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It all happened in a matter of seconds… Lucie took a run-up – just as she had hundreds of times before – but this time she landed the jump badly, and ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. Any athlete will tell you that this is a nightmare injury, particularly as full rehabilitation can take up to nine months, which is nothing short of disastrous for a professional sportsperson and their training regime.

Born in 2001, Lucie Kienast is a German track and field athlete who specializes in heptathlon and long jump. She is one of the best in the world in both disciplines, winning gold medals at the German U18 and U20 championships. Her best performances in 2021 were 6.70m (long jump) and 6044 points for the heptathlon, ensuring her qualification for the Olympic Games in Japan.

However, the shock knee injury in June 2021 meant her sporting dreams look set to be put on hold for potentially many months. For competitive athletes, a cruciate ligament tear accounts for about 0.5% of all sports injuries, but it’s responsible for about 20% of the downtime that is endured as a result. Furthermore, only 60-80% of athletes reach their previous level of performance after a cruciate ligament tear. The long-term prognosis, then, should always be viewed with a high degree of caution. That’s largely because, even after appropriate therapy, the affected knee joint can remain unstable. This can lead to incorrect loading and thus cause further problems, such as cartilage damage, degeneration of the medial meniscus and a significantly increased risk of knee joint arthrosis (gonarthrosis).

Yet things turned out to be a lot brighter for Lucie. After surgical reconstruction of her anterior cruciate ligament in June, she immediately started daily supplementation with 10g of our TENDOFORTE® collagen peptides. Optimized to strengthen ligaments and tendons, and keep these important components of the white tissue flexible, TENDOFORTE® became a real game-changer for Lucie’s recovery.

“The healing and recovery process has been extraordinarily fast so far,” says Lucie. “The affected knee improved so well after surgery, doctors and physiotherapists wanted to know my secret. I gave them a one-word answer: TENDOFORTE®. How else would I have been able to return to full training just three months after surgery? Usually, this is only possible after at least six months, according to doctors and physiotherapists who have observed the average recovery rates of other athletes with a similar injury. I am totally convinced of the benefits of TENDOFORTE®, and believe it has been a huge factor in my recovery. Daily preparation is easy, too, making for a brilliant, neutral-tasting product that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to other athletes.”

So what’s the science behind TENDOFORTE®? Well, these Bioactive Collagen Peptides (BCP^®) stimulate the structure-forming cells of tendons and ligaments to form more collagen molecules, thus helping to preserve their strength and flexibility. By doing so, they act as a nutritional intervention for tendon and ligament problems that helps injured athletes quickly regain their former performance levels, as proven by Lucie Kienast’s unexpectedly speedy recovery.

So what’s next for Lucie? “My goal is to qualify for both the European Championships and World Championships in 2022,” she says. And we’re sure she will!

To learn more about TENDOFORTE® and how it helps injured athletes quickly get back to their former performance levels, contact us today!