Performance Nutrition: Collagen Supplementation

Okay, so I am not claiming to be a collagen expert, but there is some interesting information I want to share as I think it can help many, many people.

Over the last couple of years, collagen protein has emerged as the next darling of supplements in the multi-billion dollar fitness industry. It is touted as a way to speed up recovery from injury - and almost any injury at that! 

But is it just another carefully packaged, expensive product with little to show in the way of research supporting its use? Or does it work as advertised? 

Let’s find out more. 

What is collagen exactly?

“Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body and helps give structure to our hair, skin, nails, bones, ligaments and tendons in our body. Thanks to collagen, we’re better able to move, bend and stretch. Collagen is also behind helping hair shine, skin glow and nails stay strong.” - Vital Proteins website

What does collagen supplementation do?

The product makers claim that making an effort to consume collagen protein can help do everything from restore the bounce in your skin to shine in your hair and even help bones, ligaments, tendons, and muscles repair after injury.

Wow, that all sounds awesome! Count me in! Well, wait… let’s explore the last part of those claims a bit by focusing on injury. 

Does collagen supplementation really help?

If you check out these two studies (here and here) it is pretty clear there is evidence that supports its use in acute injury.

That’s really great news. But what you pair the collagen with, plus when you take it, prove equally important.

Here is a bit of structure on how to use during the pre-workout timeframe:

Step 1: First and foremost, in the realm of recovery from injury, gelatin works just as well as collagen. So, if you are on a budget, making some old fashioned Jello may be just as good, if not better. Secondly, and most importantly, pair the collagen/gelatin with Vitamin C. The dietician I work with recommends 50mg.

Step 2: Consume about one hour before exercise. The idea here is that the collagen will get synthesized into the various structures of the body at an increased rate when taken before exercise and especially when paired with Vitamin C.

Step 3: Have a training session, practice, or rehab session that is loading/stressing the recovering area.

Step 4: New information is surfacing about multiple “doses” per day being especially effective. So, you could consider having a second serving later in the day (not necessarily paired with exercise).

Step 5: Give it some time. How much? I’m not sure, but probably 2-weeks at minimum to see if you notice improvement.

I’ve been using this protocol with some of the athletes I work with and we’ve had very encouraging results. So, I’d say it’s worth a try.

Taking this a bit further, I think there is reason to consider using collagen/gelatin in a pre-workout timeframe for anyone training who wants the best possible adaptation to the training/practice load. Meaning: even non-injured athletes could expect good results.

Part of the benefit to running, jumping, and resistance training is how dense and robust it makes the body’s tendons, ligaments, and bones. All those same benefits can seemingly be amplified by this little tweak to your pre-workout nutrition. Thus, potentially cutting your risk of injury.

Personally, I have a heck of a lot of trouble with my tendons, in particular. So, I’m going to give this protocol a month and see where we end up!

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Running Sports: Groin Prehab

After experiencing, for the first time in my career, an athlete with a repeated groin injury. ***I understand groin injuries to be common, but honestly I'd not ever encountered many!*** I became obsessed with understanding the mechanisms for why this happened. As with most things with the body (biomechanically speaking), once you understand where one piece of the puzzle fits, the rest of the pieces fall into place.

In the old days of physical therapy, athletic training, and strength/conditioning, an injured muscle = a weak muscle. Identify the injured/weak muscle and strengthen it. Period.

Lots going on!

Once the pain went away, the advice from trainers and PT's was usually to keep stretching "the area is tight (oh, and weak, so keep strengthening too)." And the athlete would get sent back to S&C for continued strengthening of the weakened area and return to sport performance training. 

Unfortunately, more often that I'd like to count, the injury returned. Time and time again. The outlook for injured athletes, always seemed bleak. It always seemed this would be a nagging issue, no matter the severity.

Fortunately, we know better now - the olden days of working on strengthening injured muscles and looking no where else for dysfunction is over! Just kidding, this is still how most PT's and AT's approach injury.

Back to my injured athlete, after taking a look at her stride, I noticed a very significant hip drop. And a hip drop, boys and girls, is a prerequisite for a groin strain.

Now I knew where to get started. Getting the hips even in striding motions would be the solution. But, wait, there was something else needing attention first! In a previous post, I've called it Priority #1, check it out to understand how the zone of apposition must be corrected before moving into a prehab/rehab protocol.

Once the breathing patterns and rib positioning were improved, we were able to move on to working on preventing another strain.

Below I've got a couple samples of some of the drills we used. But no matter the actual drill, the theme here, and non-negotiable, was hip evenness. That was the main goal. Everything we did must come with even hips. Hips not even after cueing? Okay, that's fine, let's adjust the range of motion. So, as you look at the videos, please remember hip stability, control, and evenness are the top priority for an athlete when groin strain prehab/rehab are on the menu!

Beginner progression

The Single Leg Stance Series is a good option for someone who is recently out of their rehab protocol or can be easily used for a very specific warm-up to improve hip proprioception and and understanding of the relationship your foot has with the ground. 

Performance Injury Prevention

For a healthy athlete, this Groin Series gets a lot accomplished in just 3 movements. This series would NOT be appropriate for someone who is still in a weakened state. Rather, save this for when you've worked back to full health and strength and are looking to keep another groin injury at bay.

Groin injuries don't seem to get a lot of attention, but I think they should. Try a full speed deceleration, change of direction, or even acceleration the next time you've got one!

Coaching Vertical Jump with a Valgus Collapse

Ahhh, the knee cave, my old friend. This, by far, is the most common strength and movement pattern deficit I see in developing athletes. More officially known as a valgus position of the knee, it signifies not only a severe lack of specific and general strength, but also may be an indicator of poor body control overall (due to other common muscular strength deficits that generally come as part of the "package").

The valgus position, in my experience, is an oversized red flag waving high in the air. This red flag is warning of a looming knee ligament injury.

This is a very important topic, as most coaches, parents, and athletes have no idea how to correct the problem or even identify that it is a very big - and potentially dangerous - problem.

Check out the video where I break down film of an athlete in for training and discuss what I've found and how we're going to fix the problems:

Coaching the Forearm Wallslide

A deceptively simple exercise, the forearm wallslide delivers a huge ROI:

Volleyball Performance Training: The Other Skillz

Following the loose theme we've had this month of volleyball training (but really, let's be honest, all of this can apply to most sports), I thought it would be beneficial to highlight a few other athletic skills/movements that are woefully under-trained in volleyball players. It's all about the vertical!

But not really.

It drives me nutso that coaches and parents and the players focus singularly on improving the vertical jump. Yes, it's important, but how does one get to the net to jump? How does one move fast enough to get behind the ball to pass it well?

I've worked with dozens and dozens of volleyball players and I've seen terrible movement quality all the other planes of motion. Great volleyball players are more than their vertical jump heights! (tweet that) I've listed a handful of movements that would behoove any volleyball player, and coaches, to implement in a regular training rotation.

Side Shuffle

I can, without exaggeration, tell you that I've seen volleyball players side shuffle with the grace of a new-born giraffe. How in the world can a volleyball player move around the court while keeping their eyes on the game, without side shuffling? Answer: Not possible. Side shuffling is the most efficient and most strategic way to move around the court.

Transitional Movements

Above are just a few examples of transitional movement drills. Along with side shuffling, there are times when players need to sprint forward or backpedal quickly and then run in a completely different direction. The ability to change directions rapidly is essential in volleyball, especially if there's a wild pass or tip off the net.

Heidens

Yes, I know volleyball consists of jumping up and down, and not side-to-side, but reinforcing lateral movements is a boon for volleyball. Heidens also teach force absorption and production in the frontal (lateral) plane. Most of volleyball consists of lateral movements, so if a player is strong side-to-side, not only will it reduce injury risk but she will be more confident moving sideways and will thus do it more.

Rolls

There are a lot of opportunities to dive, roll, and fall on the ground in volleyball. Learning how to do so safely is imperative. Learning how to pop back up again after a quick "hello" to the floor is vital for scoring points. Because rolling and tumbling is not a part of our everyday lives (at least, most of us) the vestibular system might be a bit slow in re-orienting. However, if you train rolls, you're also training the vestibular system and strengthening its ability to readjust quickly.

Add these into your training arsenal and there will be a guaranteed bump in performance.

Oh Dem Hammies! Hamstring Info and Harry Potter Analogies Part 1

Do you have tight hamstrings? Do you stretch them only to find that you’re not any closer to the suppleness that you desire in those posterior hip extenders? Have you tweaked/pulled your hamstring (due to your tightness maybe...)? Do you feel they’re tighter than Gringotts Bank Security?

 Today, we’ll go over some of the reasons why the hamstrings might be tight and in part 2 we’ll go over some of the prevention/rehabilitation techniques to deal with hamstring tweaks.

You may be surprised to find that your tight hamstrings are not actually tight… That sounds like something Professor Dumbledore might say.

Below are some of the potential culprits of “tight” hamstrings. (You’ll see why I put “tight” in quotation marks at the end.)

1. Protective tension.

This is when the brain is telling the hamstrings to remain “on,” for one reason or another, and it creates a sensation of tightness when the hamstrings are stretched. Why does this happen? I’m actually a good example of this. I have congenital laxity (meaning my joints are loose and I’m rather flexible) but for a period of about 3 years, my hamstrings were constantly tight and I could feel them being tugged on every time I bent over, and because of my laxity -and a lifetime of NEVER feeling tight- this was as odd as Hagrid’s love for horribly frightening beasts.

Here’s what was happening: my pelvis tilted, wildly I might add, anteriorly (forward).

Hamstrings pull the pelvis posteriorly or down and backwards.

The hamstrings attach to the (posterior) bottom of the pelvis (your “sit” bones) and my brain sensed the constant pelvic tilt and was desperately trying to prevent me tilting forward anymore by firing my hamstrings continually in an attempt to pull my pelvis back into a neutral position. That pelvic tilt results in instability throughout the lower back and pelvis. The brain HATES it when the body is unstable and will do anything necessary to regain stability, which in this case was locking down those hamstrings tighter than a Full Body-Bind Curse.

How do you fix APT? Through lots of dedicated anterior core work (i.e. plank variations) and glute strength. Once my pelvic tilt  was in a more neutral position… voilaThe tightness was gone. So, if your hamstrings feel tight, check our your pelvic alignment.  Stretching the hamstrings will NOT improve your flexibility in this case; they're already stretched to the max!

2. Neural tension.

I know this will sound similar to the above reason, but this particular tension generally results from an injury. The most likely answer is an injury to a lower back disc. (since the nerve for the hamstrings runs through that region.) If there’s damage to a disc in the L1-S1 region, there’s potentially compression on the nerve for the hamstrings which could result in mishaps in the neural messages (communication between brain and muscles) causing hamstring tightness. Usually this type of tension is accompanied by other symptoms such as tingling, shooting pain, electric pain or numbness. Two common tests to check for spinal issues are the slump test and the heel drop test (which consists of standing on your toes then dropping to you heels. If pain occurs, congratulations! You might have a compression issue.)

3 and 4. Nasty fibrotic tissue or tendonosis in the hamstring.

Sometimes muscle fibers get junky and gunky, from poor movements, overuse, or prior injury, -or all of the above- which changes the length and function of the muscle. Instead of the muscle fibers running parallel and working harmoniously, they’re twisted up like spaghetti noodles (and work as well together and a plate of spaghetti). Soft tissue work such as SMR or possibly work by a professional is in order to help restore the tissue quality.

adductor

Other areas to target for soft tissue would would be the adductors (since they attach to the pelvis as well) and those fellas are Gunk-City in a lot of folks.

5. The hamstring muscles are truly short.

Yep, they're are people out there either because of their genes (not their jeans. Ha!) or a surgery where the hamstring was immobilized in a shortened position (though this is not common), their hamstrings are physically shorter than they should be. This can happen over time (but to a small-ish degree) in folks who sit down a lot during the day because the pelvis is tilted posteriorly (tucking your butt under) which does shorten the hamstrings a bit. However, this probably isn’t the main source of tightness since they are only short at the very end range of motion.

So what have we learned? If your hamstring is tight, it’s not necessarily it’s fault nor will endless hamstring stretches change anything (even if you’re drew the genetic short stick. Stretching won’t do that much. Sorry.).  Soft tissue work in the hamstrings, adductors, and glutes as well as some dedicated anterior core work and glute training (*cough* swings *cough*) can help to solve some tight hamstring issues.

Check back in next week for some hamstring injury causes and care.