Andy Murray health: Tennis champ on the best supplement to boost performance

ANDY MURRAY has made a triumphant return to tennis this year after correctinghis serious hip injury. To help him get back to peak performance, he is takinga specifically formulated supplement - what is it and what role does it playin sports nutrition?By Adam Chapman. Andy Murray, 32, tearfully announced at January's Australian Open in January that the tournament may mark the end of his time at the top. Speaking to theExpress.co.uk, the two-time Wimbledon revealed he had battled a hip injurysince his twenties. The tennis champ has since come back fighting however,following a hip resurfacing operation. Part of his intensive sporting regimeinvolves taking a certain supplement. he Wimbledon star explained: "After myhip operation, to get back to the highest level of fitness, I knew I wouldhave to train incredibly hard and push my body. "I wanted to leave no stoneunturned. "At the beginning of 2018 my nutritionist approached Nutraformis andasked them to develop a pro-athlete liquid collagen supplement with acombination of active nutrients specifically formulated for me. "I was alreadytaking their liquid collagen joint care supplement, but my nutritionist felt Ineeded an advanced product that would help to support my joints, bone healthand immune system." The specifically formulated supplement is called TRRadvanced collagen. Advanced collagen is a daily 50 ml shot formulated with keyactive ingredients such as collagen, glucosamine, hyaluronic acid, ginger,copper and vitamin C. It contains 10000 milligrams of marine collagen peptidesand the product is specifically formulated for sports men and women who arelooking to support their training regimes with a high quality and effectivenutritional supplement. It is optimised for runners, a cyclists, triathletes,swimmers or any sporting pursuit that requires hard training. Dr Carneiro, aBritish sports medicine specialist who worked on the specifically formulatedsupplement, explained the health benefits of taking collagen supplements.Emerging research shows that to meet the unique demands of elite fitness,additional supplementation is required, said Dr Carneiro. As Dr Carneiroexplained: "We're constantly looking to push boundaries. Historically themedical community concentrated on the cells themselves, the muscle fibre andthe cartilage cell. "Recently however, there's much more interest in what wecall the extracellular matrix. This is basically a scaffolding that surroundsthese cells. "In the muscle cell, for example, the scaffolding holds theintegral structure of the muscle and allows the muscle, the myofibril and thecell to contract and exert the power and distribute what is required for thatmaximum contraction. "In doing this, the structural extracellular matrix canactually incur some damage and we have very good evidence of this in electronmicroscope and in vitro studies where this matrix actually becomes destroyedand the body very cleverly then repairs itself. "We think that this isessential in recovering. "Collagen, the protein, becomes degraded in thatprocess and actually the body can actually repair it. "We now know excitinglythat we can supplement this collagen. "We start depleting [as we get older]the collagen we produce and we now know that supplementing a version ofdegraded collagen orally gets absorbed in the gutt and then actuallytransferred to those areas of the body that need it." As Dr Carneiroexplained, it has not been possible to modify what happens in the jointsbefore. Collagen supplements potentially provide a major boon to the recoveryprocess and performance. Murray takes the supplementation as part of aholistic approach that focuses on diet and overall healthy lifestyle. Whendoes the tennis champ take it? "I take it once in the morning before breakfast," he said.