Best Recovery Drinks for Runners and Athletes

We see you over there logging those countless miles day in and day out. Putting in the relentless work behind the scenes. And as you do so, you’ll want to reap the benefits from the relentless hard work and training on race day. Your ability to recover- or not- can strongly predict your race-day performance. Fortunately, there are many easy and convenient strategies to help with the recovery process. Let’s review the best recovery drinks for runners and endurance athletes.

Recovery drinks for runners and endurance athletes can be a helpful tool to keep you well-fueled and recovering from the intensity of training. Let’s review the importance of recovery and what to look for in an effective recovery drink for runners and athletes.

Recovery Needs for Runners and Athletes

Those countless miles push the envelope on your body’s capabilities. Training day in and day out can certainly bolster strength and performance. These increased demands can also result in other physiological processes including:

• Central nervous fatigue and high levels of oxidative stress
• Inflammation, subsequent fluid retention, and even weight gain
• Depleted glycogen, though certainly to a lesser extent if you are fueling well throughout your entire training cycle
• Muscle tissue breakdown
• Elevated core temperature and heart rate
• Electrolyte disturbances
• Sleep disturbances

Optimizing day-to-day nutrition and post-workout nutrition is an effective tool to keep you off of the sidelines and enhance recovery. Utilizing good nutrition will ultimately decrease muscle protein breakdown, increase muscle protein synthesis and restore glycogen stores post-workout. While balanced meals are a flexible option post-workout, recovery drinks for runners and athletes can also help speed up recovery.

Timing and Strategies for Consuming Recovery Drinks for Athletes

When your training session or race ends, recovery begins! The importance of recovery increases as the frequency, duration and intensity of your training session or race increases. While we take an individualized approach to working with our endurance clients, typically we recommend the following recovery nutrition strategies across all endurance exercise modalities and distances. When you are fine-tuning your recovery drink for post-workout or post-race, be sure to prioritize the following: 

Protein and Carbohydrates

Refuel within 15-30 minutes of finishing your workout or race and include a lean protein and high-glycemic carbohydrate-rich food to jump-start recovery.

Delaying your carbohydrate intake even by two hours can slow down the replenishment process. A 3:1-4:1 carbohydrate-to-protein ratio is typically recommended for optimal muscle tissue recovery after a harder effort.

Athletes should aim to include 0.5-0.7 g of carbohydrate per pound of body weight within finishing the workout or race. If you are choosing solid food options, go with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a turkey and cheese bagel with pretzels, or even a protein bar with dry cereal. These options are effective, portable, and quick.

Certainly, recovery drinks can meet these criteria as well. Ideally, you then also want to eat a full meal within 2-4 hours of finishing the workout or race. It is important to remember that adequate protein and carbohydrate intake is just as important post-workout for plant-based endurance athletes.

Recovery: Fluids and Rehydration

Rehydration needs to be a top priority after a hard effort as athletes tend to replace only ½ or ¾ of their sweat losses through drinking during exercise. Drinking cool water and fluids will help to lower core body temperature. 

Ideally, you want to experiment with a sweat test to better understand your estimated sweat rate throughout training and racing. This way, you know your fluid needs in varying weather patterns but in general, you want to aim for 20-24 oz of fluid for every pound lost.

Remember that thirst is not always a reliable indicator of fluid losses, in fact tends to be a very late predictor of fluid needs. Also, a liquid meal can take the place of solid nutrition if you are feeling any sort of stomach upset.

Electrolytes

Electrolyte imbalances often occur after harder, prolonged bouts of exercise. This can result in unwanted side effects including chronic cramping, headaches, confusion, and even nausea and vomiting.

Electrolyte replenishment is always important, but particularly crucial during the warm and humid summer months and in very dry conditions, such as at altitude. Be sure to include electrolytes including sodium, magnesium, potassium, and calcium in your post-workout or post-race fuel.

Top Recovery Drinks for Runners

Fortunately, the options are quite endless when it comes to effective recovery drinks for runners and endurance athletes. Let’s review a few of our favorites:

• Chocolate milk: An absolute classic and also the most cost-effective option. Research shows that consuming chocolate milk immediately after exercise and again at 2 hours post-exercise appears to be optimal for exercise recovery. 
  
• Homemade protein drinks: These are easily customizable to fit your nutrition needs and taste preferences, and are relatively inexpensive. When concocting your recovery drink, include a protein-rich source such as Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, or protein powder. Experiment with fun carbohydrate-rich ingredients such as fresh or frozen fruit, juice, or even oats.
  
  When choosing a protein powder, look for a third-party tested label, such as Informed Choice for Sport or NSF-Certified. Thorne is my go-to whey protein isolate powder and this link will get you 15% off (affiliate link). 
  
• Ready-to-drink recovery beverages. Convenient and effective. Most of these blends have a 3:1-4:1 carbohydrate-to-protein ratio and will include important electrolytes for recovery.

Sports Recovery Drinks for Endurance Athletes: Dietitians’ Review

There are lots of recovery drink mixes on the market. In all honesty, up until writing this (mid-2024) I hadn’t tried any because refueling with food is just much easier and cheaper. I ordered 5 different products that are from popular sports fuel brands to try.

A few things to note: For all of these I used cold water from my tap to mix. I blended them by shaking in a sports bottle and then pouring into a clear plastic glass.

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Skratch Labs

$2.82/serving (Per ordering from The Feed)

Contains dairy.

Flavors available: Strawberries + Cream, Chocolate, Horchata

Nutrition (2 scoops, 50 g)

Total fat: 210 calories, 3.5g, Saturated fat: 2.5g, Cholesterol 15mg, Sodium: 270mg, Total Carbohydrates: 36 g, Fiber: 0g, Total Sugars: 32g, Protein: 8g.

It has close to a 4:1 ratio of carbs-to-protein. I’d still recommend pairing this with additional protein and carbs sources to refuel a long and/or hard workout. Uses whole milk and non-fat milk for the protein source. It also contains lactase enzyme to help breakdown the lactose for those who are intolerant.

Alex’ Thoughts: The 2 scoops per 12 oz, mixed up ok. It definitely needed a lot of shaking to fully blend. I ordered the Strawberries + Cream flavor and I was really looking forward to a creamy strawberry flavor. It was not a strong strawberry flavor, there was not a lot of creaminess to it. I was bland and I was disappointed. I give it 1/10

But, I had an Instagram friend, Robi (hi, Robi!) who reported that, “The Skratch Lab’s Horchata flavor was like having the milk after a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. So good.”

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Tailwind

$2.99/serving

Gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan.

Available flavors: Chocolate, Coffee, Vanilla, Salted Caramel

Nutrition (61 g)

240 calories, 3.5 g total fat, 3 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 420 mg sodium, 42 g carbohydrates, 0 g fiber, 37 g total sugar, 11 g protein.

Again, 4:1 ratio of carbs-to-protein. This is plant-based friendly as they use a coconut milk powder, essential amino acids and organic rice powder.

Alex’s Thoughts: This also mixed well. I tried the vanilla. There was not a lot of flavor to this and it was a very fake vanilla flavor. I’d give this a 1/10.

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GU Roctane Protein Recovery Mix

$3.50/serving

Contains dairy. Gluten-free. Informed Choice for Sport label (3rd party testing)

Flavors available: Chocolate smoothie, vanilla

Nutrition (61g)

230 calories, 0 g fat, 20mg cholesterol, 230 mg sodium, 30 g carbohydrates, 0 g fiber, 30 g total sugar, 20 g protein.

This has a 1.5:1 carb-to-protein ratio, so need to pair some additional carbs with it. This is essentially a protein powder with some additional carbs added to it.

It uses a whey protein hydrolysate, whey protein isolate as their protein sources. They do recommend mixing it with chilled plant-based or cow’s milk instead of water.

Alex’s Thoughts: This also mixed well. I tried the vanilla. It had a mild flavor, it wasn’t horrible. I would guess that mixing this with milk it would taste pretty good! This one instructed to mix with the least amount of fluids, 8 oz. I’d give this a 3/10 (mixed in water) but I’m going to take an educated guess that I’d rate it higher when mixed with milk.

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Swiss Rx Total Recovery

Full retail price it’s $6.53/serving. The Feed had it 40% at time of this writing which comes to $3.64.

Flavors available: Strawberry, vanilla chai, chocolate mint

Nutrition (51.8 g)

200 calories, 5 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 15 g carbohydrates, 4 g fiber, 19 g protein

Has a proprietary blend of rice protein, flaxseed flour and a laundry list of additives. If you’re looking for a clean, minimal ingredient list, this would not be it. Nutritonally, it’s almost a 1:1 ratio or carbs-to-protein, so I would pair this with some additional carbs.

Alex’s Thoughts: This definitely needed a blender bottle to help fully mix it. It has a very thick texture. I got the strawberry flavor and when I mixed it I was surprised by the bright yellow/orange color. I reviewed the label some more and saw that it had turmeric added, so that explains the color. The flavor is odd, I didn’t taste any strawberry in it. But, my brain may have been just so focused on the thick consistency. For enjoyment in drinking this, I give it a 1/10.

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Momentus Recovery Post-Workouot Protein & Carbs

$3.95/serving

Contains milk. Gluten-free. NSF Certified for Sport & Informed Choice for Sport.

Flavors available: Chocolate, vanilla

Nutrition (40 g)

140 calories, 0.5 g total fat, 10 mg total carbohydrates, 5 g sugar, 20 g protein.

This has a 4:1 ratio of protein-to-carbs. So you would definitely need to pair this with additional carb sources.

Alex’s Thoughts: I ordered the vanilla and it had a strong flavor. It mixed very nicely. I have had their regular chocolate protein powder before and enjoyed that. But, this post-workout mix I didn’t enjoy this. 2/10.

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Recovery Products Consensus: Yes, I didn’t love any of these fuel products. I thought they were gross and now feel even better saving my money and refueling with food after my workouts. That being said, if you enjoy any of these products and like using them then go for it!

Well-Fueled and Ready to Go

Recovery needs to be a top priority to ward off fatigue and injuries. If your post-workout and post-race recovery needs some fine-tuning, be sure to reach out! Working with a sports dietitian can boost your performance and recovery in no time! Our ALN dietitian team is here to help you be your healthiest and strongest self.