Torq Vegan Recovery Drink - 500g

TORQ Vegan 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 Pea Protein Content
• Fast-Acting High GI Carbohydrates
• Glutamine for Muscle/Immune Protection
• Ribose for Cellular Regeneration
• Part of the TORQ Recovery System
• Add to either Fruit Juice or Oat Milk

Like TORQ’s flagship whey-based Recovery Drink, TORQ Vegan Recovery Drink has been designed to work as part of the highly comprehensive and thorough TORQ Recovery System. This system considers the level of activity you are performing and recommends concepts and products from the TORQ range to suit your physical loading in a cumulative fashion.

We offer 2 different formulations, Creamy Cocoa which is designed to be added to 400ml of Oat Milk and Robust & Fruity to be added to 400ml of Orange Juice (or another flavour of fruit juice if desired). The oat milk or fruit juice used kick-starts the hydration process. Our matrix of Glucose Polymers, Dextrose, Pea Protein Isolate and the carbohydrates already present in the oat milk/fruit juice stimulate the rapid absorption of carbohydrate to re-stock vital glycogen stores. Along with our use of high quality Pea Protein, our active ingredients, D-Ribose, L-Glutamine work together to repair and recharge over-stressed muscle fibres. D-Ribose in particular is unique to the TORQ brand and there is no other nutrient available on the market today that is capable of refreshing energy levels at the intra-cellular level.

We consider TORQ’s non-vegan whey-based Recovery Drink to be the most thorough and effective formulation of its kind on the market today and our Vegan version shares the same technology. We will not compromise, which is why we have used the highest quality plant-based Pea Protein rather than lower quality less effective plant protein sources. D-Ribose and L-Glutamine are extremely potent micronutrients which add unrivalled fortification to these recovery blends.

No flavours or colours are added to these formulations. The Creamy Cocoa blend uses cocoa powder to flavour it and the Robust & Fruity blend relies on the natural flavours within the orange juice you’re mixing with it.

Like our whey-based recovery drink, TORQ Vegan Recovery represents a 3:1 blend of carbohydrates and high quality protein. It is generally accepted that consuming carbohydrates and protein at a 3:1 ratio immediately after exercise will speed up glycogen synthesis. In other words, the addition of high quality protein will help you to store carbohydrate more effectively than consuming carbohydrate alone. It is also generally accepted that Pea Protein is the closest (in terms of quality and functionality) plant-based protein to Whey Protein. It’s the fastest acting, most soluble and most readily absorbed/synthesised of the plant proteins, thus it provides the amino acids necessary for muscle repair with little delay.

Consuming TORQ Vegan Recovery within 15 minutes of exercise completion to take advantage of the ‘glycogen storage window of opportunity’ is also essential. This is called the ‘non-insulin phase’ of carbohydrate absorption.

There are 2 versions of TORQ Vegan Recovery available and they have different formulations based upon the base fluid you choose to use.

The Creamy Cocoa version is designed to be added to Oat Milk. You can add it to Rice Milk, Almond Milk or Soya Milk if you want, but we advise the use of Oat Milk, as this is the product we based our formulation upon. We recommend Alpro Original Oat Milk but you can use any brand.

Simply pour 400ml of Oat Milk into your TORQ Mixer Bottle, add 5 level scoops of powder, screw the top on to your mixer bottle, shake vigorously and enjoy!

A 1.5Kg pouch of Creamy Cocoa TORQ Vegan Recovery powder will give you 15 serves.

The Robust & Fruity version has been designed to be added to regular long-life Orange Juice (the kind you get in 1 litre cartons at the supermarket) although there’s no reason why you couldn’t use another fruit juice flavour as all have a similar carbohydrate content. We recommend orange as we feel this tastes the best, so formulated around this. We have formulated around Tesco’s Orange Juice but you can use any brand.

Simply pour 400ml of Orange Juice into your TORQ Mixer Bottle, add 4 level scoops of powder, screw the top onto your mixer bottle, shake vigorously and enjoy!

A 1.5Kg pouch of Robust & Fruity TORQ Vegan Recovery powder will provide you with 19 serves.

Our Robust & Fruity version does offer better value for money per serve, but the Creamy Cocoa product does have a beautifully rich and creamy flavour. We’ll let you decide what your taste buds are going to prefer! Both will give you the precise blend of nutrients you need.

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 fluid (Oat Milk or Orange Juice) 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 Vegan Recovery Drink will not provide sufficient fluid to comprehensively rehydrate you, so you should continue to drink plenty of fluids after your recovery drink has been consumed. Remember that comprehensive rehydration in exceptional circumstances also includes replacing lost electrolytes to restore homeostatic balance, so you might want to consider consuming TORQ Hydration after your recovery drink when dehydration is extreme.

Refuelling/Replenishing Carbohydrate Stores: The body has a very limited amount of carbohydrate, stored in the muscles and liver. In total these carbohydrate 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 stores to full resting levels within around 24 hours providing sufficient carbohydrate is taken in, however this process can take much longer if inadequate carbohydrate is consumed and attention isn’t paid towards the timing of the carbohydrate ingestion.

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 consume TORQ Vegan Recovery as soon as possible after exercise (we recommend within 15 minutes).

The Role of Pea Protein in TORQ Vegan Recovery: 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.

TORQ Vegan 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 & Vegan Formulation: TORQ Vegan Recovery Drink is a gluten-free product. The formulation is also entirely plant-based, so is suitable for Vegans. Remember that if you do add oat milk to your Creamy Cocoa version, you will be adding gluten, so either use almond milk or opt for the Robust & Fruity formulation instead which will produce an entirely gluten-free drink.

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?

The research is clear, fuelling with carbohydrate and ensuring that you consume a recovery drink immediately after exercise will not only boost performance and assist in the overall recovery process, but it will also support your immune system, leaving you less vulnerable to infection. 

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