Usain Bolt: Achilles powerhouse or Achilles heel?
With the men’s 100m final only hours away I’ve been thinking again about Usain Bolt’s previous Achilles tendon injury (2010) and the impact it has had on his performance since his world record breaking performance in 2009. Sprinting is a very tendon biased activity because the muscle stretch-shortening cycle is particularly fast, so fast that […]
This was a term that used to confuse me until I saw a few. I have seen only a handful now even though I have seen hundreds of Achilles tendon injuries over the last few years – needless to say they are not very common. So what is it? The term is a bit confusing […]
Length tension relationship and Achilles tendinopathy
The length-tension relationship is an important consideration in Achilles tendinopathy rehabilitation. The Achilles rehab programs is different to the patellar tendon in that people tend to exercise into end of range, unless they have insertional pain and in that case only to neutral or 90 degrees foot to leg position Given it does go into […]
Chonic Pain Affects 20% of Aussies Chronic pain is a huge issue affecting 1 in 5 Australian’s. It is defined as pain persisting for more than 3-6 months and it is different to acute pain in several ways, most importantly, the source of the pain is usually not the tissue where you feel pain, but […]
Tendon injuries affect many people and include tennis elbow, plantar fascitis, Achilles, patellar, tibialis posterior, as well as rotator cuff injury. Recent studies by our research group have shown that there are different phases of tendon injury on ultrasound imaging. Less severe pathology involves diffuse tendon (middle image) thickening, compared to the parallel and fibrillar appearance […]
Achilles and patellar tendon injury (tendinopathy) is common and difficult to treat. Up to 18% of runners may develop Achilles tendinopathy, i.e. approximately 1 in 5. Elite runners have it much worse, up to 50% may have Achilles tendinopathy. Elite and sub-elite jumpers (volleyball, basketball) also have an alarmingly high prevalence of patellar tendinopathy, about […]
