definately provides the nutrients and complex carbs you need after intense workouts.  We’re at week 12 of our half Ironman training and we’ve realized the necessity of recovery drinks in this training.  At the end of the day, you’ll have to determine which flavor and which product you enjoy most, but Fluid’s Recovery drink certainly has the necessary ingredients.  We feel that the performance of Fluid Recovery drink far outweighs our dislike of the Tropical flavor.   Recovery drinks aren’t cocktails, the purpose is to assist recovery, not to simulate your palate.  Fluid Recovery delivers solid results, assists recovery, and we’re pleased to recommend Fluid Recovery for triathletes.