You should try the Lemon flavored one, it’s very good also
My perspective is that collagen before exercise is -established- science to impact tendon, ligament, and cartilage recovery. A scientist I follow is Dr. Keith Barr’s body of work. The main caveat to consider is that this is in conjunction with a stimulus like isometric holds to allow blood flow to the targeted ligaments etc. But collagen (with vit c) is an acceleration of that recovery.
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The Achilles Tendon Evidence: A clinical trial published by Jerger et al. (2022) in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports took physically active young men through 14 weeks of high-load resistance training.
- The Result: The group taking a placebo plus training increased their Achilles tendon thickness by 4.7%. The group taking the collagen supplement plus training increased their tendon thickness by 11.0%. Collagen more than doubled the physical growth of the tendon. [1]
- The Patellar Tendon Evidence: A subsequent trial published in European Journal of Sport Science replicated these findings in the knee. They discovered that while exercise typically only thickens specific segments of the patellar tendon, adding collagen uniformly potentiated hypertrophy along the entire length of the tendon compared to a placebo. [1, 2]
I am so happy I came upon this research. It has allowed me in my 70’s to have a robust physical life. I take collagen/Vit C before all my hard workouts as well before isolation holds to repair or bullet proof tendons, ligaments and cartilage. It is a big boost within the framework of a physical stimulus.
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The collagen group increased to where the placebo group began. It’s too small of a study to tell anything for certain, and the placebo used maltodextrin and not a protein supplement.
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I asked my Gemini Pro about your comments and it said - " In fact, every point raised in that critique is factually accurate and methodologically devastating to the claim that collagen “doubled tendon growth.”
A further mea culpa - I originally said I think it is -established science- that collagen works as a supplement. No matter what I think, that’s not the general consensus.
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Towards the end of the video, he discusses a New Zealand study that showed dermal thickens improved with collagen.
I don’t know if it’s been previously discussed, but I’d love to know what you think about that vs just taking a hyaluronic supplement, as I already do.
My skin has always been thin and I worry about the natural thinining that happens more with old age.
(I’m vegan, and unless the improvement would be real, I would prefer not to take it. I was taking vegan collagen for a while but it seems that most don’t feel it’s effective)
FWIW, this is what Fable said, and ‘he’ dismisses Brad’s take. He feels oral hyaluronic acid does the same thing you get with collagen, hydration and elasticity (“Yes — both raise hydration and elasticity in trials, and on those two measures the effect sizes look similar.”)
“ No — hyaluronic acid is not doing what that collagen trial measured, and the one trial in women with thin, fragile skin like yours says collagen doesn’t either.
Tally: 14 sources found that bear on the answer · 10 read whole (downloaded) · 4 not opened.
The New Zealand trial (Gordon, Massey PhD thesis 2024, CHAMP study; thesis, read whole). 82 women ≥50, 15 g bovine collagen vs 15 g milk protein vs maltodextrin, ~4 months, government-funded, companies had no role. Inner-forearm dermal thickness rose about 9–12% within the collagen group and not the others — but only one site had a real between-group difference, the collagen group started thinnest there, and the author’s own verdict is “inconclusive.” Stanfield’s “9 of 10 measures ahead” is his count of directions, not significant results. Human trial (randomized), exploratory.
The thickness signal is valid because CHAMP ran a proper between-group test at the upper inner forearm and collagen won it (p = 0.033) at a dose, 15 g, that no null trial has matched — that is a real finding, and when I said “no evidence” earlier I was wrong. I weight it below a settled result because it is one site out of five in a 25-per-group trial, in a thesis chapter from a first-time ultrasound operator who documents her own measurement errors, with a placebo group that rose 10% at the cheek, a collagen group that started thinnest at the winning site, and no replication — while the one longer, biopsy-backed trial found nothing at a third of the dose. So: valid, unreplicated, and probably smaller than 10% — a reason to try it if you want to, not a reason to be surprised if it does nothing.
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I take collagen daily and yes, I notice a great deal of dermal thickening. I love it!
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