What is a tendon?

👉 What is a tendon?

Tendons are rope like, extremely strong structures connecting your muscles to the bone. They are made of strong lines of collagen, all sitting in parallel, making the strength of these extremely tough. They are everywhere, like the rotator cuff tendons at the back of the shoulder, the biceps tendon at the shoulder joint, the patella tendon at the knee cap, the hamstring tendon to your sit bone or behind the knee or the Achilles tendon to your heel.

With the work they have to do, injury is common (yep, like me with my Achilles, running and being a little older - but that's another whole post on menopause and tendon health). Too much load, too fast a build in a new activity, poor biomechanics, a weak muscle, hormones. All of these things can create a weakness, poor collagen regeneration or recovery and over time, tendonitis or tendinopathy in any tendon of the body.

👉 What's the difference between tendonitis and tendinopathy?

Tendonitis is an inflammation of the tendon. Tendinopathy is the degeneration of the collagen making up the tendon (and will always have a component of tendonitis going on also in the background).

Both are treated similarly, with very slow and graduated strengthening and pain management strategies alongside such as ice, massage, biomechanics improvement and training changes to incoorporate more time for regenerating collagen. Physiotherapists are highly trained in the latest evidence based research in the managing of tendon injuries and rehabilitation. 

This is often an extremely slow road! Pace it! Don't race it!

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