Studies are preventkon showing that gelatin Advantages of brown rice can improve cartilage thickness and Herbal Immune Boosters knee precention, and Sporfs reduce the risk of injury or Sports nutrition for injury prevention and recovery return to play, providing both a prophylactic and therapeutic treatment for tendon, ligament, and, potentially, bone health. Crossref PhillipsS. In reality, unless there is a dietary deficiency, the vast majority of nutritional interventions have limited research to support such claims. Acute calcium ingestion attenuates exercise-induced disruption of calcium homeostasis. Collagen and gelatin supplementation have emerging research indicating they can help with recovery from musculoskeletal injuries.

Sports nutrition for injury prevention and recovery -

The first temptation a lot of athletes have when they get injured is to cut calories significantly. Often you feel as though because you cannot make progress in other areas, shifting that focus towards fat loss can be another outlet for progress.

While I understand where this thought process comes from, I would argue that most of the recovery process should be spent consuming enough calories to maintain your weight.

Recovery is a process that benefits from having some additional calories. Being on low calories can slow down the healing process. Since you are not able to train certain areas effectively, the combination of low calories and a lack of training stimulus can speed up muscle loss.

Staying at maintenance calories provides a balance between minimising both fat gain and muscle loss. Another aspect to consider is that you will likely be undertaking a rehab protocol that involves you aiming to get stronger and build muscle in certain areas. It is more difficult to build muscle and strength in a calorie deficit.

Having more calories can directly speed up injury recovery while also helping you indirectly by fuelling muscle growth. Directly after the injury when the risk of muscle loss is the greatest, it can make sense to stick near maintenance calories at the start.

This is to try to reduce the amount of muscle that is lost. Then as the pain is decreasing and the rehab process is ramping up, you might want to consider a calorie surplus.

For example, if you need to gain a certain amount of quad or calf size or strength, this will be a lot easier and quicker to do in a calorie surplus. At the end of the process though, you want to be near your peak body composition for your sport, if possible.

Since body fat will likely have increased a bit with this approach due to a combination of the reduced training stimulus and the calorie surplus phase, it likely makes sense to have a phase in a calorie deficit. As mentioned previously, you do not want to spend much of the rehab process in a deficit.

But the overall goal is to return to sport as effectively as we can, and that likely requires a certain body composition. One is that your calorie expenditure is likely lower due to being less active. This means that maintenance calories will be a bit lower than they previously were.

In most cases, the decrease in calories required to achieve maintenance calories is less than expected. But it is still a factor worth considering.

Another aspect is that you might now be at home more often and have more time and access to food than you previously did. The combination of these things can make it difficult to avoid accidentally overconsuming calories. One tool I would consider using to manage this if it is an issue is volume eating.

This concept involves eating a larger volume of lower-calorie food. Basically, it might make it easier to consume an appropriate amount of calories since you get to eat more food for the same amount of calories.

When an athlete who trains hard takes a break from training, it typically takes ~3 weeks before muscle loss is measurable. This is reassuring if you have got an injury where you are still able to move the affected area a bit.

Since getting the quads strong and balanced between sides is an important rehab outcome, any steps that can be taken to minimise that muscle loss in that phase is crucial.

The current recommendation for protein intake during injury recovery is 1. The upper end of this range is particularly relevant when the risk of muscle loss is at its highest, such as during immobilisation.

The average athlete who is injured does not get anywhere near this level. You could significantly improve your recovery outcomes by doing this thing. The best approach to overcoming the first challenge is to add liquid protein sources in addition to regular protein-rich meals.

For the second challenge, you want to prioritise protein sources that are high in protein and relatively low in fat and carbohydrates where possible. While I would not aim to get a large percentage of your intake from supplements, adding some protein supplements can help with both of those problems.

Creatine helps with building muscle and strength. It has obvious applications for longer rehab protocols. There is also research indicating that during immobilisation creatine can help with lean mass retention and reduces loss of strength.

There is not a lot of research on this topic, but it looks promising. Another study on strength gains weeks after ACL surgery found that creatine significantly outperformed placebo. It is worth highlighting that not ALL the research has shown positive outcomes.

One study measuring strength after 30 days after knee surgery found that creatine did not improve outcomes. While the evidence is not overwhelmingly positive, it is enough that I think it is worth taking creatine. Particularly because there is minimal downside to doing so. Dosage and how to take: 20g per day for 5 days, followed by 5g per day ongoing.

This is a simplified protocol. If you want more details, check out our post on the topic. There are proposed mechanisms for how omega-3s can help due to enhancing anabolic sensitivity to amino acids as well as help from an anti-inflammatory perspective. There is minimal research looking at fish oil and immobilisation.

The research we do have is surprisingly promising. An example of this involved lower limb immobilisation for 2 weeks. The fish oil group maintained significantly more muscle than the placebo group.

Although the research looks promising, I would keep an open mind on this topic. I would not be surprised if more research came out showing it does not matter.

I also heard the main author of that study on a podcast say an interesting line. A nuanced approach could involve taking fish oil leading up to and post-surgery if you have a serious injury and a surgery date planned though.

Collagen and gelatin supplementation have emerging research indicating they can help with recovery from musculoskeletal injuries. The mechanism that I propose involves the collagen peptides breaking down into amino acids, as mentioned.

But either way, collagen protein has a very different amino acid profile to other protein sources. It is a lot higher in proline, glycine, lysine and arginine than most other protein sources. We have evidence that these amino acids peak in the blood ~ minutes after consumption.

Theoretically, we can target the injured area by getting blood flow to the area with training. Even without that, some of the research looks promising anyway. There is also evidence of an increase in collagen synthesis in the body following supplementation and a targeted exercise protocol too.

In terms of the evidence, while the evidence is mixed, all the research fitting the following criteria has shown positive outcomes:. There also is not a lot of quality research on the topic.

At the moment, my interpretation of the research is that it helps. But I am watching the space closely to see if anything comes along to change my mind. One of the most promising studies, in particular, involved a patellar tendinopathy case study.

The MRI footage showed complete healing of the patellar tendon, which is exceptionally rare. Often with tendinopathy that severe, MRI footage still shows a damaged area long after the pain has gone.

Dosage and How to Take: g of collagen or gelatin, minutes prior to training. If you have not consumed any vitamin C for the day, it makes sense to add that too. Vitamin C is required for collagen synthesis. At a population level, supplementing those things, without further context e. dietary intake and blood levels leads to increased bone mineral density.

Supplementing with calcium and vitamin D has evidence of improving fracture recovery. Athletes are pushing their bodies to the limits, and while injuries are always a possibility, eating the right diet can help to reduce the risk of injury.

You always want to be on top of your game! Giving your body the right amount of vitamins and minerals helps to keep your bones strong and at the right density, which reduces the risk of fractures and breaks.

In the same way, the right diet helps with strengthening tendons and ligaments. Tendons and ligaments help your muscles to function. Without the right nutrition, they can become weakened which can make them more susceptible to strains and other soft tissue injuries.

Providing them with the right nutrition helps prevent muscle strain and injury. Now we know how the right nutrition can help prevent injuries, we need to take a look at what that actually means in terms of what you should be eating. Carbohydrates keep your energy levels up during exercise.

Starchy and wholemeal foods are great sources of carbs, such as wholemeal bread, wholegrain rice and whole-wheat pasta. Protein helps your muscles to stay strong, to grow and to repair themselves.

During exercise, the muscle protein in the areas of your body being worked hard breaks down: you need protein in your diet so your muscles can repair this damage. This is how you get stronger, faster and fitter!

Great sources of protein include chicken, steak, fish, and eggs. The proportions of carbs and protein you should be adding to your diet depend on your exercise level, your weight, age and other factors. Having both carbohydrates and protein an hour or two before your exercise, and half an hour after a workout, can help to prevent injuries.

You can do this through your diet or choose to use a supplement. Many athletes choose shakes and other supplements to ensure they are getting exactly the right amount of carbs and protein. Both calcium and vitamin D help to keep your bones strong, reducing the risk of stress injuries from hard workouts.

You can get calcium from low-fat diary foods like milk, cheese or yogurt. Foods like cheese, egg yolks and fatty fish are great sources of vitamin D.

You could also choose to take a supplement. These fats help cells in your body to repair themselves, reduce inflammation, provide energy and keep bones, ligaments and tendons lubricated to make movement easier. Essential fats can come from foods such as nuts, oils and fish.

Vitamins C and E provide antioxidants, which help to prevent damage to the cells in your body. Vitamin C helps with tissue repair, wound healing, and maintaining your immune system among other functions. Vitamin E plays an important role in protecting tissues and organs within your body from damage.

Last but not least, remember to hydrate! Ensuring your body has enough water is just as important as what you eat. The more exercise you do, the more you sweat, which means you need more water! When injuries do occur, nutrition can play a vital role in helping you recover quicker and more effectively!

It helps to protect us and starts to repair damage. The key to combatting this nutritionally is reducing foods which contribute to inflammation and increasing foods which reduce inflammation. Fruits, vegetables and healthy fats help to reduce inflammation.

Foods high in vitamin C can be extremely helpful for injury recovery. Make sure you are eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. Zinc has many vital roles in our bodies including keeping our immune system functioning well and aiding in injury and wound repair.

You can get Zinc from foods like red meat, brown nice and lentils. Calcium keeps our bones strong and helps them to repair themselves, so eating foods which are high in calcium can be particularly useful for fractures and other bone injuries.

Foods which are high in calcium include cheese, yogurt and milk. Iron helps our bodies to produce blood cells and a protein called collagen.

For anyone who exercises regularly or is nutririon competitive Sports nutrition for injury prevention and recovery, the preventiom is Herbal Immune Boosters you Sportd experience Sprts form of injury Meal planning with leftovers your life. Strategies for preventing injury include diet, hydration, sleep, cold-water Sportw and nuhrition exercises. With this Cross-training exercises mind, nutrition interventions play a vital role in alleviating the risk of injury to maintain training volume and intensity, and ultimately, enhancing performance. Here are some preventative measures from a nutritional perspective that may help to avoid injury. Monitoring body composition is important for health, performance but also for injury prevention. Low levels of lean muscle mass and high body fat levels are both associated with increased risk of injury. Unwanted excess body weight can negatively impact mechanical stress during exercise, thus causing musculoskeletal related injuries.

Sports nutrition for injury prevention and recovery -

This is important since approximately half of these injuries will result in a time loss and absence from sports, including both training and competing Feddermann-Demont et al. Among these injuries, skeletal muscle is the principal type, accounting for These hamstring injuries are more frequently described in sprinters, whereas overuse injuries of the lower legs are more frequently reported in middle-long distance runners and race walkers.

Elite female athletes experience more relative risk: 3. Preparticipation predictors for Championships injury and illness have been identified Timpka et al. For instance, athletes who reported an illness symptom causing anxiety before the competition were five times more likely to sustain an injury during the championships.

Moreover, intensive training camps or tapering periods are often associated with increased stress and altered appetite response and decreased food intakes both quantitative and qualitative aspects in power-trained athletes. Therefore, providing stress management and nutritional interventions as potential preparticipation interventions may reduce the onset of an acute injury is relevant.

Although injuries could be classed as a very likely outcome of sport, it is important to recognize that appropriate nutritional strategies have the ability to reduce the risk of injuries as well as enhance the recovery if an injury should occur.

Although the main preventative nutritional strategy will be to ensure adequate total energy intake and appropriate dietary intake, there are some supplements that have the potential to help.

This review will focus on nutritional strategies to assist with the most common injuries, that is, skeletal muscle, bone, tendon, and ligament. We include a review of the extant literature that has looked at nutrition to prevent injuries and increase repair, as well as considering the change in energy requirements during the injury period.

Although such studies provide insights into potential nutritional strategies, it must be stressed that there are substantial differences between delayed onset muscle soreness and a major muscle tear, both in terms of the structural damage, as well as the level of immobilization and unloading that may occur.

From a nutrition perspective, it is important to consider the potential of nutrition to assist in injury prevention and prevent the loss of lean mass during immobilization, and to consider the change in energy requirements during the injury period along with any strategies that may promote muscle repair.

Given the crucial role of dietary protein in muscle protein turnover, it is not surprising that much attention has been given to dietary protein in the prevention of muscle injuries.

However, the evidence to support this hypothesis is, at best, equivocal, with some studies reporting a benefit Buckley et al.

In a recent systemic review, the balance of the evidence suggested that protein supplements taken acutely, despite increases in protein synthesis and anabolic intracellular signaling, provide no measurable reductions in exercise-induced muscle damage and enhanced recovery of muscle function Pasiakos et al.

This lack of an effect may be explained by the differing time courses between an acute muscle injury and muscle protein turnover, with adaptations to muscle protein turnover being a relatively slow process Tipton et al.

It can, therefore, be concluded that, given sufficient dietary protein is provided in the general diet of an athlete, additional protein intake will not prevent muscle injury or reduce postexercise muscle soreness. However, to date, this hypothesis has not been fully explored in elite athletes following a true injury and, therefore, case study data may help to provide further insights.

Although additional protein may not prevent a muscle injury, increased dietary protein may be beneficial after an injury both in terms of attenuating muscle atrophy and promoting repair. Limb immobilization reduces resting muscle protein synthesis as well as induces an anabolic resistance to dietary protein Wall et al.

This anabolic resistance can be attenuated although not prevented through increased dietary amino acid ingestion Glover et al. It is beyond the scope of this manuscript to fully discuss what is appropriate protein intake for athletes and, for this, the reader is directed to several excellent reviews e.

Contrary to popular belief, athletes engaged in whole-body resistance training are likely to benefit from more than the often cited 20 g of protein per meal, with recent research suggesting 40 g of protein may be a more optimum feeding strategy Macnaughton et al. Protein intake should be equally distributed throughout the day, something that many elite athletes fail to achieve Gillen et al.

In terms of an absolute amount of protein per day, increasing protein to 2. Taken together, despite the limitations of the current literature base, injured athletes may benefit from increasing their protein intake to overcome the immobilization-induced anabolic resistance as well as helping to attenuate the associated losses of lean muscle mass documented in injured athletes Milsom et al.

After a muscle injury, it is likely that athletic activities are reduced, if not stopped completely, to allow the muscle to recover, although some training in the noninjured limbs will likely continue.

This reduction in activity results in reduced energy expenditure, which consequently requires a reduction in energy intake to prevent unwanted gains in body fat. Given that many athletes periodize their carbohydrate intake, that is, increase their carbohydrate intake during hard training days while limiting them during light training or rest days, it seems appropriate that during inactivity, carbohydrate intake may need to be reduced Impey et al.

It should be stressed, however, that the magnitude of the reduction in energy intake may not be as drastic as expected given that the healing process has been shown to result in substantial increases in energy expenditure Frankenfield, , whereas the energetic cost of using crutches is much greater than that of walking Waters et al.

Moreover, it is common practice for athletes to perform some form of exercise in the noninjured limb s while injured to maintain strength and fitness. It is, therefore, crucial that athletes do not reduce nutrition, that is, under fuel at the recovery stage through being too focused upon not gaining body fat; thus, careful planning is needed to manage the magnitude of energy restriction during this crucial recovery period.

One thing that is generally accepted is that, when reducing energy intake, macronutrients should not be cut evenly as maintaining a high-protein intake will be essential to attenuate loss of lean muscle mass.

Poor attention has been paid to dietary lipids in the prevention of musculoskeletal injuries. In this context, mainly omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids n-3 PUFA have been studied because of their anti-inflammatory properties. Many studies have investigated the effects of n-3 PUFA supplementation on the loss of muscle function and inflammation following exercise-induced muscle damage, with the balance of the literature suggesting some degree of benefit e.

This level of n-3 PUFA supplementation is far in excess of what would be consumed in a typical diet and much greater than most suggested supplement regimes.

Given that it is not possible to predict when an injury may occur, it could be suggested that athletes should take n-3 PUFA supplements on a regular basis; however, the long-term daily dose requires further investigation.

Again, however, relying on findings from the exercise-induced muscle damage model to rule on a benefit of n-3 PUFA in macroscopic muscle injury prevention or recovery is speculative at this stage. Many of these nutrition strategies are claimed to work through either acting as an antioxidant or through a reduction in inflammation.

In reality, unless there is a dietary deficiency, the vast majority of nutritional interventions have limited research to support such claims. Some of the most frequently studied and supplemented micronutrients to help with skeletal muscle injury are summarized in Table 1.

Finally, consideration must be given to the balance between muscle recovery and muscle adaptation. There is growing evidence that nutritional strategies that may assist with muscle recovery, such as anti-inflammatory and antioxidant strategies, may attenuate skeletal muscle adaptions Owens et al.

It would, therefore, be prudent to differentiate between an injury that requires time lost from the sport and typical exercise-induced muscle soreness when it comes to implementing a nutritional recovery strategy.

Where adaptation comes before recovery, for example, in a preseason training phase, the best nutritional advice may simply to follow a regular diet and allow adaptations to occur naturally. Stress fractures are common bone injuries suffered by athletes that have a different etiology than contact fractures, which also have a frequent occurrence, particularly in contact sports.

Stress fractures are overuse injuries of the bone that are caused by the rhythmic and repeated application of mechanical loading in a subthreshold manner McBryde, Given this, athletes involved in high-volume, high-intensity training, where the individual is body weight loaded, are particularly susceptible to developing a stress fracture Fredericson et al.

The pathophysiology of stress fracture injuries is complex and not completely understood Bennell et al. That said, there is little direct information relating to the role of diet and nutrition in either the prevention or recovery from bone injuries, such as stress fractures.

As such, the completion of this article requires some extrapolation from the information relating to the effects of diet and nutrition on bone health in general. Palacios provides a brief summary of some of the key nutrients for bone health, which include an adequate supply of calcium, protein, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin D, potassium, and fluoride to directly support bone formation.

Other nutrients important to support bone tissue include manganese, copper, boron, iron, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin C, and the B vitamins. Silicon might also be added to this list of key nutrients for bone health. Given this, the consumption of dairy, fruits, and vegetables particularly of the green leafy kind are likely to be useful sources of the main nutrients that support bone health.

Of the more specific issues for the athlete, undoubtedly the biggest factor is the avoidance of low energy availability, which is essential to avoid negative consequences for bone Papageorgiou et al. In athletes, this poses the question of whether the effect of low energy availability on bone is a result of dietary restriction or high exercise energy expenditures.

Low EA achieved through inadequate dietary energy intake resulted in decreased bone formation but no change in bone resorption, whereas low EA achieved through exercise did not significantly influence bone metabolism, highlighting the importance of adequate dietary intakes for the athlete.

Evidence of the impact of low energy availability on bone health, particularly in female athletes, comes from the many studies relating to both the Female Athlete Triad Nattiv et al. A thorough review of these syndromes is beyond the scope of the current article; however, those interested are advised to make use of the existing literature base on this topic.

That said, this is likely to be an unrealistic target for many athlete groups, particularly the endurance athlete e. This target may also be difficult to achieve in youth athletes who have limited time to fuel given the combined demands of school and training.

In addition, a calorie deficit is often considered to drive the endurance phenotype in these athletes, meaning that work is needed to identify the threshold of energy availability above which there are little or no negative implications for the bone. However, a recent case study on an elite female endurance athlete over a 9-year period demonstrated that it is possible to train slightly over optimal race weight and maintain sufficient energy availability for most of the year, and then reduce calorie intake to achieve race weight at specific times in the year Stellingwerff, This may be the ideal strategy to allow athletes to race at their ideal weight, train at times with low energy availability to drive the endurance phenotype, but not be in a dangerously low energy availability all year round.

Moran et al. The development of stress fractures was associated with preexisting dietary deficiencies, not only in vitamin D and calcium, but also in carbohydrate intake. Although a small-scale association study, these data provide some indication of potential dietary risk factors for stress fracture injury.

Miller et al. Similarly, other groups have shown a link between calcium intake and both bone mineral density Myburgh et al. Despite these initially encouraging findings, there remain relatively few prospective studies evaluating the optimal calcium and vitamin D intake in athletes relating to either a stress fracture prevention or b bone healing.

For a more comprehensive review of this area, readers are directed toward a recent review by Fischer et al. One further consideration that might need to be made with regard to the calcium intake of endurance athletes and possibly weight classification athletes practicing dehydration strategies to make weight is the amount of dermal calcium loss over time.

Although the amount of dermal calcium lost with short-term exercise is unlikely to be that important in some endurance athletes performing prolonged exercise bouts or multiple sessions per day e. Athletes are generally advised to consume more protein than the recommended daily allowance of 0.

More recently, however, several reviews Rizzoli et al. Conversely, inadequacies in dietary intake have a negative effect on physical performance, which might, in turn, contribute to an increased risk of injury.

This is as likely to be the case for the bone as it is for other tissues of importance to the athlete, like muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Despite this, there is a relative dearth of information relating to the effects of dietary intake on bone health in athletes and, particularly, around the optimal diet to support recovery from bone injury.

In the main, however, it is likely that the nutritional needs for bone health in the athlete are not likely to be substantially different from those of the general population, albeit with an additional need to minimize low energy availability states and consider the potentially elevated calcium, vitamin D, and protein requirements of many athletes.

Tendinopathy is one of the most common musculoskeletal issues in high-jerk sports. Jerk, the rate of change of acceleration, is the physical property that coaches and athletes think of as plyometric load. Given that the volume of high-jerk movements increases in elite athletes, interventions to prevent or treat tendinopathies would have a significant impact on elite performance.

The goal of any intervention to treat tendinopathy is to increase the content of directionally oriented collagen and the density of cross-links within the protein to increase the tensile strength of the tendon.

The most common intervention to treat tendinopathy is loading. The realization that tendons are dynamic tissues that respond to load began when the Kjaer laboratory demonstrated an increase in tendon collagen synthesis, in the form of increased collagen propeptides in the peritendinous space 72 hr after exercise Langberg et al.

They followed this up using stable isotope infusion to show that tendon collagen synthesis doubled within the first 24 hr after exercise Miller et al. Therefore, loading can increase collagen synthesis, and this may contribute to the beneficial effects of loading on tendinopathy.

Recently, combining loading with nutritional interventions has been proposed to further improve collagen synthesis Shaw et al. Nutrition has been recognized as being essential for collagen synthesis and tendon health for over years. The two sailors given the oranges and lemon recovered within 6 days; however, the relationship between the citrus fruit and scurvy continued to be debated for over years.

In , Jerome Gross showed that guinea pigs on a vitamin C deficient diet did not synthesize collagen at a detectable level Gross, , making the molecular connection between vitamin C and scurvy. The requirement for vitamin C in the synthesis of collagen comes from its role in the regulation of prolyl hydroxylase activity Mussini et al.

As vitamin C is consumed in the hydroxylation reaction, and humans lack the l -gulono-γ-lactone oxidase enzyme required for the last step in the synthesis of vitamin C Drouin et al.

Even though a basal level of vitamin C is required for collagen synthesis, whether exceeding this value results in a concomitant increase in collagen synthesis has yet to be determined.

Therefore, currently, there is no evidence that increasing vitamin C intake will increase collagen synthesis and prevent tendon injuries. Like vitamin C, copper deficiency leads to impaired mechanical function of collagen-containing tissues, such as bone Jonas et al.

However, the beneficial effects of copper are only seen in the transition from deficiency to sufficiency Opsahl et al. There is no further increase in collagen function with increasing doses of copper.

This sequence allows collagen to form the tight triple helix that gives the protein its mechanical strength. Because of the importance of glycine, some researchers have hypothesized that increasing dietary glycine would have a beneficial effect on tendon healing. Vieira et al. The authors repeated the results in a follow-up study Vieira et al.

Another potential source of the amino acids found in collagen is gelatin or hydrolyzed collagen. Gelatin is created by boiling the skin, bones, tendons, and ligaments of cattle, pigs, and fish. Further chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis of gelatin breaks the protein into smaller peptides that are soluble in water and no longer form a gel.

Because both gelatin and hydrolyzed collagen are derived from collagen, they are rich in glycine, proline, hydroxylysine, and hydroxyproline Shaw et al. As would be expected from a dietary intervention that increases collagen synthesis, consumption of 10 g of hydrolyzed collagen in a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study in athletes decreased knee pain from standing and walking Clark et al.

The decrease in knee pain could be the result of an improvement in collagen synthesis of the cartilage within the knee since cartilage thickness, measured using gadolinium labeled magnetic resonance imaging, increases with long-term consumption of 10 g of hydrolyzed collagen McAlindon et al.

The role of gelatin consumption in collagen synthesis was directly tested by Shaw et al. In this randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover-designed study, subjects who consumed 15 g of gelatin showed twice the collagen synthesis, measured through serum propeptide levels, as either a placebo or a 5-g group.

Furthermore, when serum from subjects fed either gelatin or collagen is added to engineered ligaments, the engineered ligaments demonstrate more than twofold greater mechanics and collagen content Avey and Baar unpublished; Figure 1.

Even though bathing the engineered ligaments in serum rich in procollagen amino acids provides a beneficial effect, this is a far cry from what would be seen in people. However, these data suggest that consuming gelatin or hydrolyzed collagen may increase collagen synthesis and potentially decrease injury rate in athletes.

Citation: International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism 29, 2; These and other nutraceuticals have recently been reviewed by Fusini et al. Interestingly, many of these nutrients are thought to decrease inflammation, and the role of inflammation in tendinopathy in elite athletes remains controversial Peeling et al.

Therefore, future work is needed to validate these purported nutraceuticals in the prevention or treatment of tendon or ligament injuries. Although injuries are going to happen in athletes, there are several nutrition solutions that can be implemented to reduce the risk and decrease recovery time.

To reduce the risk of injury, it is crucial that athletes do not have chronic low energy availability, as this is a major risk factor for bone injuries.

Cycling energy intake throughout the year to allow race weight to be achieved, while achieving adequate energy availability away from competitions, may be the most effective strategy.

It is also crucial for bone, muscle, tendon, and ligament health to ensure that there are no dietary deficiencies, especially low protein intake or inadequate vitamin C, D, copper, n-3 PUFA, or calcium.

This highlights the importance of athletes having access to qualified nutrition support to help them achieve their goals without compromising health.

If an injury does occur, one of the key considerations during the injury is to ensure excessive lean muscle mass is not lost and that sufficient energy is consumed to allow repair, without significantly increasing body fat. It is crucial to understand the change in energy demands and, at the same time, ensure sufficient protein is consumed for repair, especially since the muscle could become anabolic resistant.

In terms of tendon health, there is a growing interest in the role of gelatin to increase collagen synthesis. Studies are now showing that gelatin supplementation can improve cartilage thickness and decrease knee pain, and may reduce the risk of injury or accelerate return to play, providing both a prophylactic and therapeutic treatment for tendon, ligament, and, potentially, bone health.

Where supplementation is deemed necessary e. Last but not least, more human-based research is needed, ideally in elite athlete populations, on the possible benefits of some macro- and micronutrients in the prevention or boosted recovery of injured athletes. Given that placebo-controlled, randomized control trials are exceptionally difficult to perform in elite athletes no athlete would want to be in a placebo group if there is a potential of benefit of an intervention, combined with the fact that the time course and pathology of the same injuries are often very different , it is important that high-quality case studies are now published in elite athletes to help to develop an evidence base for interventions.

All authors contributed equally to the manuscript, with each author writing specific sections and all authors editing the final manuscript prior to final submission.

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Lappe , J. Calcium and vitamin D supplementation decreases incidence of stress fractures in female navy recruits. When you add foods that reduce inflammation, you can reduce your pain and make it more manageable.

You will not have to continually reach for anti-inflammatory medication. Foods can be your most powerful tool for fighting inflammation and pain.

But you should not just add as many foods as you can to your diet. Instead, you need to choose the right foods. Choosing the wrong foods can make your pain worse and accelerate the disease. Along with lowering inflammation and helping with pain management, your diet can affect your emotional and physical health.

So, eating a healthy diet is not only beneficial for preventing and treating injuries, but it can also improve your attitude and quality of life. There are healthy foods that can help your body heal. And there are foods that can negatively affect your health.

If you choose the wrong foods, you can make your pain and inflammation worse. Some of these foods include fried foods, sugar, margarine, red meats, processed meats and refined carbohydrates.

These types of foods have also been linked to heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Nutrition can play a major role in injury recovery and prevention.

However, most people do not understand exactly how to use nutrition for injury prevention. Proper nutrition is vital for staying healthy and staying active.

At Sydney Sports and Exercise Physiologists , we will assess your situation and provide you with a personalised nutrition plan that will assist in your healing process and prevent future injuries.

A re you injured or looking to prevent future injuries? Nutrition can be the solution you are looking for. Our Physiologists are experts in their field. They know the best foods to treat and prevent injuries.

To learn more about nutrition for injury recovery and prevention, call one of our convenient SSEP locations today. Homebush Olympic Park. Camperdown Sydney University.

Kensington UNSW. Rooty Hill. Moore Park. Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy. Impacts of Nutrition for Injury Recovery and Prevention.

Injuries are snd, whether they are short-term reecovery long-term. When you are injured, Herbal Immune Boosters number one thing Sports nutrition for injury prevention and recovery want to do is recover from prevejtion as inury and as well injuryy you can. While nutrition obviously is not the main factor in this, it can certainly play a role in improving outcomes. This post will cover some things to focus on during the process while highlighting strategies that can help facilitate a quicker recovery. This section will likely be the largest section in this post, so it will be split into sub-headings.

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