Session Preview: Optimizing Collagen Protocols for Elite Collegiate Athletics

In this interview with Senior Editor Nicholas Saraceno, Katie Salomone, MS, RD, CSSD, CEDS director of sports nutrition at Rutgers University, explains how her department structures collagen protocols for collegiate athletes. She distinguishes between 2 distinct approaches: an injury-recovery protocol, which stays largely consistent across sports and focuses on timing, dosing, and interdisciplinary communication with the athlete's broader care team, and an injury-prevention protocol, which is more sport-specific and timed around high-impact training, such as administering collagen 30 to 60 minutes before practice for athletes with significant joint loading, like basketball players.

Salomone also addresses the evidence gap behind complementary ingredients often paired with collagen. While she notes vitamin C has meaningfully more research support than other commonly added ingredients, she argues many additives are included based on mechanistic assumptions rather than direct evidence, and calls for more research to support those formulation decisions. She identifies a related disconnect in how collagen is marketed to consumers: many products are positioned as standalone supplements, when most of the supporting clinical research is conducted alongside targeted exercise, not sedentary use.

For manufacturers formulating specifically for elite athletes, Salomone highlights 3 priorities that often don't come through in standard consumer products: third-party testing, since collegiate athletes face strict drug-testing requirements and need certainty about label accuracy; convenience, given how time-constrained student-athletes are and how burdensome it is for a sports nutrition staff to prepare collagen doses for multiple teams; and taste, which she describes as one of her biggest practical challenges, since poor palatability discourages consistent pre-activity use even when the science supports it. She notes many athletes default to mixing collagen into coffee simply because it dissolves more easily than in other beverages like electrolyte drinks.

Learn more and register for the conference here—a transcript of their conversation can also be found below.

Nicholas Saraceno: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of the Nutritional Outlook video series. This time it is Outlook on Active Nutrition edition. Of course, I am Nico Saraceno, senior editor of Nutritional Outlook magazine. And today I'm joined by Katie Salomone. She is the director of sports nutrition at Rutgers University. She is also going to be leading a session at our upcoming September conference, The Outlook on Active Nutrition, as I alluded to. So first of all, Katie, I know we want to get into quite a bit today, but first off, thanks for taking the time to hop on today on this beautiful summer day as I see in your background.

Katie Salomone: Absolutely, o problem. Thank you for having me.

Saraceno: For sure, for sure. In your line of work, you're overseeing nutrition for a wide range of programs from basketball to gymnastics. I'm wondering, how does a collagen protocol actually change based on the sport being played, whether you're working with an athlete, managing like a high-impact joint loading versus someone recovering from a specific surgery? I'm just how that kind of varies there.

Salomone: Yeah, I would say there's 2 different types of protocols that I would create. So one is our main collagen protocol that's really more so about injury recovery, as opposed to sports specific. We're more focused on helping the athlete heal, working as an interdisciplinary team, and making sure that we're adhering to that return to play plan. Not so much different between if it was like a basketball player with like a patellar tendon pain compared to a gymnast coming back from an ACL injury.

The timing, the dosing, and the interdisciplinary communication would really all be the same. Where it could change is the second type of protocol where we're looking to do minimizing risk of injury. So that could be more sport-specific when you're talking about providing to a basketball team because of the amount of wear and tear on their knees, their joints. You decide that you're going to provide them the collagen before their practice, 30 to 60 minutes before, as opposed to some other teams that might not have that same loading need where it would be focused more so on injury recovery.

Saraceno: That's interesting. Now I know in your session, it's going to be centered around what you were just saying, optimizing the collagen protocols for elite collegiate athletics. You're going to be diving into a lot of the ingredients used to help enhance the absorption of collagen. What's that evidence base like for these complementary ingredients compared to, say the actual collagen research itself? Are the ingredients in the collagen itself equally substantiated, or is that a place where you think like the science is lacking? Could you maybe get into that a little bit?

Salomone: I definitely think that there is much more research on like vitamin C and collagen compared to any other added ingredient. I do think there is room for a lot of research in this area. I would say that a lot of the times, I think ingredients are put in because you just see that this nutrient or this substance is part of the mechanism. It's like, okay, if we add it, it has to do a change. That's not necessarily true. It would be really cool to see more research on those things so we can make more sound recommendations for those little additives that are being thrown in.

Saraceno: That's definitely fair, and I know that the plans for your session is to also explore some of the gaps and opportunities for manufacturers to better communicate the benefits regarding collagen. I'm wondering from where you are working hands on with athletes, what do you think the biggest disconnect right now between how these aforementioned collagen ingredients are marketed to consumers, and what the clinical research in your experience actually supports? Where do you see that disconnect as it lies at this point in time?

Salomone: I think the biggest disconnect is that I think marketing really pushes towards collagen being a standalone supplement when it's really meant to be part of a sound nutrition plan, but also the exercise and training component, where it's supposed to be for targeted exercise. I think that part is missing because I hear a lot of people just saying that they're throwing their collagen in their morning cup of coffee, but they're not working out at all for the next 3 days. If you really want to have like the true benefits of the supplement, you have to look at how the research is being done, and all of it's being done on or most of it. I'm not going to say all, but it's being done on targeted exercise. It's not just being done on sedentary purposes.

Saraceno: That makes sense. I know that it's a misconception of people just working and taking these, just putting like the collagen powder into their water or coffee. I hear it all the time. I can definitely relate to that. Athletes, they're an interesting test case for any sort of ingredient, which is why so many people like to feature them. The high training loads, the amount of time needed for recovery. There are very stringent testing requirements.

What what would you want both ingredient and finished product manufacturers to understand and to know when it comes to like formulating for that specific population that like maybe doesn't come through in your standard consumer-facing collagen product?

Salomone: I think there's 3 things that come to mind. The first one is third-party testing. We need to be able to trust this product because of the amount of testing that our athletes go through. At least the collegiate setting, we really are looking for products that are third-party tested to ensure what's in the bottles on the label and what's on the labels in the bottle. That would be number one. Is that pure transparency?

The second one is convenience. Our athletes, they are practicing 20 hours a week. They're also full-time students. On top of that, they have tutoring, they have extra things because they're going to graduate someday, and they're working on those types of internships. Their schedules are packed, so finding a convenient way for us to provide it.

Also, my staff, being able to work with 5 or 6 different teams at a time if we have to spend multiple hours making collagen for our teams throughout the week, that makes it much harder for us to consistently provide, as opposed to it being readily available in just like a little bottle to be like, here you go, take it.

The last thing I would say is taste. Probably the greatest challenge I have is that I want to be able to provide this product before activity, and a lot of feedback I get is that they might not like the taste of it, so they do not want to take it. Most research shows that you want to have it before, so being able to break that barrier of making sure it actually does taste good, because we do have some picky athletes out there. I think that's really important also.

Saraceno: The taste I feel like is very relevant because I mean, if it's not appealing, how are you going to get them to actually enjoy it? It's not going to be sustainable long term.

Salomone: Exactly, which I think is why a lot of people do put it in their morning coffee, because it dissolves so easily that way, compared to if we're putting it into like a bottle of just like an electrolyte mix, it does take a lot longer to dissolve. It's collagen. It's meant to take a long time to dissolve, I think, but finding easier ways to get that done.