Former UFC lightweight contender and current commentator Paul Felder has revealed his personal experience with peptides, adding his voice to the growing conversation around recovery and biohacking in professional sports. Speaking on Michael Bisping’s podcast, Felder described a regimen involving BPC‑157 and TB‑500, two compounds often discussed in fitness and longevity circles.
“I’ve been on a heavy dose of BPC and TB, then another dose of just the BPC at night,” Felder said, explaining that he takes two doses five days a week, and one dose on two other days. He noted that the plan was to continue for about two months before cycling off, mindful of potential drug testing requirements in athletic competitions. “Eventually I want to get back to being able to do stuff where I’m supposed to be tested,” he added, referencing racing and other sports where anti‑doping rules apply.
Felder also mentioned working with LifeMed and a personal sponsor, who has supported athletes and football players with peptide access. He acknowledged the costs involved, estimating monthly expenses for such compounds, though he did not disclose exact figures.
The disclosure highlights how peptides are increasingly part of the recovery toolkit for athletes seeking alternatives to traditional pharmaceuticals. In Felder’s case, decades of martial arts training and professional fighting left him with severe hip damage, a “bone‑on‑bone” condition that conventional therapies struggle to address.
Because joint tissue heals slowly due to poor blood supply, Felder turned to what biohackers call the “Wolverine Stack” — combining BPC‑157 and TB‑500 to reduce inflammation, regenerate blood vessels, and stimulate tissue repair.
Scientific literature provides some rationale for this approach. BPC‑157, a peptide fragment derived from gastric proteins, has been shown in animal studies to accelerate tendon and ligament healing, promote fibroblast migration, and stimulate angiogenesis — the growth of new blood vessels that deliver nutrients to damaged tissue.
Meanwhile, TB‑500, a synthetic segment of thymosin beta‑4, acts more systemically, binding to actin to mobilize progenitor cells, reduce inflammatory cytokines, and enhance collagen deposition in wound repair models, according to the study Thymosin Beta-4 and TB-500 in Tissue Healing, Regeneration, and Musculoskeletal Repair,” which was conducted by researchers from the University of Utah.
With that said, both compounds remain experimental. Most evidence comes from preclinical studies, and neither peptide is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration yet.
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