How Collagen Would possibly Increase Your Explosive Energy

It’s laborious to say that collagen is a “scorching new complement,” on condition that its well being advantages have been already being promoted by the twelfth-century Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen. In its fashionable kind, collagen dietary supplements have been hyped for many years for functions starting from joint ache to hair thickness, regardless of a common lack of convincing proof that they work. However curiosity has spiked over the previous few years because of a burst of latest analysis, and the most recent examine on the subject bolsters the declare that collagen would possibly assist construct springier tendons and muscle groups to reinforce explosive power.

Why Collagen Would possibly Assist

I first wrote in regards to the new wave of collagen analysis again in 2019, and adopted up with extra in 2023. The normal view is that collagen-rich connective tissues equivalent to tendons, ligaments, and cartilage are successfully inert, with very restricted capacity to develop or restore themselves after damage. What collagen proponents argue is that taking collagen dietary supplements provides the important thing constructing blocks—for instance, an amino acid referred to as proline—that set off the synthesis of latest connective tissue within the physique.

The skeptical view is that collagen dietary supplements are damaged up into their constituent amino acids if you digest them, identical to every other type of protein. Because of this, they’re no more practical for constructing collagen within the physique that, say, ingesting a glass of milk (which additionally comprises proline). There may be, nevertheless, a little bit of proof that some collagen-specific peptides—brief chains of amino acids—make it via the digestion course of intact and present up within the bloodstream.

The proof for these claims and counterclaims has been decidedly blended. A part of the issue is that many of the research use some mixture of collagen and particular train protocols in an try to maximise the advantages, in the identical means that protein dietary supplements are only for constructing muscle when mixed with power coaching. This can be a good concept, however it makes it tough to interpret conflicting outcomes. Did the examine fail as a result of collagen doesn’t work, or as a result of the train protocol was too simple or too laborious, or too bizarre?

The New Examine

The newest examine comes from researchers at Japan’s Juntendo College—working, it needs to be famous, with scientists from Morinaga & Co., which manufactures and sells well being and sports activities “meals merchandise.” Their purpose was to simplify the image by learning the consequences of 16 weeks of day by day ten-gram collagen peptide dietary supplements, with no different modifications in train or eating regimen. They recruited 50 volunteers, half of whom obtained the complement whereas the opposite half obtained a placebo.

The particular speculation the researchers needed to check was that collagen dietary supplements would make tendons and muscle groups “stiffer,” within the sense {that a} stiff elastic band takes extra drive to stretch. That is what you’d anticipate if the collagen dietary supplements set off additional collagen formation within the tendons, that are primarily manufactured from collagen fibers, and within the “extracellular matrix” that gives structural assist to muscle groups.

Stiffer muscle groups and tendons ought to assist you to switch drive extra effectively out of your muscle groups to your bones, making it attainable to ship drive extra quickly. You’re not getting stronger, however you’re getting extra explosive. This form of explosive energy is essential each for athletic efficiency and for actions of day by day dwelling like getting out of a chair—and (as I wrote final fall) can be what we are inclined to lose most quickly as we age.

What They Discovered

The outcomes, which have been printed in Drugs & Science in Sports activities & Train, principally assist this speculation. They used MRI to measure the scale of the Achilles tendon and a part of the calf muscle; an ultrasound approach to measure the stiffness of the tendon and muscle; and a set of power and energy checks to see the useful results of the supplementation.

Neither the tendon nor the muscle obtained any larger, and the utmost calf power didn’t change. However the elastic stiffness of each muscle and tendon elevated within the collagen group, whereas staying unchanged within the placebo group. Right here, for instance, is the stiffness (as measured by how briskly an ultrasound wave travels) for the collagen and placebo teams:

Maybe extra importantly, the collagen group additionally noticed a rise in “fee of torque growth,” which is a measure of explosive power that quantifies how rapidly you may apply drive:

The ultimate piece of the image is that, for particular person topics, those that noticed the most important will increase in muscle stiffness tended to see the most important will increase in explosive drive. There wasn’t a transparent connection between will increase in tendon stiffness and will increase in explosive drive, however general, the outcomes assist the chain of logic: extra collagen -> stiffer muscle groups and tendons -> extra explosive drive.

What the Outcomes Imply

You may make a a lot larger argument on the idea of those outcomes. Possibly you don’t care about tendons and explosive power (although, actually, you must). But when these outcomes are true, then it means that there is one thing particular about consuming collagen—that it’s not simply damaged down right into a potpourri of unfastened amino acids, and that it may possibly set off the remodelling of cartilage-based tissues. Possibly it actually will thicken your hair; perhaps it’ll restore your joints; perhaps it’ll speed up your restoration from ligament accidents.

These are huge and as-yet-unproven claims, but when collagen works for tendon stiffness, then the opposite claims grow to be a bit extra believable, at the least in concept. I stay skeptical however intrigued. Given the mess of conflicting outcomes produced by earlier analysis, a single examine funded by a complement firm—even with a strong pattern measurement of fifty—doesn’t settle the query both means. However it means that this can be a line of analysis that’s very a lot price pursuing, and that we should always await additional outcomes with curiosity.

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I have been writing Outdoors’s Sweat Science column since 2017. I am a lifelong runner, a former physicist, and the creator of the NYT bestseller Endure in addition to a forthcoming (March 2025) e book referred to as The Explorer’s Gene. I dwell in Toronto.