In the last installment of this series, we talked about supplementation and how it can help with preventing brain injury and keeping the tissue as healthy and resilient to trauma as possible. This article today aims to do the same thing, but for the rest of the body.
The literature on supplements helping the body to function properly and at its highest level is well known and supplementation’s first use should always be to negate any deficiencies. Once all needs are met, then they should be used to increase specific goals like athletic performance, body composition and cognitive skill to name a few. When we talk about PREVENTING soft tissue injuries, that is exactly what we want to do, limit deficiencies and then increase the availability of the substrates we need to meet those bigger goals. So in this article we’ll focus on a few other supplements we often recommend to our athletes and operators to help prevent musculoskeletal injuries after they’ve already met their needs.
Just a quick recap about what causes soft tissue injuries, here’s what we wrote in the last segment:
“Tissue injuries happen when the load applied to the tissue is greater than the tissues ability to handle it. This could happen from heavy weightlifting where someone attempts a load heavier than the tissue can handle and it strains, rips, tears, etc. It also often happens with no weight when we move at a velocity or in a range of motion the athlete has not prepared for.”
So, again, the immediate answer is to prep the body in such a way that it can handle more load, range, velocity, etc in an intelligent manner and slowly build up tolerance, while also eating a diet that meets all your health and performance needs. From a supplementation standpoint, we can also help the tissue be more resilient by making sure we are getting appropriate doses of specific micronutrients, supplements and nutraceuticals to help with recovery and appropriate tissue growth / use.
Vitamin D - As stated above, limiting any nutritional deficiency is always our number one goal when giving supplements to our athletes / operators. This is one of the most common deficiencies in both populations. The special operations community spends months out of the year on “reverse schedule” where they work at night and due to that have very limited sunlight exposure and often during this work the food is less than ideal and low in foods rich in vitamin D as produce can be hard to come by. This means that limiting that deficiency alone can make huge strides in soft tissue and total body recovery and preparation for new loading and stress. Vitamin D plays a massive role in not only tissue health and repair, but studies have even shown that with supplementation there are improvements in athletic performance and decreased injury rates and risk.
Collagen - this has become increasingly popular over the last few years as newer research has flooded in showing the value of this supplement for connective tissue and bone health. There have been hundreds of studies done on this supplement, with populations ranging from athletes to the elderly, with consistent findings across them that joint pain, bone health and performance all increased when dosages of approximately 15g of collagen were taken. The other major recommendations were that it should be taken with Vitamin C, which is already included in Momentous’ collagen peptides, to help with uptake, and it should be taken pre workout, approximately 60 minutes prior. The studies concluded that it is a proven protocol to help with joint pain, range of motion, bone healing and these can all be used to help reduce injury potential in athletes and operators alike.
Sleep Bundle - You didn’t think we were going to talk about injury prevention and not mention sleep did you? This is truly the driving factor in improving both readiness and recovery in all humans and even more specifically in athletes and operators. The lack of sleep in those population and how much it affects their performance is well documented.
Magnesium L - Threonate - Short and longitudinal studies have shown that increased Mg intake has a positive impact on sleep duration and quality. This is due to the way it helps melatonin secretion and helps with the neurotransmitters that can “calm” the brain and help with the athlete feeling less anxious and help them reach sleep faster.
L-Theanine - A long the same lines as magnesium L-Threonate the L-Theanine improves sleep by helping with neural transmitters and promoting better regulation of brain electrochemical activity. This was shown in the research to help lead to better long-term sleep and staying asleep longer. When used in conjunction with magnesium its been shown to be even more effective and potent.
Apigenin - this is a natural flavonoid that has been shown to increase NAD+ levels in the brain to help with inflammation and has been shown in animal and human studies to have positive effects for stopping cancer proliferation, increasing sleep and even slowing down aging. This has been studied in more literature with the main ingredient being chamomile which is high in apigenin.
Inositol - this is also known as B8 by some people, but it is a carbohydrate made of nine naturally occurring sugars commonly found in whole grains, beans, and citrus fruits. Research shows that Inositol sugars are integral components of the cell membrane and the mechanism by which they help improve the onset of sleep and sleep duration is due to their ability to help cell signaling and this in turn can help with the calming sensation for people and lead to the sleep improvements.
In conclusion, what we put in our body has a massive impact on whether we get injured or not. Making sure our intake matches our needs for specific training goals, the stimulus from training and then enough to recover from it and
improve the sleep that drives recovery is the most important part. This is the most proven and best way to stop injuries before they happen, give the tissue as much resiliency and recovery as possible before load is ever added to it.
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Khatri, M., Naughton, R. J., Clifford, T., Harper, L. D., & Corr, L. (2021). The effects of collagen peptide supplementation on body composition, collagen synthesis, and recovery from joint injury and exercise: A systematic review. Amino Acids, 53(10), 1493–1506. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-021-03072-x
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