Threshold Recovery Product from Optimum Nutrition–Final Review

A little over a month ago, we wrapped up our review on Optimum Nutrition’s 2:1:1 Recovery product.  We noted that the product aided in recovery, especially helping our testers feel full after a hard workout and helped them recover for their next workout.  However, we noted that the product didn’t kn0ck out our muscle fatigue and soreness.  After publishing our review, the folks at Optimum Nutrition recommended we sample their Threshold product that is designed especially to work on muscle soreness.

Background on Threshold:

Threshold is designed to assist with removing the acid that builds up in your muscles during exercise.  During exercise, glucose and glycogen are broken down for energy and hydrogen is released into your muscles, causing an acid buildup and leading to fatigue and soreness.

Threshold contains Beta-Alanine, Histidine, and Phosphates to “boost your intramuscular buffering system so you can train harder and longer.”  One serving contains 1.6 grams of Beta-Alanine and 550mg of Histidine.  There are only 5 calories per serving but will you find magnesium (15mg), phosphorus (70mg), sodium (20mg), and potassium (55mg) in each serving.

Using Threshold:

Threshold is designed for continuous, daily use.  If you use this product sporadically, you won’t see any serious benefits. Beta-Alanine must build up in your system for you to see the difference it can make, so it’s essential that you continue to take this product, even if you don’t see the benefits right away.  Because it takes a little while to build up in your system, we weren’t able to provide a initial review, only this final review after using the product for 5 weeks.

Review of Threshold:

For the past 5 weeks, we have found this product beneficial to our training.  We found the Fruit Fusion flavor to be easy to deal with, certainly not a treat, but also not a bad flavor at all.  We were a bit skeptical when told this product might cause a ‘tingling sensation’ around your mouth after consuming it.  While we didn’t experience any tingling around our mouth, we did feel a ‘pins and needles’ sensation down our arms and legs.  True to their claims, the sensation did dissipate as the weeks passed.  We only experience the ‘pins and needles’ feeling now if we sneeze or cough after drinking Threshold, and even then, it’s just a small spurt of ‘pins and needles.’

As for the performance of this product, we have done many workouts training for my 70.3 distance race with my training partner.  After numerous workouts, she would be sore and fatigued, whereas we wouldn’t be.  Thought it is quite difficult to pre-decide whether a workout would make you sore or not, long distance workouts, in general, cause some muscle soreness and fatigue.  We found this product helpful on these long endurance days–56 mile bike rides followed by two hour runs.  We experienced virtually no muscle soreness in the evenings after these workouts.  However, we were still a bit sore after our 70.3 triathlon.

That said, we recommend this product for use by any triathlete or endurance athlete doing serious and long workouts. Please remember, this product is meant for continual, daily use and not for sporadic use.  We’d recommend following these instructions to get the full effect of the product and to reduce the tingling sensations.