One Supplement You Need to Know About for Tendon Health
Apr 28, 2026
Welcome back to the 3rd Part of our 4 Part Series on our One Supplement You Need to Know About. Today, our focus is on collagen and its effects on tendon health.
Bottom-line:
From Nulty et al (2025): Twelve weeks’ highâintensity resistance training enhanced muscle size as well as maximal and explosive strength in middleâaged men, but these outcomes were unaffected by hydrolysed collagen supplementation.
Resistance training without collagen supplementation enhanced patellar tendon stiffness and Young’s modulus but not patellar tendon cross sectional area in this underâresearched population.
However, supplementing resistance training with 30 g hydrolysed collagen supplementation in middleâaged men enhanced patellar tendon stiffness, Young’s modulus and crossâsectional area more than resistance training alone.
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Transcript:
dr wells here from st augustine beach we're talking about the one supplement that all physical therapists and rehab professionals need to be looking at and that's collagen this is our part 3 of our part 4 series we're looking at today is tendon recovery particularly in middle-aged athletes so our first part we looked at recovery after muscle um muscle damage particularly resistance training and exercise now second part we looked at body composition found out doesn't really have a huge impact unless you're partnering with resistance training.
[00:32-00:57]
And now today, we're working with that stubborn middle-aged group, you know, that 40yearold weekend warriors. They go out and play basketball and then they end up developing patellar tendinopathy. And this particular study was by Nolte et al. It was published in 2025 out of Liverpool. It's hydrolyzed collagen supplementation enhances patellar tendon adaptations and 12 weeks resistance training in middle-aged men.
[00:57-01:30]
So We know that by loading athletes, right, when doing resistance training and exercise, their tendons get thicker, and that's good. It prevents tendon tearing and tendon damage, ruptures, right? And so having a thicker tendon can be good. ......... But we know that with aging, that tendon thickness can go down, and it's harder to rebuild that collagen structure. around those tendons. So these authors looked at, hey, what if we do some loading strategies, right, for 12 weeks and we add anywhere from ten to 30 grams of collagen?
[01:30-02:00]
And what they used was hydrolyzed cartilage, basically chunks of the chicken sternum that was hydrolyzed and made safe to consume. And what they found was that basically ten to 30 grams they actually saw significant improvements in tendon thickness and better than just resistance training alone. Obviously, what they found was that Usually the older the athlete, the more collagen was needed to see a kind of a dose response.
[02:00-02:22]
And ideally what they said to and from those recommendations is really you should be doing about 15 grams prior to doing the resistance training about 30 to 60 minutes prior to really optimize those tendon adaptations. So these authors suggested that when we take collagen in. Basically, we need exercise to kind of pump it and get it to those tendon and those structures.
[02:22-02:47]
So if you haven't checked out Nolte, I'll share it in the link. And it's a really good study and love to hear what you guys are using for your athletes. And have you had any other patients that have good tendon responses? Because I've used it in a couple of patients with Achilles, insertional Achilles tendinopathy. And typically in about a six to 8 week window, I see them recover very well and they have very few flare ups and very few recurrences of those injuries.
[02:47-03:05]
So in my own practice, I notice a difference. Interested to hear if you guys have the same. ......... Obviously this goes in part also with other nutritional counseling education. If you haven't, check out our nutrition courses at nutritionalphysicaltherapy.com. We just added a really cool add-on course. This is a supplement guide for rehab professionals.
[03:05-03:19]
It's available to everyone. It has really great handouts talking about the research around different supplements, and it's very evidence-based, and we do talk about specific protocols for collagen. Have a great day. Like, subscribe. Stay tuned for part 4.
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