How Collagen Would possibly Enhance Your Explosive Power

It’s onerous to assert that collagen is a “sizzling new complement,” provided that its well being advantages had been already being promoted by the twelfth-century Benedictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen. In its trendy type, 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 due to a burst of recent analysis, and the most recent research on the subject bolsters the declare that collagen may assist construct springier tendons and muscle mass to boost 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 standard view is that collagen-rich connective tissues comparable to tendons, ligaments, and cartilage are successfully inert, with very restricted skill 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 recent connective tissue within the physique.

The skeptical view is that collagen dietary supplements are damaged up into their constituent amino acids once you digest them, similar to every other type of protein. Consequently, they’re no simpler for constructing collagen within the physique that, say, consuming a glass of milk (which additionally comprises proline). There may be, nevertheless, a little bit of proof that some collagen-specific peptides—quick chains of amino acids—make it by way of 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 a lot of the research use some mixture of collagen and particular train protocols in an try to maximise the advantages, in the identical approach that protein dietary supplements are handiest for constructing muscle when mixed with power coaching. It is a good concept, but it surely makes it tough to interpret conflicting outcomes. Did the research fail as a result of collagen doesn’t work, or as a result of the train protocol was too straightforward or too onerous, or too bizarre?

The New Research

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

The particular speculation the researchers needed to check was that collagen dietary supplements would make tendons and muscle mass “stiffer,” within the sense {that a} stiff elastic band takes extra drive to stretch. That is what you’d count on 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 help to muscle mass.

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

What They Discovered

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

Neither the tendon nor the muscle acquired any greater, 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 possibly can 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 total, the outcomes help the chain of logic: extra collagen -> stiffer muscle mass and tendons -> extra explosive drive.

What the Outcomes Imply

You can also make a a lot greater argument on the idea of those outcomes. Perhaps you don’t care about tendons and explosive power (although, truthfully, you need to). 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 will probably set off the remodelling of cartilage-based tissues. Perhaps 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 principle. I stay skeptical however intrigued. Given the mess of conflicting outcomes produced by earlier analysis, a single research funded by a complement firm—even with a sturdy pattern dimension of fifty—doesn’t settle the query both approach. However it means that it is a line of analysis that’s very a lot value pursuing, and that we must 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 reside in Toronto.