Can Supplements Help Injury Recovery? My Run-In with Lucifer in the Cotswolds

An encounter with a suspicious-looking goat, a horrible ankle injury and an opportunity to investigate whether nutrition and supplements really can make a difference to recovery.

It started with a goat (the actual fella in the article image). Although, looking back, I suspect the goat had absolutely nothing to do with it. That hasn't stopped me blaming him though.

We were on a short break in the Cotswolds, and we'd taken our six-year-old son to a farm where you could get up close to the animals and feed them. We were having a great time. Beautiful countryside, fresh air, and a six-year-old who was absolutely loving the whole experience. Then we met the goats.

Now, I've encountered goats before, but I don't think I'd ever fully appreciated what greedy little bastards they are. The moment food appeared, all remaining dignity disappeared. They were pushing past one another, stretching their necks, shoving their noses into anything vaguely edible and generally behaving like a bunch of people who'd been told the buffet was closing in thirty seconds. I'd never given goats much thought before, but I certainly hadn't expected to be mugged by a bunch of hairy little bastards with horns.

Except one.

Sitting a little apart from the chaos was a goat with the biggest pair of horns I'd ever seen on one. While his mates were busy conducting what appeared to be an organised assault on the food supply, he remained perfectly still. No scrambling for scraps, no enthusiastic bleating, no apparent interest in anything we were offering.

He just stared.

And not in the absent-minded way animals sometimes stare at people. This felt deliberate. I appreciate that attributing sinister intentions to a goat is probably unfair, but there was something about this particular creature that made me wonder whether he knew something the rest of us didn't.

So, obviously, I went over to see what his problem was.

I walked up to him, looked him in the eye and said, "Hello mate.”

Nothing.

"You must be Lucifer," I said, before bursting out laughing at my own joke.

My missus just looked at me and rolled her eyes. Apparently I was the only one who found it funny. My son, meanwhile, was still trying to get the bloody goat to eat something. Once, twice, three times. By about the fifth attempt, it was obvious we were wasting our time. This was apparently the only goat on the entire farm that hadn't received the memo about behaving like a greedy bugger whenever a human appeared with something edible.

Eventually, we gave up on him and moved on.

A little further along, my son spotted some stepping stones and immediately decided they needed conquering. He took my hand and began leading me across them, carefully negotiating each one with the sort of concentration children reserve for activities that adults would normally accomplish without giving them a second thought.

I happened to glance back.

Lucifer was still watching.

I gave him a little nod.

"See ya, mate."

And then, almost immediately, everything went horribly wrong.

My ankle gave way beneath me. There was a loud, deeply unpleasant snapping and crunching sound, the sort of noise that really has no business coming from any part of the human body while you're simply walking along. For a split second, I registered the sound before the pain arrived, which it did with extraordinary enthusiasm.

"FUCK! SHIT! OWW! AAAAARRRRGH! FUUUARCK!"

That was probably the more polite version of what came out of my mouth. I suspect several additional expletives were deployed, although I was understandably preoccupied with the possibility that my foot had just attempted to detach itself from the rest of me.

I ended up on the ground, rolling around in agony, trying to work out what had happened and whether the horrible crunch I'd heard was the sound of a bone breaking. I'd never heard anything quite like it from my own body before, and I certainly had no desire to hear it again.

The worst part, apart from the actual pain, was the sound. That horrible snapping, crunching noise has stayed with me ever since. I can still hear it perfectly in my head, and every time I think about it, I have an almost involuntary urge to check that my foot is still attached. I'm fairly sure the whole experience has given me some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Not from the injury itself, you understand, but from that horrible sound. I've heard less disturbing noises in horror films, and at least those usually have the decency to warn you with some ominous music beforehand.

And somewhere behind us, Lucifer was still watching.

At this point, I was beginning to reconsider the wisdom of laughing at a goat with enormous horns and naming him after the Devil.

Once I'd stopped swearing long enough to work out what the hell had happened, it became obvious that this wasn't an ordinary little twist of the ankle. The pain was severe, and the swelling was already making a fairly convincing argument that something significant had happened beneath the skin.

I was convinced I'd broken it.

Fortunately, we managed to get to a local minor injuries unit, where something almost as surprising as the injury itself happened: the entire visit, including an X-ray, took about 45 minutes. Forty-five minutes! I'm fairly certain I've spent longer waiting to speak to someone about a broadband problem. And for sure, that would have been a 12 hour wait back home in Cheshire.

The X-ray showed no fracture.

That was an enormous relief. Clearly, I'd done some damage to the ankle, but at least I hadn't broken it. It didn't make the swelling or pain disappear, but it was considerably better news than I'd been expecting when I heard that awful snapping sound.

Nice try, Lucifer.

Once I'd got over the initial shock, I started thinking about the injury from a different perspective.

I've worked in the supplement industry for years, spending a considerable amount of time looking at ingredients, research, formulation choices and the occasionally enormous gap between what a supplement is claimed to do and what the science actually demonstrates. Normally, those discussions take place at a desk, with published studies open on a screen and a perfectly functional pair of ankles beneath it.

Now I had a very swollen, considerably less functional ankle of my own, and that raised an interesting question.

Could nutrition, and more specifically some of the supplement ingredients I already knew well, make a meaningful difference to the recovery process?

Not in the sense of magically knitting damaged ligaments back together overnight. Even the most enthusiastic supplement salesman would struggle to make that sound credible. But injury recovery involves inflammation, tissue repair, collagen formation, nutrient availability and a complicated series of biological processes that the body has to coordinate.

Was there any science behind the idea that certain nutrients might help? And, more importantly, was there credible evidence that doing so could improve recovery after an injury like mine?

I decided to look into it, while experimenting with a few products from the One Life Foods range alongside some standalone ingredients.

Over the following days, I noticed some encouraging changes. The swelling reduced substantially, the pain eased, some movement began returning, and the bruising was considerably less dramatic than I'd expected given the violence of the injury.

I was pleased, obviously. But I was also curious.

The problem is, ankles generally get better with time. Mine might have been doing exactly the same thing without me throwing half the supplement cupboard at it.

So what, if anything, was my supplement routine actually contributing?

First, What Happens When You Damage a Ligament?

Before getting into what I've been eating and taking, it helps to understand what the body is trying to do after an injury.

Ligaments are tough bands of connective tissue that join bones together and help stabilise joints. They're composed largely of collagen, arranged into fibres that give the tissue its strength and allow it to withstand the forces involved in movement.

At least, that's what they're supposed to do.

When an ankle rolls beyond its normal range, those fibres can become stretched or torn. Depending on the severity, the result can range from a relatively minor sprain to a much more significant ligament injury.

The snapping sound I heard was certainly alarming, but a noise isn't a diagnosis. An X-ray can help identify fractures, not reliably tell you the extent of soft-tissue damage. Following a ligament injury, the body begins a series of overlapping responses often described as the inflammatory, proliferative and remodelling phases of healing.

Initially, damaged tissues and blood vessels trigger an inflammatory response. Immune cells and signalling molecules become involved, and fluid can accumulate around the injured area. That's part of the reason an ankle can swell so dramatically after an injury.

Inflammation has developed a dreadful reputation in supplement marketing. Spend five minutes reading certain product descriptions and you'd be forgiven for thinking it's some terrible biological mistake that needs eliminating immediately.

But inflammation is also part of normal healing. The body needs to respond to damage, remove debris and coordinate the cells involved in repair. The aim isn't simply to suppress every inflammatory signal.

As the process develops, cells called fibroblasts help produce the extracellular matrix, including collagen. Over time, newly formed tissue is reorganised and remodelled as the ligament adapts to movement and mechanical loading.

This can be a lengthy process. Pain and swelling may improve well before the repaired tissue has regained anything approaching its previous strength. Something I've had to keep reminding myself: just because the ankle feels better doesn't mean the damaged structures are ready for whatever stupid idea I might have next.

Recovery involves much more than waiting for the swelling to disappear. Appropriate support, gradual rehabilitation and progressively restoring movement and load tolerance remain central to getting back to normal.

Nutrition fits into that bigger picture because the body needs the raw materials and energy to carry out these processes.

Which brings us to the food.

The Diet: No Protein Shakes, No Miracle Foods

I haven't completely changed my diet since the injury.

I'm eating about as much protein as I normally would, mostly from chicken, beef and a bit of cheese. I'm also eating potatoes, bananas, peanut butter, honey and vegetables, including greens.

Nothing particularly exotic. No obscure berries harvested under a full moon, and certainly nothing that requires a subscription service to tell me when to eat it.

I did make one deliberate decision, though: I haven't introduced a protein powder.

Not because I've suddenly decided protein supplements are useless. Quite the opposite. They're a convenient way to increase protein intake when food alone isn't meeting your requirements.

I simply didn't have any protein powder when the injury happened, and once I started considering the other supplements, I thought it would be interesting to keep my usual protein intake reasonably consistent.

That doesn't turn the experiment into a controlled trial, of course. My diet still contains plenty of variables, and without properly measuring my daily intake, I can't claim I'm consuming some precisely calculated amount of protein.

But it does give me a relatively familiar nutritional starting point.

And protein matters during injury recovery, even when the injured structure isn't a muscle.

Amino acids are required for the synthesis and maintenance of body proteins, including those involved in connective tissue. Injury can also lead to a reduction in activity, and in some cases immobilisation, which creates a separate concern: maintaining muscle mass and function while the affected limb isn't being used normally.

Research on rehabilitation nutrition generally places adequate protein and overall energy intake among the main priorities. Higher protein intakes are often discussed in sporting and rehabilitation settings, although individual requirements depend on body weight, activity, injury severity and the wider diet.

There's also the question of energy.

Carbohydrates from foods such as potatoes, bananas and honey contribute to normal energy intake. Peanut butter provides fats and some protein, while vegetables contribute fibre and micronutrients. None of these foods is a specific treatment for damaged ligaments, but collectively they're part of the nutritional environment in which healing takes place.

And just because I'm moving around less doesn't mean I should suddenly start eating half as much. The body still has energy requirements, including those associated with recovery, even if you're not burning through your usual training sessions. You can read more about the importance of getting the basics right in our article on fundamental diet principles. An injury certainly doesn't make those principles irrelevant.

So I'm not particularly concerned that I've left protein powder out of the equation. What matters far more is whether I'm getting enough protein and energy overall. As far as your body is concerned, protein from food still counts. You don't need to drink it for it to work.

The Supplements I've Been Experimenting With

Alongside my normal diet, I've been taking Vitality Liquid Multivitamin, Flex Liquid Joint Support, standalone L-citrulline powder and Shilajit. I've also been using caffeine anhydrous.

I initially included a little RE-UP in the routine, although only on certain days. I've since stopped taking that and decided to introduce CELL, our creatine-based formula, instead.

The doses are important here, particularly because some of these products contain overlapping ingredients. You can read more here about supplement stacking and the importance of checking for overlapping ingredients. My current routine is a fairly good example of why that matters.

I'm taking the full 25 ml serving of Flex, which provides 12 g of hydrolysed collagen. My standalone citrulline intake is 8 g daily. On the days I added approximately half a scoop of RE-UP, that increased to around 9.25 g. Now that I'm switching to CELL, my citrulline intake will return to 8 g.

I'm also taking Shilajit once each morning with green tea, while my estimated daily caffeine intake is around 250–300 mg from various sources. I'll be taking one 15 g scoop of CELL daily, providing 5.7 g of creatine monohydrate.

That's a serious mix. But rather than pretending every ingredient in it has an equally compelling role in injury recovery, I wanted to look at the ones that genuinely raised interesting questions.

Flex, Collagen and the Building Blocks of Connective Tissue

Of everything I'm taking, collagen was probably the most obvious place to start investigating.

Ligaments contain substantial amounts of collagen, particularly type I collagen, and their mechanical properties depend heavily on how that collagen is organised.

Flex contains hydrolysed collagen, meaning the original collagen proteins have been broken down into smaller peptides. Digestion and absorption then make amino acids and some collagen-derived peptides available to the body.

I'm taking 25 ml daily, which provides 12 g of hydrolysed collagen, including types I, II and III. The same serving also provides 60 mg of vitamin C, 12 g of turmeric juice from concentrate, and smaller quantities of glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, hyaluronic acid, vitamin D3 and selenium.

The amount of collagen was what interested me most.

There is human research investigating collagen or gelatin supplementation in conjunction with exercise and connective-tissue adaptation. One frequently discussed study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2017, examined vitamin C-enriched gelatin taken before intermittent activity.

Researchers compared different gelatin amounts and found that the higher 15 g dose was associated with an increase in a blood marker of collagen synthesis. The investigation also included laboratory work involving engineered ligament tissue.

That's interesting research, especially because the amount of collagen I'm consuming is in a broadly comparable range.

It isn't identical, though. Gelatin and hydrolysed collagen aren't precisely the same preparation, and the study examined responses under specific experimental conditions. A change in a collagen-synthesis marker is also different from demonstrating that a torn ankle ligament heals faster or returns to normal strength sooner.

A more recent review published in July 2026 examined nutritional approaches during tendon and ligament rehabilitation. It discussed collagen or gelatin alongside vitamin C and appropriate rehabilitation loading as a potentially useful strategy, while acknowledging that stronger clinical evidence is still needed.

The relationship with loading is particularly interesting.

Connective tissues respond to mechanical forces, and rehabilitation is designed, in part, to gradually restore their capacity to tolerate those forces. The nutritional hypothesis is that providing relevant amino acids around appropriately prescribed loading might influence the environment in which collagen remodelling occurs.

That doesn't mean somebody with a newly injured ankle should start bouncing around on it after drinking collagen. The stage of injury and appropriate rehabilitation programme come first.

But it does help explain why researchers are interested in collagen nutrition beyond its traditional association with skin and beauty products.

As for the other ingredients in Flex, glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM and turmeric have all been investigated in different joint-health contexts. Much of that research, however, concerns chronic joint symptoms or osteoarthritis rather than acute ligament injuries.

The amounts also matter. Flex provides relatively small quantities of glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM compared with doses commonly used in some clinical studies.

For my particular question, then, the 12 g collagen content is the more scientifically interesting part of the formulation.

Vitality, Vitamin C and the Nutritional Machinery

This is where Vitality enters the discussion.

Our liquid multivitamin contains a broad range of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and plant-derived ingredients. A standard 15 ml serving provides 300 mg of vitamin C, alongside vitamin D3, zinc, copper and other micronutrients.

Combined with the 60 mg of vitamin C in my daily serving of Flex, that's 360 mg from the two supplements, before accounting for anything I'm getting through food.

Vitamin C is particularly relevant here because it contributes to normal collagen formation. More specifically, it acts as a cofactor for enzymes involved in collagen synthesis, helping the body produce and stabilise the collagen structures found throughout connective tissue.

It's also why vitamin C regularly appears in research investigating collagen supplementation and connective-tissue adaptation, including the gelatin study discussed earlier.

But how much vitamin C is actually needed?

That's a more interesting question than simply assuming that adding more will improve the result. Vitamin C is essential for normal collagen formation, but once nutritional requirements are met, increasing the dose doesn't necessarily mean the body will produce more collagen or repair a damaged ligament any faster.

Vitality also provides other nutrients involved in normal physiological processes, including vitamin D, zinc and copper. Copper is particularly interesting because it contributes to the maintenance of normal connective tissues, while zinc plays a role in normal protein synthesis.

For me, the reasoning behind including Vitality was to consider my overall micronutrient intake alongside the collagen in Flex. The two products provide different things, but there's no reason to assume taking them together automatically produces an additional recovery benefit.

And there's another detail worth mentioning: Vitality contains botanical extracts and caffeine, which also need to be accounted for when looking at everything else I'm taking.

Citrulline: An Interesting Question About Nitric Oxide

Next comes L-citrulline.

This is where my thinking moved away from the more obvious structural nutrients and towards the physiology involved in blood-vessel function.

L-citrulline is an amino acid that can be converted into arginine, which is involved in the production of nitric oxide.

Nitric oxide is a signalling molecule with several physiological functions, including helping regulate blood-vessel tone. It's one of the reasons citrulline has attracted interest in sports nutrition and vascular research.

My reasoning was fairly straightforward. Tissue repair requires oxygen and nutrients, and local circulation is part of the biological environment surrounding an injury. Could increasing arginine availability through citrulline have any relevance?

I thought it was worth looking into. The trouble is, just because something makes sense biologically doesn't mean it actually works in practice.

Citrulline may influence circulating arginine and aspects of vascular physiology, but that doesn't establish improved blood delivery to damaged ankle ligaments, better collagen organisation or faster functional recovery.

And I haven't found convincing human clinical evidence showing that oral citrulline accelerates healing after an acute ligament injury.

I'm also taking quite a lot of it.

I'm taking 8 g of standalone L-citrulline powder, together with approximately half a scoop of RE-UP (initially). The RE-UP contributes around 1.25 g more, bringing the total to roughly 9.25 g, or slightly less when I use a smaller scoop.

That's a substantial amount to be taking in one routine, and it's not intended as a suggested dose for injury recovery. Research involving L-citrulline uses different doses for different outcomes, and studies using citrulline malate aren't directly equivalent to the same weight of pure L-citrulline.

So the nitric-oxide question remains an interesting one.

Whether it has anything meaningful to do with how my ankle is recovering is still very much unanswered.

RE-UP: Could Electrolytes Matter Beyond Hydration?

RE-UP is primarily a hydration and performance formula, but it also gave me something else to investigate.

I've been adding approximately half a scoop to my citrulline drink, although I should explain that I haven't been taking it every day. I used it on days two and three after the injury, then left it out on days four and five, and then stopped.

There's no clever supplementation protocol behind that. It's been fairly ad hoc, if I'm honest.

My original thinking was that sodium, potassium and magnesium might be worth considering beyond their usual association with exercise and replacing sweat. These electrolytes are fundamental to normal cellular function, and tissue repair obviously depends on cells doing their jobs.

At approximately half a scoop, RE-UP provides around 600 mg of sodium, 200 mg of potassium and 75 mg of magnesium, alongside citrulline, taurine, betaine and other ingredients.

Sodium is found predominantly outside cells, while potassium is concentrated inside them. The gradients between these electrolytes help regulate membrane potentials, fluid distribution and numerous processes associated with normal cellular activity. Magnesium, meanwhile, is involved in a wide range of enzyme-dependent reactions.

There's also experimental research examining how potassium channels influence cell migration and wound-healing mechanisms, which caught my attention when I started looking into the subject.

But there's quite a difference between understanding how electrolytes function inside the body and assuming that consuming more of them will help a damaged ligament repair itself.

I'm also considerably less active than normal at the moment, so my electrolyte requirements will be different from when I'm training hard and sweating regularly. My normal diet includes potassium-containing foods such as potatoes, bananas and greens, too.

So the RE-UP isn't something I've been taking religiously, and I'm certainly not trying to suggest that half a scoop on particular days has been responsible for the reduction in swelling.

I was curious about the physiology, thought the ingredients were worth exploring and included it in the routine when I felt like using it.

Not particularly scientific, perhaps, but at least I'm being honest about it.

CELL: A Change of Direction Towards Creatine

After a few days, I decided to stop using RE-UP and try something different.

I'd initially included RE-UP because I was interested in electrolytes, hydration and their wider roles in cellular function. But the more I looked into injury rehabilitation, the more I found myself thinking about creatine.

My ankle injury hasn't just left me with damaged tissue. It's also meant moving around considerably less than normal, which raises another question: what happens to muscle when you suddenly stop using it as much?

I've worn a protective boot on and off, although not consistently. In fact, over the last day or so, I've started feeling as though I might not need it quite as much. Whether that's actually the case is another matter. Feeling more comfortable walking doesn't necessarily mean the ankle has regained the stability it needs.

But the reduction in normal movement got me thinking about muscle disuse.

Muscle can begin losing size and strength surprisingly quickly during periods of immobilisation or reduced activity. Even when the injury itself involves ligaments rather than muscle, the surrounding muscles still have to deal with the consequences of not being used normally.

And this is where creatine becomes interesting.

Creatine helps maintain the body's phosphocreatine stores, which are involved in rapidly regenerating ATP during short, intense muscular efforts. It's one of the most extensively researched ingredients in sports nutrition, particularly in relation to strength and repeated high-intensity exercise.

But researchers have also investigated whether creatine might have a role when people are immobilised and subsequently begin rebuilding muscle through rehabilitation.

The findings are mixed, although there's some encouraging human research. In one study involving leg immobilisation followed by resistance training, creatine didn't prevent muscle loss during the immobilisation period, but it was associated with faster recovery of muscle size and power once structured rehabilitation began.

A 2026 review examining creatine during muscle disuse reached a similar conclusion: the evidence is more promising during progressive rehabilitation than during complete inactivity.

That's particularly relevant to what I'm thinking about now. I'm not expecting creatine to somehow repair my ankle ligaments. I'm more interested in whether maintaining creatine intake could be useful as I gradually return to normal movement and, eventually, training.

So I've decided to introduce CELL, our creatine-based formula, taking one 15 g scoop daily alongside my standalone citrulline and caffeine.

A full serving of CELL contains 5.7 g of creatine monohydrate, alongside 2 g of betaine, 1.25 g of taurine and 1 g of glycine. It also provides sodium, potassium and magnesium, so I'm not abandoning the electrolyte discussion entirely.

Those additional ingredients have their own interesting physiological roles, particularly in cellular fluid regulation and amino-acid metabolism. Glycine is also an important amino acid in collagen, although the extra gram in CELL shouldn't be mistaken for evidence of faster ligament repair. The creatine is what interests me most.

Unlike my rather haphazard use of RE-UP, I intend to take CELL consistently. Creatine supplementation is generally discussed in terms of gradually increasing muscle creatine stores, rather than producing some immediate effect from a single serving.

Whether it will make any noticeable difference during my recovery remains to be seen. I've only just decided to introduce it, so there's nothing meaningful to report yet.

But it gives me another interesting question to follow as the ankle improves: not whether supplements can magically fix a torn ligament, but whether nutritional strategies might have a place in maintaining or rebuilding the muscle function that can be affected while an injury keeps you off your feet.

Shilajit: An Old Acquaintance

Shilajit was probably inevitable.

I've known about it since 1994, when a friend's grandad first introduced me to what he called black gold. I've subsequently spent years working with the material, including examining its composition, sourcing, purification and the human research involving particular preparations. You can read about the published trials in more detail in our review of human Shilajit research, including why results from one preparation can't automatically be applied to another.

So yes, I've been taking Shilajit once a day, in the morning, with green tea.

There are human studies involving purified Shilajit preparations, and some of the findings are worth taking seriously. But those investigations have generally focused on outcomes other than the recovery of acutely damaged ankle ligaments.

And that's the important limitation.

A compound being interesting in one area of research doesn't mean we should automatically apply the findings to an unrelated condition.

Shilajit's complex composition also varies with geographical origin and processing. Results from particular standardised preparations can't necessarily be applied to every resin on the market.

I've written about these issues at length in my examination of Shilajit's journey from mountain tradition to modern wellness product, and the same principle applies here.

Caffeine: A Misspent Youth Has Its Uses. Possibly.

I've also been taking caffeine anhydrous alongside the citrulline and RE-UP, bringing my estimated daily caffeine intake to around 250–300 mg, including the caffeine in my morning green tea and Vitality.

Now, without going into the finer details of my younger years, let's just say a somewhat misspent youth has left me with a fairly impressive tolerance for stimulants. Caffeine doesn't tend to have me climbing the walls. I can generally consume amounts that might leave somebody else wondering whether their heart is trying to escape.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's doing me any favours, of course.

Caffeine is one of the better-researched ingredients in sports nutrition, with established effects on alertness and various performance-related outcomes. It can also influence the perception of effort and, depending on the circumstances, how discomfort is experienced. But feeling more alert isn't the same thing as repairing damaged tissue.

There's also the question of blood flow, particularly because I'm taking caffeine alongside citrulline.

Caffeine is often described as a vasoconstrictor, and it can reduce blood flow in the brain by blocking the effects of adenosine. But its effects elsewhere in the body are more complicated. Some human research has found that caffeine can actually improve certain measures of blood-vessel dilation, potentially involving nitric oxide.

I found that interesting because citrulline is also involved in the nitric-oxide pathway, albeit through a different mechanism. Whether combining the two produces any meaningful effect on circulation, particularly around an injured ankle, is another question entirely.

It's certainly a lot more complicated than assuming caffeine constricts blood vessels while citrulline opens them up, and the two cancel each other out.

Then there's sleep, which is obviously important during recovery. Fortunately, I haven't noticed any problems there. I tend to get my caffeine in during the morning and rarely touch it after lunchtime, and so far my sleep doesn't seem to have suffered.

That's not to say caffeine can't affect me in ways I might not notice, but I'm not going to pretend it's causing problems I haven't experienced either.

Whether any of it is actually helping my ankle recover is another matter.

It's also another reason this isn't exactly a controlled experiment. I'm taking several supplements, continuing my usual diet and observing what happens as an injury heals. There's no way of knowing whether the caffeine, or indeed any individual ingredient, is making a difference.

Which, scientifically speaking, is a bit of a bloody mess.

But it's a fairly honest account of what people actually do when they're trying to make sense of supplements in the real world.

What About the Swelling, Pain and Bruising?

This is the part that initially made me curious enough to write the article.

The swelling has reduced substantially. Pain has eased. I've regained some movement. And the bruising has been much less extensive than I'd expected.

All of which is encouraging, particularly after the initial injury felt so dramatic. But there are different ways of interpreting those observations.

Pain isn't a direct measurement of tissue damage. It's a complex experience influenced by physical inputs, expectations, attention, previous experiences and the nervous system's interpretation of what is happening.

That doesn't make it imaginary. It means the relationship between injury and pain is more complicated than most of us appreciate.

Swelling is different. It's a physical response involving local fluid movement and inflammation, and its appearance can change naturally during recovery.

Range of motion is different again. As swelling and discomfort settle, movement may become easier even though the underlying connective tissue is still remodelling.

And bruising? That's perhaps the least reliable part of my personal assessment.

I expected a spectacular amount of bruising because the pain and crunching sound were so bad. The extent and distribution of bruising vary between injuries and people, and what appears on the surface doesn't necessarily correspond to the amount of ligament damage underneath.

So I have four encouraging observations, but none tells me how quickly the ligament itself is regaining strength.

There's also the possibility that some of the improvements would have occurred at exactly the same rate without the supplements.

In fact, that's an explanation I have to take seriously.

Most injuries change over time. The natural course isn't identical for everyone, but improvement in pain, swelling and movement can be part of normal recovery.

If I take a supplement on Monday and my ankle looks better on Friday, I've established that two things happened during the same week.

I haven't established that one caused the other.

Is It All Just Placebo?

This question deserves more attention than a dismissive yes or no.

The placebo effect is often misunderstood as somebody imagining an improvement that isn't really happening. But expectations, conditioning and the context surrounding a treatment can influence genuine subjective experiences, particularly pain.

If you believe something might help, that belief can sometimes alter how symptoms are perceived.

That doesn't mean you were pretending to be in pain beforehand, or that your improvement isn't real.

It also doesn't mean every change must be explained by placebo.

The ankle can undergo real physiological changes through natural healing while your perception of pain is influenced by expectations.

And a supplement could theoretically influence some aspect of normal physiology without having a measurable effect on the actual speed of ligament repair.

Any combination of those things could be happening, and I've no real way of knowing which.

I don't have a control group. I haven't had an identical injury before under identical circumstances. I'm using several supplements simultaneously, and my diet, sleep, activity levels and rehabilitation circumstances are all part of the picture.

It would be ridiculous to describe this as scientific proof.

But that doesn't make the underlying questions worthless.

In fact, looking at what I've been taking has helped me distinguish between ingredients with established nutritional roles, ingredients with promising but indirect research, and ingredients whose relevance to ligament healing is largely theoretical.

So What Does the Science Actually Suggest?

Having looked at the research, a few things stand out.

First, the nutritional foundations deserve more attention than the supplement industry sometimes gives them. Adequate energy, sufficient protein and the avoidance of nutritional deficiencies are important considerations during rehabilitation, particularly when reduced activity increases the risk of losing muscle.

Second, collagen is a particularly interesting research area because it relates directly to the composition and adaptation of connective tissues. The human studies investigating collagen or gelatin, vitamin C and appropriately timed loading provide a reasonable basis for further investigation.

The 12 g of collagen I'm taking in Flex is broadly comparable with quantities used in some of that research. That doesn't mean it's necessarily helped my ankle, but it's certainly one of the ingredients I'm most interested in.

Creatine is another, although for different reasons. Its relevance is less about repairing the ligament itself and more about maintaining or rebuilding muscle function when an injury limits normal activity. Some human research has produced encouraging findings during rehabilitation, particularly when creatine is combined with progressive resistance training. That's what prompted me to introduce CELL, although I've only just started taking it.

Beyond those, many of the other ideas remain mechanistic questions rather than demonstrated clinical outcomes. Citrulline, nitric oxide, electrolytes, cellular signalling and the compounds found in Shilajit are all interesting subjects, but the evidence needed to connect them specifically to faster ankle-ligament healing is much thinner.

A 2026 narrative review of tendon and ligament rehabilitation nutrition reached a broadly similar position: adequate energy and protein intake remain central, while some targeted nutritional strategies deserve further investigation alongside structured rehabilitation.

The researchers also highlighted the need for better clinical trials measuring outcomes that matter, such as functional recovery, return-to-sport time, reinjury risk and long-term tissue quality.

We understand quite a bit about the biological processes involved in connective-tissue repair. We know that nutrients play essential roles in normal physiology, and there's some encouraging intervention research.

What we don't know is whether taking a particular combination of supplements will make a noticeable difference to someone recovering from an injury like mine.

I'd rather admit we don't know than pretend the science says something it doesn't.

Back to the Ankle. And The Goat of Mendes.

So where does all this leave me?

The ankle is improving, and I'm pleased about that. The swelling has reduced, the pain is easing and I'm gradually getting some movement back.

But I'm conscious that an ankle feeling better isn't the same thing as its ligaments being fully recovered. Appropriate assessment, support and rehabilitation matter, particularly after an injury involving severe pain, swelling and that horrible snapping sound.

As for the supplements, I can't honestly tell you that they've accelerated my recovery.

I can tell you what I've been taking, why those ingredients interested me, and how some of the science relates to the biological processes involved in healing.

There are sensible nutritional foundations, some intriguing research into collagen and connective-tissue adaptation, and a number of other hypotheses that remain largely unanswered.

What I don't have is a way of knowing whether my ankle would have improved just as quickly without any of them.

Perhaps that's slightly frustrating for someone who works in the supplement industry. It would certainly be easier to write an article announcing that I'd discovered the ultimate recovery combination and that my ankle was living proof.

But it wouldn't be particularly honest.

And the whole reason I find nutritional science interesting is that it rarely gives us answers quite as simple as the marketing would like.

For now, I'm concentrating on getting the ankle back to normal and trying not to confuse feeling better with being fully recovered.

The swelling appears to be moving in the right direction. The pain is doing the same. Even the movement is gradually returning.

The sound, unfortunately, has taken up permanent residence in my head.

Every so often, completely uninvited, I can hear that hellish crunch all over again. I'm beginning to think that's the part of the experience no supplement is ever going to fix.

And I still can't stop thinking about Lucifer.

Somewhere in the Cotswolds, there's probably a goat with enormous horns sitting perfectly still, refusing food and staring at the next unsuspecting visitor.

I hope he's pleased with himself. The little piss-taker.

References and Further Reading

1. Lee E-J, Kim J. Rehabilitation Nutrition for Tendon and Ligament Injuries: From Collagen Remodeling to Return-to-Activity and Sport. Healthcare. 2026;14(14):2136. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare14142136
   
2. Shaw G, Lee-Barthel A, Ross MLR, Wang B, Baar K. Vitamin C-enriched gelatin supplementation before intermittent activity augments collagen synthesis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2017;105(1):136–143. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.116.138594
   
3. NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Vitamin C: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminC-HealthProfessional/
   
4. NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Magnesium: Fact Sheet for Health Professionals. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-HealthProfessional/
   
5. One Life Foods. Vitality Liquid Multivitamin — published ingredients and nutritional information.
   
6. One Life Foods. Flex Liquid Joint Support — product label, including 25 ml serving composition.
   
7. One Life Foods. RE-UP Hydration & Performance — published ingredient quantities and serving information.
   

Written by Chris Simon, founder of One Life Foods.