Tendon Properties

We must work out how to work tendons, how to load them more.

If we know that they're so important then how are we going to load them up?

If they are healthy, what are we going to do with them to get the most out of them?

Strength. Muscle. Momentum. That's what loads the tendons. If we have healthy tendons, then getting more and more muscular force, more output from the muscle, and more muscle recruitment. More overall force. Whether that means more mass is a separate decision and it depends on other factors.

Momentum is also capable of loading the tendons. Momentum takes time.

Strength can be created instantaneously and that's why we want that muscular force to be able to contribute as well. In order to understand how to best load the connective tissue, it's important to understand what tendons do and how they behave.

Let's look at the properties of the tendon.

Viscoelasticity is like if you dive into the water and you land flat on your belly off a three-meter platform, you're going to have a rare very red belly. It feels like landing on concrete.

If you land from 10 meters like that and land straight on your head then you could have a serious injury.

With extreme speed and loading, it's basically like concrete, that's what our tendons are like, they're very hard with extremely fast loading but if they're loaded slowly, kind of like water, they displace.

Tendons are like this, that's why the very high-speed stuff is where they're challenged the most in a high load.

Tendons creep. It's like if you wear a t-shirt and you stretch the t-shirt, there's a certain amount you can stretch it where it'll go back, and then there's a point beyond that where it's not going to go back, where it just starts to change the t-shirt.

Tendons have that quality where, with enough load and enough time, they deform and stay in that newer shape. More research is needed, of course, but it appears as though there is some magic in initiating creep with heavy loads and time under stretch in tendons. Something is happening to those tendons. Most likely they're just being challenged and becoming thicker, becoming stronger.

We're seeing it over and over again within the ATG system where the tendons are being loaded. We're gaining new range and they're being challenged and then without much jumping practice or no jumping practice, people go back on the court and they jump higher than they could before.

The tendon has improved its ability, they're stronger but then, not only do they not get the pain, but they can actually perform better now.

At some point, you want to be able to do both, of course, you want to still have some jumping practice or some top-speed running practice that uses the tendons but there's something going on with this process of heavy loading under stretch that is doing good.

The creep is not infinite, you can't just stretch and stretch and stretch the tendon and expect the tendon to become long and saggy, that doesn't happen. That can't happen. Even if you look at some of the most mobile athletes, whether you look at people like Klokov and Ehab and their extreme power despite being extremely mobile or look at the rhythmic gymnasts who have contortionist ability but they're still athletic. They can do flips and all those sorts of things, so *it's impossible to stretch to a point where you lose power. *

Maybe there are fractions here and it's an interesting question to propose at those extremes of contortionism. Maybe there is a loss of power but it seems like there isn't, even at those extremes.

The muscle is soft, the bone is hard, and in engineering, that's a very difficult feat. If you're going to attach a hard surface to something soft and then apply a lot of force to it, that's a very difficult feat.

That's why the tendon is generally the site of injury and it's really the key, the focus of where elite performance is created/generated.

Understanding how to manipulate tendon, how to look after the tendon, is really at the heart of elite performance and we're trying to support this structure that has a very difficult task to do, to attach the bone to the muscle and there are smooth transitions between where the tendon becomes bone and where the tendon becomes muscle.

It's also important when we look at tendons to consider baseline health. We know that glycation and blood sugar fluctuation is a big risk factors in tendon issues.

I believe that for myself with the tendon issues that started for me in my pre-teens, I think I had my first tendon overuse, and bone injury at 10 years old and basically, I’ve had some sort of tendon-bone issue ever since then. I’ve always loved sport. I’ve always been fairly competitive and gone 100 percent at things. Blood sugar issues were a huge part of why I’ve always had problems with my tendons.

A faulty lymphatic system, which results in toxicity in the body, also contributes to tendon inflammation. We know that people who take antibiotics also have an increase risk for Achilles tendon ruptures and injury. Anything that interferes with the inflammatory response and the immune response is going to impact tendons as well.

We need to look at this holistic perspective as well. Make sure there's enough protein in the diet and enough collagen. As I’ve said before, glycine-rich foods. The liver needs to be healthy.

Using fasting and carbohydrate manipulation are important strategies to improve tendon health and move things around inside the lymphatic system. A sauna can be good for this. Hot & cold can be good for the lymphatic system and skin brushing techniques. The gua sha and a lot of those sorts of fat tools are related to moving around the lymphatic fluid that bathes the tendons.

I’ve heard of people having autopsies on and when a chronic tendon issue exists, the tendon is like gangrenous green. Just sludgy and yuck. This is what happens when chronic tendon issues are prevented from going through the natural healing rythyms that bloodflow brings. You want to move fresh fluid into the area consistently, as tendons have a very low blood supply. You're trying to get blood around that area, and moving all the lymphatic fluid is a key part of potentially healing and overcoming these complications.

We want to do as many things right as we can.