If you’ve been training hard for any serious length of time, you already know that what happens outside the gym matters just as much as what happens inside it. You can have the best program in the world, dial in your nutrition, optimize your hormones — and still leave serious progress on the table if your recovery is lagging. I’ve been training intensely since I was 17, and one of the most impactful upgrades I’ve made to my recovery protocol over the past two decades isn’t some exotic hormone or trendy biohack. It’s systemic enzymes. I’ve been using them since 2005, and at this point I consider them as essential as anything else in my supplement stack. While I think peptides such as BPC-157 and TB500 are incredibly overrated for recovery, systemic enzymes are incredibly underrated and overlooked. Everyone who works out intensely should be taking them period. There is not one person who trains intensely or is active that can’t benefit.
Back when I was teaching kettlebell workshops, systemic enzymes were a regular part of how I survived the grind. Teaching full-day workshops is brutal on the body — you’re demonstrating, coaching, moving constantly, and doing it again the next morning. Enzymes taken after those long days made a real difference in how I felt and how quickly I bounced back. More recently, they played a significant role in my recovery from a groin tear in 2019 — the kind of injury that can sideline you for a long time if your body doesn’t have the tools to heal efficiently. Systemic enzymes were a key part of getting me back to full training capacity.
Most people have never heard of them. A smaller group has heard of them but filed them under “digestive supplement” and moved on. That’s a mistake. Systemic enzymes are a completely different animal from your standard digestive enzyme product, and once you understand what they actually do in the body, you’ll wonder how you trained without them.
What Are Systemic Enzymes?
Here’s the key distinction most people miss: digestive enzymes are taken with food to help break down what you eat. Systemic enzymes are taken on an empty stomach so they get absorbed into the bloodstream and go to work throughout the entire body — hence the name “systemic.”
Once in the bloodstream, systemic enzymes act as the body’s cleanup crew. Their primary job is breaking down excess fibrin — the protein the body uses to build scar tissue and hold clots together during healing. Fibrin is essential in the short term. The problem is that most people accumulate excess fibrin over time from chronic inflammation, accumulated injuries, and the normal wear and tear of intense training. That excess fibrin doesn’t just sit quietly. It restricts circulation, slows healing, contributes to joint stiffness, and creates an internal environment where chronic pain can take hold.
Systemic enzymes dissolve that excess fibrin. They clear the path for your blood and lymphatic system to deliver nutrients to damaged tissue and remove metabolic waste. The result is faster recovery, less pain, and better overall tissue health.
Why Every Serious Athlete Should Be Using Them
I started using systemic enzymes in 2005. Took a few weeks to dial in the right dosage, but once I did, the difference was unmistakable. I was noticeably less sore after brutal training sessions and long days teaching kettlebell workshops. The kind of deep muscle soreness that used to linger for three or four days was simply not as severe or prolonged.
Here’s the mechanism worth understanding: when you train hard, you generate inflammation. That’s normal — inflammation is part of the repair process. But chronic or excessive inflammation triggers a cortisol response, and elevated cortisol is the enemy of everything you’re trying to accomplish. It breaks down muscle tissue, tanks your testosterone, and impairs recovery. The goal isn’t to eliminate inflammation, it’s to resolve it efficiently.
This is where systemic enzymes outperform most popular anti-inflammatory supplements. Fish oil, curcumin, ginger — I use all of these and they have real value, but they work primarily by suppressing the inflammatory response. Systemic enzymes work differently. They support the resolution of inflammation by cleaning up the fibrin debris, which means your body doesn’t need to sustain an aggressive inflammatory response in the first place. You’re helping your body finish the job, not suppressing it.
And here’s what that means in practical terms: less cortisol, better hormonal balance, faster recovery, and a body that can actually adapt to the training load you’re putting on it.
Pain Reduction Without the Side Effects
One thing I’m adamant about is not accepting chronic pain as a normal part of training hard. I’m also adamant about not masking it with NSAIDs. Ibuprofen is still the go-to for a lot of athletes and coaches, and I understand the appeal — it’s cheap, it’s everywhere, and it works fast. But the research on long-term NSAID use is not encouraging. Regular use hammers the gut lining, stresses the liver and kidneys, and there’s solid evidence that it actually inhibits the muscle repair process by blunting the prostaglandin response your body needs for adaptation.
Systemic enzymes give you real pain relief without any of that. They address the source of the pain — accumulated fibrin, poor circulation, and unresolved inflammation in the tissue — rather than just blocking the signal. Plenty of my readers and clients have been able to reduce or eliminate their dependence on NSAIDs after adding systemic enzymes to their routine, and that’s one of the outcomes I’m most proud to see.
For joint and tendon issues specifically, enzymes have been a game-changer. Tendons are notoriously slow to heal because of poor blood supply. By improving circulation and clearing fibrin buildup around damaged tissue, systemic enzymes support the kind of environment where real tendon healing can happen.
Systemic Enzymes and Your Hormones
If you follow my work at all, you know I think about everything through the lens of hormonal optimization. Chronic inflammation is one of the fastest ways to destroy your hormonal environment. It hammers testosterone, drives up cortisol, impairs thyroid function, and accelerates aging at the cellular level.
Systemic enzymes are one of the most effective tools I’ve found for managing systemic inflammation, and that has a direct downstream effect on your hormonal balance. Lower your inflammatory load, and you create a better internal environment for testosterone and growth hormone to do their job. Better anabolic-to-catabolic ratio means better body composition, better recovery, and better quality of life. It all connects.
Why I Carry Excellacor
I’ve used a lot of systemic enzyme products over the years — Vitalzym, Sorenzyme, and others. When I evaluated Excellacor by AST Enzymes, it became the product I recommend without hesitation.
The foundation of Excellacor is enteric-coated serrapeptase — and that enteric coating matters more than most people realize. Serrapeptase is sensitive to stomach acid. Without proper enteric coating, a significant portion of it gets degraded before it ever reaches your bloodstream. AST Enzymes gets this right. The serrapeptase in Excellacor is coated to survive the acidic environment of the stomach and be absorbed in the small intestine, where it can actually get into circulation and do its job.
Beyond serrapeptase, Excellacor contains a comprehensive blend of additional proteolytic enzymes, herbs, and antioxidants that work synergistically to support fibrin metabolism, circulation, joint and muscle health, and immune function. This isn’t a one-trick product — it’s a full systemic enzyme protocol in a single formula, backed by decades of real-world use since 1999.
The dosing is also practical. Most people respond well to 3–6 capsules per day taken on an empty stomach, either first thing in the morning or between meals. I personally take mine post-workout to help address the inflammatory response from training. Give it a few weeks at a consistent dose before you judge it — systemic enzymes aren’t an acute pain reliever, they’re a biological optimizer. The results compound over time.
Who Needs This
The short answer is: most people who train seriously. But let me be more specific.
If you’re over 40 and still training hard, systemic enzymes should be non-negotiable. Enzyme production declines with age, your body’s ability to resolve inflammation becomes less efficient, and the fibrin accumulation issue gets progressively worse. The recovery gap between your 25-year-old self and your 45-year-old self is largely explained by this decline.
If you have chronic joint or tendon issues, this is the supplement to try before you give up on natural solutions. I’ve seen people work through long-standing issues with consistent enzyme use that had been unresponsive to everything else.
If you train at high volumes or high intensities, systemic enzymes give your body the biochemical support it needs to actually recover between sessions.
And if you’re serious about hormonal health and longevity, managing chronic inflammation is not optional — and systemic enzymes are one of the most powerful tools available for doing that without drugs.
Bottom Line
I don’t recommend things I don’t use myself. That’s a principle I’ve held since day one. Systemic enzymes have been part of my recovery protocol for over twenty years, and Excellacor is the product I trust and carry for a reason. If you’re serious about your training, your recovery, and your long-term health, it’s time to put systemic enzymes in the rotation.
Pick up Excellacor today! Start at 3–4 capsules on an empty stomach daily, build up from there, and give it a full month before you make your assessment. Your training and your body will tell you everything you need to know.
