Hammer Nutrition Recoverite Recovery Drink–Initial Review

As mentioned in the earlier post, we’re kicking off a nutrition series today.  The first product we’ll review is Hammer Nutrition’s Recoverite Recovery Drink.  Thanks to Hammer for supplying the samples of Chocolate and Strawberry Recoverite.

Recoverite is Hammer Nutrition’s dedicated recovery drink.  However, if you aren’t interested in this particular product, Hammer offers quite a few products that people use to create a ‘do-it-yourself’ recovery drink, including Hammer Whey and Hammer Soy.  We selected Recoverite because it is specifically designed to assist endurance athletes with recovery.

Ingredients and Nutrition:

A serving of Recoverite contains 170 calories, 55mg of sodium, 32g of carbs with only 3g being sugar and 10g of protein.  Recoverite claims to assist with glycogen synthesis and muscle tissue rebuilding.  Glycogen is an essential energy source and glycogen debt is what generally causes endurance athletes to ‘hit the wall’.  If a product can help you process your food into glycogen, that is to synthesize, you should see a faster recovery and increased endurance after continued use.

Flavor and Consistency:

One of our biggest complaints about any energy drink, gel or supplement is the flavor and consistency.  Everyone remembers the original whey proteins and other supplements that couldn’t be converted to a liquid through miracle or magic.  We’re happy to report that Recoverite is not similar.  We first used the strawberry flavor after a 40 mile ride.  Our observation is that the Strawberry Recoverite has a much milder flavor than some other recovery drinks.  Hammer doesn’t attempt to mask the flavor of the supplement with overpowering flavors.  The protein flavor in the drink is present, of course, but not overwhelming.

Recoverite, as expected, is a bit thicker than Hammer’s HEED drink; it required a bit of stirring to fully mix, but even the residual product in the bottom of the container was less solid than other manufacturers.

Performance:

For our initial review and impressions, we used Recoverite after a 40 mile bike ride.  We’re about half way through our training for a half Ironman distance race, so our workouts are frequent and hard.  This ride was no different.  We did hills and flats and averaged 21 miles per hour for the entire circuit.  After the ride, I mixed the Recoverite into a 16oz bottle of water.  As I mentioned before, the product was much thicker than your average drink, but not as chalky and grainy as some other recovery drinks.  The afternoon of the ride, we experienced some, but not much, muscle soreness, less than we normally deal with after a similar workout and no recovery drink.  The next day, we did a 7 mile run without issue.

Some recovery drinks and supplements are harsh on the stomach and gastrointestinal issues are the bane of the triathlete’s existence.  We’re happy to report that we didn’t experience any issues using Recoverite.

Overall:

Of course it’s too early for us to recommend Recoverite.  As mentioned in the earlier post, we’re going to continue using this product for an entire week.  During this week, we have 6 days of exercise and a number of two a day workouts.  While we’re impressed with the flavor, consistency, and functionality of Recoverite, but it’s much too soon for us to recommend the product.  We can say that the product certainly helped after our first use and didn’t cause any stomach issues.

We will wrap up our test this weekend and will have a final review by this time next week.