Taking my recovery more seriously has been a major new feature of my training in 2022. Part of that has been to take a recovery drink after the hardest training session each day. The need to take on carbs and protein after exercise to support recovery are well established, and Training Peaks has a really useful guide on recovery nutrition that specifies and embellishes further. They recommend 0.8g carb / kg body weight and 0.2g protein / kg body weight. 56g of carbs and 14g of protein for a 70kg athlete. I’d done some other research around the web and decided to favour taking on that protein as BCAAs. Having tried BCAAs in water, I was pretty keen to find some other way of taking them that would mask the flavour - they taste a bit like hops smell before they’ve been brewed.
Below are two recipes that fit that macronutrient profile; one vegan and the other not. The chocolate milk based one is a lot cheaper, and in the end I decided that milk is such good value, high quality nutrition that I’ve gone with that one all season. I also add 5g of creatine monohydrate per shake - given that I’ve been training pretty much every day it’s the easiest way to remember to take my creatine.
Electrolytes aren’t included in these - taking on enough after a session is left to the reader.
Recipes make 1 shake for a 70kg athlete. Scale up for your weight / batch size accordingly.
Vegan, Huel-based Recovery shake
- 155ml water
- 31g Huel
- 5g BCAA
- 45g Maltodextrin
Chocolate milkshake-based
- 310ml Semi-skimmed milk
- 14g Nesquik chocolate milk powder
- 3g BCAA
- 23g Maltodextrin (that’s right, parents: Nesquik just isn’t sugary enough for athletes!)
Multiplying this up (with a bit of rounding) and adding my extras gives a batch of: -
- 250g Nesquick chocolate milk powder
- 400g Maltodextrin powder
- 50g BCAA
- 90g Creatine monohydrate
- 90g Greens Powder
- 20g Electrolyte mix
This yields about 18 batches of 50g of powder. Add each batch to 310ml milk for the shake.