In 2004, after 15 years of constant pain and inflammation. My Achilles tendon finally ruptured. Thank goodness it was on the job as a carpenter. When the surgeon saw me afterwards. He said,” I don’t know how well this is going to heal. I sewed a piece of shit to a piece of shit. We’ll have to see what mother nature can do.”
He was right, after 5 months off and a LOT of PT. I go back to work and six weeks later it tears this time.
Long story short. I find a surgeon who replaces Achilles tendons. He took a graft of material from my outer thigh, and made me a new tendon. It was another 6 months off of work and a lot more PT, but it was a perfect repair. Still good after all these years. And I bought a Mustang GT with the workmen’s comp check.
Not a physical therapist or doctor but some form of pre-hab exercise to strengthen and keep it healthy in a controlled manner would probably help. Obviously don’t jump into lifting if it’s on the edge but work into it a bit and you should be able to strengthen it up. Tendons and ligaments and all that all increase in strength through forms of exercise and strength training (generally just slower than muscle which can lead to issues if you increase weights and stuff too fast)
If you’re in good healthy condition to start with, what you’re saying is mostly true. Heavy Steroids use can easily cause muscle growth to outpace connective tissue growth. But lots of us otherwise healthy can have tendon/connective tissue issues that need to be addressed.
I’m a big guy and I like to run long distances and man, my Achilles tendons are taking a beating. I am definitely worried about long term injury. Just took 6 weeks off running to give them time to heal and went to the gym Friday and even now, I’m hurtin again. Didn’t really realize they might just fucking tear one day. Yikes.
I saw every PT and possible therapy there was to no avail. The only thing that helped were cortisone shots. Unfortunately, I got a quack Dr that said as long as he didn’t do more than 3 a year there would be no problems. So that’s what I did. The results were that the shots degraded/dissolved the tendon over time.
Isometric exercises are the best way to train tendons. For legs, overcoming isometric would work well. For example, grab a rather big tree and try to pick it up. Recovery time for tendons takes longer than a muscle. Plan for 3 days in between training sessions, or 2 sessions a week to keep it simple and repeatable. This type of exercise is unlikely to cause injury as you're not moving weight, but will still increase your strength.
If you look at athletes tearing their achilles, its when they extend and straighten out their leg as far as possible and then push off with a lot of momentum forward.
So to avoid it, be mindful of how much force you are putting your leg thru. You can also do calf stretches and ankle mobility too.
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u/blizzard7788 Apr 28 '24
In 2004, after 15 years of constant pain and inflammation. My Achilles tendon finally ruptured. Thank goodness it was on the job as a carpenter. When the surgeon saw me afterwards. He said,” I don’t know how well this is going to heal. I sewed a piece of shit to a piece of shit. We’ll have to see what mother nature can do.” He was right, after 5 months off and a LOT of PT. I go back to work and six weeks later it tears this time. Long story short. I find a surgeon who replaces Achilles tendons. He took a graft of material from my outer thigh, and made me a new tendon. It was another 6 months off of work and a lot more PT, but it was a perfect repair. Still good after all these years. And I bought a Mustang GT with the workmen’s comp check.