achilles tendon

[Master]

Stop stretching before hand!

Warming up and stretching are two different things. Your muscles and tendons are like an elastic band. When you stretch you are stretching the muscle tissue and tendons past their comfortable range. If you imagine doing the same thing to an elastic band - you would be able to see little tears in it's fibre - the same thing happens to your muscles... after stretching they heal and you develop muscle and tendon length.

But when when you go off and perform vigorous exercises you repeatedly contract those muscles and pull on those tendons, if there's micro tears in the tissues than this is likely to increase the chances of damage and injury.

I bet after playing/training your calves will be TENSE, the last thing you want is tense muscles pulling on tendons that have been temporarily weakened by stretching.

Really it could be a number of things, but probably the first to rule out is stretching when cold and before vigorous exercise and over stretching.

That makes sense, I have pulled my calf by over stretching which I have never ever done before. Stupid stretching never used to do it before. Will try just warming up. Feel better already. Thanks.

[Scrap]

Adams was a great reply, I was trying to get to the underlying problem of why. Usualy its Gait if brought on by running Technique suffers if not doing the correct preperation.

[AdamGB]

Funny one this.

the peneral tendon (think that's how it's spelt? :P) on the bottom of my left foot had been flaring up for a few weaks.

I remember cramping up my calf doing some plyos in the middle of a roadwork session and jogging it off, it was fine afterwards. The week after I was walking down hte street in normal shoes and it really started hurting. I put it down to over exerting in the run and thought it would just go away.

Took over a week for the penny to drop, it first came on a few days after the run, I was walking down the street with my everyday shoes on. they're trainer-shoes so I just lace them up and slip them on and off. To cut a long story short they'd became quite lose from doing this.

I tightened them up and it was gona within a few days. The muscles related to that tendon (I don't know the latin, some of the innercalf muscles-medial/posterior?) are involved in stablising the ankle joint and must have been affected by cramp I felt and obviously having my shows all over the place was the grain of sand that broke the camels back (or foot! ).

Guess it shows that what you say is true- the body works all or nothing... one little problem and because I didn't spot it- a few days later I can barely walk!

[Howlin Mad Missy]

dunno how or why they work but fitflops have done wonders for my achilles/foot tendon problems. First day I had them my foot kept sliding off the footbed and I thought well it's either the shoes are wonky or my feet are

Now I wear them all the time & I don't care if they're fashionable if it means I can carry on dancing and training.

[AdamGB]

What's the heel on it like?

The achilles control plantar flexion, so I'd guess the heel height of your shoe could affect that. The Penerals (still don't know how to spell it correctly!) are mostly involved in controlling pronation and inversion etc.

[Howlin Mad Missy]

just got my ruler out. It's 1 1/2" graduated, toe is just under an inch. So it's not huge but it is well cushioned.

[Scrap]

The body is a wonderfull thing as far as memory Brought on by Feel, it adapts to good or Bad practice.Stretching gives minute tares, but the Neuromuscular system adapts. Get a bad tare the Body will repair qiucker through memory. Stretching improves the expansion of muscle giving better and more contraction more explosive power, now theres the problem. People dont do the proper preperation thats the problem not doingthe work to ajust to intense impact. Muscle memory has got to remember it needs clues it needs to feel what is going to Happening.