FitEgg.com Multisport Reviews
If you’ve been reading FitEgg for the past month or so, you’ve seen quite a few articles and reviews on recovery products. Today, we’re happy to bring you the initial review for our final recovery product, 2:1:1 Recovery from Optimum Nutrition. A special thanks to Christy and Tim at Optimum Nutrition for supplying the samples for our tests.
Background on Optimum Nutrition.
Optimum Nutrition is a subsidiary of Glanbia, an international cheese and nutritional supplement company. ON owns and operates two brands of nutritional supplements; Optimum Nutrition and American Body Building. Founded in 1986 by Tony and Micahel Costello, ON was created to provide high quality, innovative products to the bodybuilding and health industry. ON complies with Good Manufacturing Practices and uses only the highest quality ingredients and production methods to ensure a quality product.
Background on 2:1:1 Recovery.
2:1:1 Recovery uses current nutritional science to deliver a blend of carbs and proteins to deliver nutrients needed by your body after working out. Using cutting edge technology and science, 2:1:1 delivers these nutrients in a form that is rapidly absorbed into your body, providing better results than single carb and protein mixes. Most ON products are primarily positioned for bodybuilders, but the makers have found that some of products serve endurance athletes very well. 2:1:1 Recovery has been used by marathoners and competitive triathletes with success, so we decided to add this product to our review series.
2:1:1 Recovery Ingredients.
We’ve learned quite a bit about recovery product ingredients in the past month and are becoming more comfortable with the lingo. Please bear with us as we run through the ingredients.
One serving of 2:1:1 Recovery contains 210 calories, no fat, 5mg of cholesterol and 190mg of sodium. You’ll find 35g of carbs with 18g being sugars. One serving contains 15% of your DV of calcium. Please be aware that this product contains milk, egg and soy products.
The carbs in 2:1:1 Recovery come from ON’s Fast Carb Blend that contains Glucose polymers, Sucrose and Fructose. In addition to the carbs, you’ll find Brached Chain Amino Acids, including Leucine, Isoleuchine, and Valine. Both the carbs and the BCAAs are delivered in the 2:1:1 ratio, in the same order listed above. The protein in this product is derived from whey and eggs and milk. The whey protein is absorbed quickly into the body, while the egg protein is a bit slower and the casein, protein derived from cheese and milk, is absorbed most slowly.
2:1:1 Recovery Consistency and Taste.
We sampled the Very Vanilla flavor. The overall flavor is a bit akin to a chalky milkshake, different from some of the other recovery products tested, but not bad. It’s definitely a unique flavor, one that was a bit of a surprise when first used, but we’ve come to like the flavor and consistency. Though chalky milkshake doesn’t sound amazing, 2:1:1 is a huge improvement over some of the attempted fruity flavors in other drinks. After a few uses, you’ll start looking forward to the post workout treat, almost a milkshake reward. The product dissolves reasonably well, but it does have a thick consistency when fully mixed.
2:1:1 Recovery Performance.
We’ve used this product a few times after our workouts and have noticed quite an energy lift after using the product. The Fast Carbs certainly work, providing a boost after our workout. We are getting close to our taper for the Half-Ironman distance race, so we’re really at the peak of our workouts, in distance and exertion. We’ve used the 2:1:1 Recovery after a 2500m swim to recover for a 6 mile run, as well as following a 40mile flat bike ride. Overall, we have been satisfied with the performance. We felt okay after the swim, but still experience serious muscle soreness after the ride.
It’s impossible to say if this is a deficiency in the product or if it’s a result of our intense workout schedule. As stated before, we’re satisfied with the performance and really appreciate the boost we get after using 2:1:1 Recovery, but it’s a bit too early to tell how the product performs overall.
Initial Observations.
Our Half-Iron distance training plan has us working out more frequently and harder than ever before, so we don’t have previous experience at this training level to compare the to the 2:1:1 Recovery performance. As we approach our taper, we’ll be working out as much as we did with the previous recovery products and hope to have a better measurement of 2:1:1 Recovery’s performance.
We’re also aware that sometimes it takes a bit of time to get used to a new recovery product. Remember, we had some stomach issues with a previous product that disappeared after continued use. We hope that as we get more accustomed to the product our body will be more adept at processing the nutrients.
We’re certainly pleased with the performance to date and look forward to continued use and a final review in the coming weeks.
