TORQ Recovery Drink is a highly advanced post-exercise nutritional drink formulation that has been designed to rehydrate, refuel, repair and recharge your fatigued physiology after heavy exercise.

Key Features:

• 3:1 Carbohydrate : Protein
• High Quality Whey Protein
• Multiple Transportable Carbohydrates
• Glutamine for Muscle/Immune Protection
• Ribose for Cellular Regeneration
• Part of the TORQ Recovery System
• Simply add to Water

TORQ Recovery Drink has been formulated to refuel, recharge and repair muscle tissue, so it is acceptable to reduce your dosage if you feel that you are carrying excess body fat. For instance, if you have a ‘race weight’ that you’re aiming for and know is achievable, take a dose that corresponds to that weight.

Also, there’s efficacy for taking a smaller dose of TORQ Recovery for lighter exercise sessions to ‘assist’ in the recovery process – not every session necessarily requires the full dose. That said, ensure that you take the full (optimal) dose where necessary – for exhaustive high volume or high intensity workouts.

You should consider getting yourself a TORQ Mixer Bottle, but as TORQ Recovery mixes very easily, as long as you have a receptacle with a watertight lid and some air space for mixing, that should work well too. Always add the level scoops of powder to the appropriate amount of water, not the other way round, and shake well to mix. Chilled water is ideal and adding crushed ice is even better! Once mixed, treat as fresh milk, keep refrigerated and consume within 24 hours.

In this section we cover the benefits, properties and ingredients used within this product in detail…

Hydration: It goes without saying that rehydration is an important part of the recovery process and the water you mix with the powder to make your drink will clearly help with this process. In situations where fluid losses are particularly high, your TORQ Recovery Drink will not provide sufficient fluid for comprehensive rehydration, so you should continue to drink plenty of fluids after your recovery drink has been consumed. Remember that comprehensive rehydration in exceptional circumstances also requires the replacement of lost electrolytes to restore homeostatic balance, so you may also wish to consider consuming TORQ Hydration to further assist the fluid replacement process when necessary.

Refuelling/Replenishing Carbohydrate Stores: The body holds a very limited amount of stored (endogenous) carbohydrate in the muscles and liver – and this stored endogenous carbohydrate is called ‘glycogen.’ In total these stores equate to around 5% of the body’s total energy stores, however carbohydrate is the preferred fuel source and during exercise can equate to over 50% (or more) of total energy expended, depending on the intensity and duration of the exercise. These limited stores combined with a limited capacity to absorb and use carbohydrate during exercise can result in them becoming almost completely depleted during an intense endurance training session or competition.

Once depleted, the body can replenish these glycogen stores in around 24hours to full resting levels, provided sufficient carbohydrate is taken in, however this process can take much longer if inadequate carbohydrate is consumed. Due to the time it takes for the body to restock these stores during heavy bouts of training and competition, where sessions are completed with limited rest and recovery, getting sufficient fuel on board and stored as glycogen becomes critical to performance in subsequent sessions and has been shown through research to restore exercise capacity more rapidly.

Post exercise, there are two main phases to replenishing carbohydrate stores. Initially there is a very rapid phase which occurs independently of the hormone insulin and lasts around 30-60 minutes and this is followed by a much slower insulin-dependent phase which can last several hours. During this initial phase, the body is able to rapidly convert carbohydrate into glycogen thanks to the activity of the exercise-dependent Glut-4 transporter which works in a similar way to insulin. This, in combination with an increased exercise-induced insulin sensitivity, aiding the storage process further, makes it absolutely vital that the correct calories are consumed within the brief post-exercise window. Delaying carbohydrate intake by 2 hours or more has been shown to reduce the rate of carbohydrate storage (re-synthesis) by 50% which is not advisable with another competition or hard training session looming. It is therefore important to make best use of this immediately after exercise by ensuring adequate carbohydrate and this is why we recommend that TORQ Recovery is consumed within 15 minutes of finishing exercise.

So there is a well established need for carbohydrate post exercise, but how much is required and in what form? Due to the limited timeframe in which the body is able to rapidly store carbohydrate after exercise, it pays to make maximum use of this time and get carbohydrate into the body as quickly as possible. The most effective way to do this is by ingesting some fast absorbing high GI (Glycaemic Index) forms of carbohydrate to ensure that it is delivered into the system quickly. High GI carbohydrates not only cause a rapid rise in blood sugar by delivering carbohydrate quickly, but also after the initial ‘insulin independent’ stage of recovery, it provokes a rapid release of insulin (the hormone responsible for the storage of carbohydrate) which further aids in the replenishment of the body’s endogenous stores of carbohydrate. As discussed below, fructose, which although a low GI carbohydrate, also plays a part because of its unique delivery method however.

The Role of Multiple-Transportable Carbohydrates:The speed of carbohydrate absorption can also be further enhanced through the use of multiple transportable carbohydrates (i.e. two forms of carbohydrate that don’t compete for absorption in the gut) such as Maltodextrin:Fructose (as used in TORQ Recovery). Research by Wallis et al. has shown that the use of Glucose and Fructose combined can give glycogen re-synthesis rates comparable to some of the highest reported in research. Further to this Decombaz et al. recently demonstrated that using Maltodextrin and Fructose post exercise resulted in a two fold increase in the rate of carbohydrate re-synthesis in the liver, one of the major stores of carbohydrate. For short term recovery this has massive implications as a faster re-synthesis rate of carbohydrate will leave you fresher ready for the next training session/competition. The two very short video clips below demonstrate how glucose-derivatives and fructose use different carriers across the gut wall and how combining both allows greater overall carbohydrate absorption. The first clip shows how absorption through the gut wall is limited when carbohydrate is derived from glucose only.

Muscular Repair & the Role of Whey Protein: Prolonged endurance exercise not only causes a strain on the body’s carbohydrate stores, but also induces muscle damage and causes a breakdown of proteins within the body. The addition of protein to a recovery drink can not only prevent the breakdown occurring, but also increases the rate of post exercise muscle synthesis, having an anabolic effect through offering substrate for muscle repair and aiding training adaptation. Protein synthesis and oxidation rates can be further increased through the use of Whey Isolate (the protein used in TORQ Recovery), a soluble protein that has a fast intestinal absorption further speeding up the rate of recovery. Significantly also, the addition of whey protein to a carbohydrate recovery drink has also been shown to elevate the circulating insulin concentrations and aid the storage of carbohydrate in the muscle and liver further, with a comparatively lower dose of carbohydrate.

TORQ Recovery’s Unique Micronutrients: It is TORQ’s unique use of D-Ribose and L-Glutamine that sets it apart from other recovery products on the market. L-Glutamine helps to protect the muscles from catabolic (muscle degrading) processes after exercise and also strengthens the immune system. D-Ribose re-charges the muscle cells after exercise so that they have the energy to contract to their full potential within 24 hours, a process that would take up to 3 days without supplemental Ribose. These are particularly expensive ingredients and it is not unusual for nutrition companies to either avoid using these expensive ingredients altogether or claim that their products contain important components like these, whilst providing too small a dose to have a significant effect. We do not believe in compromise, so every serving of TORQ Recovery contains a dose of D-Ribose and L-Glutamine that has been verified by the available research.

Further Information on L-Glutamine: Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body, in a large part because it is needed a lot by the brain, intestines, kidneys, lungs and immune system and also because you can manufacture your own. It is actually termed a ‘non-essential amino acid’, but this can be misleading, because under times of high physiological stress, if you leave your body to produce its own supply, it will break down muscle tissue in order to make it available.

Continued Carbohydrate Consumption: In order to ensure maximum re-synthesis (storage) rates, research has pointed towards consuming around 1-1.2grams per kg body weight immediately after exercise. Anymore is unlikely to offer any further benefit and any less and it will potentially compromise the effectiveness of your recovery. This initial feed should then be followed up with regular carbohydrate feeding in frequent doses afterwards. There are a variety of regular low fat, high carbohydrate food choices that will enable you to achieve the desired amount of carbohydrate, but we do have a few products in our portfolio that will give you a helping hand. Use these products for pure convenience, or in situations where your exercise load is particularly high and you need specific tools to assist with the recovery process.

Gluten Free Formulation: TORQ Recovery Drink is a gluten-free product.

Natural Flavours and No Colours: Under exercise stress, digestion is affected as blood is diverted to the working muscles and any solutes added to a product will raise its osmolality unnecessarily making it harder to digest, so irrespective of the health debate surrounding the consumption of artificial ingredients, during and immediately after exercise is certainly not the time to take them. Therefore, we only use natural flavours that the body can recognise and break down easily and we don’t use colours (artificial or natural), because they simply don’t need to be in the product.

No Artificial Sweeteners: For the same reasons as highlighted above, we don’t believe in the use of artificial sweeteners like Aspatame, Acsulfame-K, Saccharine and Sucralose. These artificial sweeteners are 100’s of times sweeter than sugar and Aspartame/Acsulfame-K are particularly controversial with regard to long-term health. They offer no performance benefit at all and our stance is the same with these as with colours and preservatives – if they don’t need to be included in our formulations for functional reasons, why include them? 

Occasionally, without notice, manufacturers change product design and/or specifications.