The Injury Repair Blueprint
12 weeks, five arms, one pick each
Everything on this page is free. The stack, why each pick beat its alternatives, every option, the bloodwork and the safety lines. The week-by-week schedule and the decision rules are the members half.
Repair is not one process, and the arm that matters depends on which step is stalled. Blood supply is the usual limiter in tendon and ligament, which is why they heal so much slower than muscle. Collagen synthesis is limited by substrate and by timing rather than by signalling. And inflammation is not the enemy — it is the first phase of repair, and suppressing it is one of the most common ways people slow their own healing down. The five arms below map onto those steps. Pick by which one is actually stuck.
Can you run all of them? Not this time - and here is why
This is a general protocol. You make the final call on how much of it to run — or have it built around your labs.
Which of these 5 is actually you?
This tells you where your biggest leverage is — where to start, not where to stop. Read the But line too: it is what each lane cannot do for you, which is the part a list of options never tells you.
Before any of it — the foundation
These four are not a disclaimer at the bottom of the page. They are the reason the rest of it works, and every one of them is free.
Growth hormone is released in pulses during deep sleep, insulin sensitivity is measurably worse after one bad night, and appetite regulation collapses without it. Every compound below works through a system that sleep already governs. This is not filler advice — it is the highest-leverage item on the page and it is free.
The single dietary variable with the most consistent evidence behind it for body composition, in both directions — building and preserving. Under-eating protein while running anything anabolic is paying for a signal with no substrate to act on.
Nothing here substitutes for mechanical tension. Compounds change how well you recover from and adapt to training; they do not replace the stimulus. A protocol run without training reliably produces the side effects and not the results.
Non-exercise activity is the largest and most variable component of daily energy expenditure, and it is the one that quietly falls when you start dieting. Tracking it stops the metabolic adaptation people blame on their thyroid.
The stack
Said once, rather than against every item. This is the research space and human data is limited on most of the peptides here. That is the honest state of the field, not a reason to rank them — unproven is not the same as ineffective. Each option is described by what it does so you can choose on mechanism, and every compound's own page carries its evidence tier in full.
Each pick names what it was chosen over and why. That is the difference between a blueprint and a list — if you disagree with a choice, the alternative is right there and swapping it does not break the rest.
Peptides 2
Short amino-acid chains that signal rather than force. Almost all are injected or intranasal, they need reconstituting, and they are the reason most people are on this site.
The limiting factor in tendon and ligament healing is blood supply — these tissues are poorly vascularised, which is precisely why they heal so much slower than muscle. BPC-157's proposed mechanism is promoting new vessel growth into the injured area and protecting the cells already there. It is the most-used peptide in this space for a reason.
TB-500 works through actin regulation and cell migration — a different route, which is why the two are routinely run together rather than chosen between. GHK-Cu drives remodelling and is strongest in skin. ARA-290 acts on the innate repair receptor and is aimed at neuropathic pain more than structural repair. Actovegin improves oxygen and glucose uptake in the tissue. BPC-157 is the base because vascularisation is usually the actual bottleneck, and because it is the one with the broadest reported use across tissue types.
Stack this arm deeper6 optional add-ons
Each of these sits in this same pathway, so it starts the week this pathway starts. Swapping one in for the pick above does not change the schedule.
Actin regulation and cell migration — it helps repair cells GET to the site, where BPC-157 helps supply reach it. Genuinely complementary rather than additive, which is why the pairing is the standard one in this space.
The trade-off Long half-life, so it accumulates across a course rather than clearing between doses. Same unresolved proliferation question as everything in this class.
Copper peptide — drives matrix remodelling and collagen organisation rather than raw synthesis. Strongest case in skin and scar quality.
The trade-off Systemic copper loading competes with zinc absorption over a long course. If you run it for months, check zinc.
Acts on the innate repair receptor. The distinctive claim here is neuropathic pain and small-fibre function rather than structural healing — a different problem that often travels with injury.
The trade-off If your issue is mechanical rather than neuropathic, this arm is not aimed at you.
BPC-157 and TB-500 together — the two halves of the repair argument in one vial. BPC is local and angiogenic; TB-500 is systemic and works on actin and cell migration. Most people running both end up here anyway.
The trade-off A blend fixes the ratio for you. And you cannot tell which arm did anything, which matters if you are deciding what to repeat.
A deproteinised calf blood extract that improves oxygen and glucose uptake in hypoxic tissue — used in European sports medicine for muscle tears, with an unusually long clinical track record for something in this space.
The trade-off Bovine-derived, with the sourcing questions that implies. Banned in some sporting contexts by injection.
Aimed at cartilage rather than soft tissue — it inhibits the enzymes that degrade the matrix and is licensed for osteoarthritis in animals in several countries.
The trade-off Heparin-like, so it carries a real bleeding risk. Rare reports of pigmentary maculopathy with long-term use.
Inflammation resolution (not suppression)KPV5 options
5 options — 0 to swap in, 5 to stack ontap to collapse
Health supplements & substrate
The floor underneath the compounds. Cheap, well tolerated, and the part that decides whether anything above it has a fair chance — a secretagogue on a magnesium deficiency is a rounding error.
Collagen & matrix synthesisGelatin + Vitamin C6 options
6 options — 0 to swap in, 6 to stack ontap to collapse
Gut lining & mucosal repairL-Glutamine4 options
4 options — 0 to swap in, 4 to stack ontap to collapse
Bone & fracture healingVitamin D4 options
4 options — 0 to swap in, 4 to stack ontap to collapse
The 12-week schedule
What goes in, what comes out, and when. The exact doses for each phase are inside the Academy — the structure below is free because it is the part you need to decide whether this fits your life.
| 1–4 | 5–8 | 9–12 | 13–16 | 17+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BPC-157 (inj/oral) | |||||
| Gelatin + Vitamin C | |||||
| SPMs (Pro-Resolving Mediators) | |||||
| Vitamin C | |||||
| TB-500 |
Each bar is a week block that compound is running. The shape is free — it is what tells you whether this fits your life. The doses for each phase are the members half.
Get blood supply and substrate in, and stop suppressing the inflammatory phase.
Loading matters more than any compound here. The substrate arm only builds collagen if a mechanical signal tells it where — that is what the 30–60 minute timing before rehab work is for. Compounds with no loading produce nothing but expense.
The tissue is laying down matrix. The job is organising it, which means progressive load.
Increase load gradually and keep the pre-load substrate timing. If pain is sharp rather than sore, back off — sharp is information, not weakness.
Rebuild tolerance to the loads that caused the problem.
Most reinjury happens here, because the tissue feels fine before it is capable. Tendon remodels over months. Feeling better is not the same as being ready, and this is the phase where a general protocol most needs a human watching it.
Load it deliberately while the repair arms are still running.
Tissue heals to the demand placed on it. A tendon repaired in a sling heals disorganised; the same tendon under progressive load lays collagen down along the line of force. This is the phase where the compounds stop being the intervention and the loading starts.
Pain-free is not the same as healed.
Tendon and ligament remodel for months after the pain stops, and reinjury clusters in exactly that window because it feels finished. Progress load deliberately for at least as long again as the protocol ran.
The doses for each phase are inside
Every compound above, dosed week by week, plus the reconstitution numbers and Coach Cam's notes on running it. $10/mo.
Unlock the schedule →Bloodwork
Short panel, because injury repair has fewer useful markers than the other blueprints — and pretending otherwise would be padding. Vitamin D is the one that changes what you do. Deficiency genuinely impairs bone and soft-tissue healing, it is extremely common, and it is trivially cheap to correct. Testing it is worth more than everything else on this list. hs-CRP tracks whether systemic inflammation is settling. HbA1c matters because poorly controlled glucose measurably slows healing — if an injury is not resolving and nobody has checked it, that is a real miss.
Before you start
Everything, drawn before you start. This is the one that decides which pathway is actually yours - and the only one you cannot go back and collect later.
Around week 8
The short list, drawn while you are running it. Not a progress report - it is the draw that catches the things that go wrong quietly.
After
Drawn at the end, against your own baseline. This is what turns the protocol into information rather than a feeling.
All three are drawn at Quest, 2,000+ US locations, no doctor visit, HSA/FSA eligible. Prefer to pick and choose? Every marker above links to its own page, and the panel builder assembles any combination.
Adjusting it
A protocol you cannot adjust is a protocol you abandon. Four situations come up on nearly every run of this — nausea that will not settle, a three-week stall, hair shedding, glucose moving the wrong way. Each one has a specific answer, and the wrong answer to a stall is the reason most people end up on six compounds that each do nothing.
The four decision rules are inside
What to change, what to leave alone, and how to tell a real stall from a water shift. $10/mo.
Unlock the decision rules →The lines I'd stop at
- Sudden loss of function, an audible pop, or visible deformity. That is a rupture presentation and it is an imaging question, not a protocol question.
- Redness, heat and swelling that is spreading, particularly with fever. Infection and inflammation look similar early and are treated in opposite directions.
- Numbness, pins and needles, or weakness distal to the injury. That suggests nerve involvement, which changes the whole picture.
- Numbness, pins and needles, or weakness rather than pain. That is nerve involvement and it needs imaging, not a repair peptide.
- A joint that is hot, swollen and exquisitely painful with fever — septic arthritis destroys a joint in days.
- Pain that wakes you at night and does not vary with position. Mechanical pain has a pattern; pain without one needs investigating.
It is built for the common case, not for you specifically. Compound selection and dosing genuinely do change person to person — training age, bloodwork, what you have run before, what you react to. Adjust it against your own numbers using the panels above, or if you want it built around your labs rather than the average, that is what 1-on-1 coaching is for.