Kate Grace’s recipe for tendon health

Tendon injuries can be some of the most difficult to heal. Because of this, runners will try nearly anything to keep them healthy. But what if you found out that an updated childhood snack, paired with some exercise could help keep them in functioning order?

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Nutrition & Training recovery from Tendon injuries@MuscleScience @Jeukendrup pic.twitter.com/H9nFQnemTs

— A Macdonald (@Mramacdonald) January 4, 2020

Kate Grace is a runner for the Nike Bowerman Track Club who wrote on social media that she used gelatin as a way to help her tendons and ligaments stay strong. She prefaces this recipe with the fact that she’s not a doctor and research on the topic is still preliminary, but that it has worked for her.

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According to mysportsscience.com and sports physiologist Asker Jeukendrup, combining proper nutrition with exercise can result in “a two-fold increase in collagen synthesis.” This result was found when researchers (Kevin Tipton, Stuart Phillips and Keith Baar) compared people who jumped rope with and without taking gelatin beforehand. Gelatin is a great source of collagen.

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What all of this means

According to Jeukendrup’s website, the ideal formula for tendon health looks like this: 20g of high quality protein at every meal, rehab exercises three times a day and 5g of gelatin with 500mg of vitamin C consumed 30-60 minutes ahead of activity.

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Grace’s Jell-O recipe

The runner shared her tendon-health gelatin recipe on social media. It’s a simple recipe that yields about 20 servings of supplements.

Dissolve 10 packs of gelatin in two cups of pomegranate juice, then add two cups of boiling water. After that’s combined add one pack of Emergen-C (for the necessary vitamin C). Once it jells, cut that in 20 blocks and eat before explosive exercise (strength, track work or jump rope).