Wouldn’t you agree that to be healthy and at the same time consistently successful you need to be tireless, efficient, and emotionally and energetically charged?

That means you need to pay attention to your diet 100% as it affects every organ and part of your body, from the most superficial skin layer to the deepest parts of your body like your organs.

As a structural balance and flexibility coach, I have become very aware of how touch and different stretch and movement therapies can affect both the human body’s structural balance and connective tissue health.

As a coach who has been working with top elite athletes for almost 10 years, I wanted to expand my knowledge to help create a more profound relationship with people who I serve. I wanted to be able to contribute to their athletic excellence. This is why I decided to focus more on nutrition and its effect on connective tissue health and inflammation.

You would probably agree with me that connective tissue is, without a doubt, one of the parts of our body that we underestimate the most on a daily basis. You may have heard how fasciae and other parts of connective tissue play a massive role in your movement and daily vitality. You may also know that the health of your muscles and fasciae depends on collagen protein.

That is why today, I would like to take the opportunity to share with you how one of the most important elements of your connective tissue, collagen, can be supported by the consumption of either natural foods or collagen (or collagen peptide) supplementation.

I believe and hope that the information I share with you will contribute to your knowledge and, more importantly, your health and the health of those in your life.  

#1 What Collagen Is and Why Does It Truly Matter? 

It is probably well known to you that proteins are a major component of the human body.

Proteins provide structure and function, regardless of what we may be referring to - your heart, brain, skin, bones, or even enzymes that are essential for your metabolism.

On top of that, you may not be surprised when I say that it’s not just beautiful skin that consists largely of collagen. Collagen is the most frequently found protein in the human body, accounting for approximately 30% of its make-up and, therefore, is the most important component of human connective tissue. After water, it is the second largest component of fasciae, and that’s fascinating to me.

The more collagen rich your fasciae is, the more tensile strength it has, meaning it is more stable and force transmitting.

Collagen provides structure and tension in both the tissue and the fasciae surrounding the tissue. It is stabilizing and gives elasticity to the tissue.

Collagen architecture is the key to your connective tissue functionality. It essentially consists of three long protein chains that form a triple helix and when tensioned, the fiber spirals intertwine and gain more stability. This is how collagen gains tensile strength that is greater than steel. I like to say to athletes, "You want to create resilient, yet adaptable fasciae bodies".

As you can tell, collagen provides us with many benefits including dynamic stability, unloading of your muscles, and elasticity - all of which allow movement to be more energy conservative rather than energy consuming. These are all benefits that you want to experience, regardless of your age and daily activity level.

The fantastic news is that your body can produce collagen on its own! Yes, that’s great news.

But that takes place primarily in a young and healthy body.

Unfortunately, when we age (and we all do!), we lose flexibility, our metabolic processes slows down, and we generate less and less collagen.

That is why collagen or collagen peptide (the more bioavailable collagen form - like the one in Resync Collagen Blend) consumption should be part of your daily menu to support your connective tissue health, and help you face the years ahead of you with more confidence and joy.

Since I mentioned Resync Collagen Blend, you should be aware that it also consists of additional beneficial ingredients, which can also support your energy levels, yes indeed, like red spinach, red beets, and aronia berry! Also well known to you maybe by now are hyaluronic acid and calcium fructoborate, two more additional ingredients in Resync Collagen Blend to support your connective tissue health.

#2 The Types of Collagen You Want to Pay Attention To:

The human body mainly consists of collagen types I, II, and III. 

• Type I Collagen accounts for about 90% of the body’s total collagen content. Mainly it is present in the connective tissue of the skin, bones, and tendons.
• Type II is joint collagen.
• Type III is present in your skin and muscle tissue.

Aside from the types described above, I would also like to share with you what I learned just this past year at one of the biggest shows hosted for supplement companies, Supply Side West, where experts shared recent research on novel ingredients.

While attending, I happened to listen to a presentation done by Gelita ("the world's leading supplier of collagen proteins") where they shared the structure of collagen, its dry matter, and types in various tissues. So here it is:

 Collagen Dry Matter and Types in Various Tissues [1]

• Bones ~ 90% of the organic matrix of bone; 25% collagen of the entire bone mass 
• Skin ~ 75% collagen 
• Joint Cartilage ~ 70% collagen  
• Ligaments ~ 70% collagen  
• Tendons ~ 85% collagen  
• Fasciae ~ 70% collagen  
• Muscle Tissue ~ 6% collagen  

Isn’t it fascinating how much collagen is inside our body?

As I mentioned above, with age, the ratio of the different types of collagen in the tissue changes and values will most likely decrease.

For now you can take my word for it that not all proteins and collagen (or collagen peptide) products are the same and not all of them will equally support and contribute to your connective tissue health.  

We all know that we need proteins for a balanced diet and that there are the special proteins with extra benefits, collagen peptides, which I will discuss in more detail in the next post. On top of that, you are going to learn what specific kinds of foods and products you could be consuming to support your connective tissue health. 

I hope you are excited to learn more about the subject of collagen!

Reference List:

1. Feng M, Betti M (2017) Transepithelial transport efficiency of bovine collagen hydrolysates in human Caco-2 cell line model. Food Chem 224:242-250