By Elena Voropay

You need strong muscles and bones for your body to make any sense out of your gym efforts. But more importantly, you need some high quality glue that holds these together. The connection is provided by your tendons, or sinews, which enable muscles and bones to bend and straighten contracting joints. If you didn't have tendons, the amount of muscle mass you've got wouldn't matter since none of it would be connected to the bones making movement possible. Without these little wires you wouldn't be able to walk, run, jump, roll, lift, carry, drop, and forget about bodybuilding.

Tendons are the foundation of the skeletal muscle. They construct tough mineralized tissue that grows into the bone forming part of the muscle. Interestingly, they are called the “stroma”, or supporting framework and even dictate the shape of your muscles and how proportionate your muscular body is (especially if your body fat is stripping low).Keeping these fibrous structures healthy and strong is pretty important if you want to move around the gym lifting heavy dumbbells. If you rupture a tendon, your muscle strength will go down the drain. And if it's a complete rupture, the muscle will have no power at all, its shape will be altered not in a pretty way. This leads to a condition called Tendonitis and can happen to any joint, but pay particular attention to your knees, ankles, shoulders, wrists, biceps, calves and heels.

If you wonder what the tendons are made of, think of hard gelatin that feels like thick rubber made of special cells called tenocytes, water, and fibrous collagen proteins weaving together in strictly parallel twisting strands. Theoretically, tendons create a permanent bond between muscles and bones given to you from birth. But that connection can be damaged and even broken, if you are not careful with your training. Is it hard to tear a tendon? You bet. But 'hard' does not mean impossible, and many athletes do it repetitively. This is a very common phenomenon in the bodybuilding world. Damage your tendon once, and you are prone to the ongoing injuries of that joint for your lifetime. Tendonitis is definitely something you want to avoid and prevent in order to be a fully functional individual.

Causes of Tendonitis

You can damage your tendons by either brutal lifting of unbearable weight, or by training the same body part to the point of intolerable extreme. It's common for athletes to repetitively overload their joints causing the collagen fibers in the tendon to tighten. This creates additional tension in the joint and with each load may form small tears and inflame the fibrous structure. Also, forceful eccentric (negative) contractions place the tendon under tremendous stress and may cause the twisting strands to rupture. Other risks for tendon injuries include insufficient recovery time between sets and workouts, poor lifting techniques, and even training at cold temperatures. Also, if you are under a lot of stress and pressure, take anti-inflammatory medications or drug yourself with pain-killers, you probably don't hear your muscles, bones and joints screaming: “Stop right here! You are hurting us!” This is just the time when you may get that nasty joint injury – Tendonitis.

What's noteworthy is that bodybuilders and professional athletes often use anabolic steroids which may lead to stronger muscles but weaker tendons. Studies have found that using this class of drugs decreases elasticity of tendons and greatly lowers the amount of load needed for tendons to rupture. Whichever supplements for increasing muscle mass you use, they all may interfere with your perception of pain. Chances are that you keep pushing yourself to the locus of complete exhaustion way above the radar. And if you stop before it's too late, the damage to the tendon is done, and Tendonitis will haunt you forever.

There is one more thing that may cause Tendonitis – age. As you might have already discovered, with every passing year your body undergoes certain changes. One of these includes loss of tendon elasticity. Scientists don't know yet why exactly that happens, but one possibility is the changes in the blood vessels that supply nutrition to the tendons.

Sometimes, there is an anatomical cause for Tendonitis. If the tendon does not have a naturally smooth path to glide along, it will be more likely to become irritated and inflamed. In these unusual situations, surgical treatment may be necessary to realign the tendon.

Say, you progressively overload you muscles with heavier weights and/or with more repetitions, sets, training angles. As a result, the muscle has to put more and more fibres to work in order to meet the increased demands. When this additional stress is transferred to the tendons, these become thicker and extra-fibrotic. Now they are harder to move and stretch. Each collagen fiber is a coiled spring, and increased load forces tendons to overstretch the springs until additional coils are added. The tendons have the ability to call for more springs, just like muscles call for more fibres when the major ones are fatigued. So, as the muscle tone increases, the stretch reflex decreases.

Symptoms of Tendonitis

If you ruptured a tendon, you may feel sudden achy pain and stiffness that can progress to a burning sensation that surrounds the whole joint. The pain may worsen during and after activity disabling you to continue any form of exercise. Tenderness and inflammation usually follow and the tendon and joint area may become stiffer the following day.

The diagnosis can be relatively simple due to obvious deformity. If there is not much swelling, the doctor will be able to feel a defect in the tendon near the tear during a physical examination. Examples are Tendonitis of the biceps, triceps and patellar tendons. For more complicated ruptures, such as rotator cuff of the shoulder, other tools may be called for accurate diagnosis, such as an x-ray or an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).

Most Common Tendons To Tear in the Gym

• Biceps
  
• Triceps
  
• Rotator cuff
  
• Pectoralis
  
• Patellar tendon
  
• Quadriceps tendon
  
• Achilles tendon

Treatment of Tendonitis

 The key to successful Tendonitis treatment is patience. Not giving your structures enough recovery time results in almost 90% of recurring ruptures. With proper care of the injury the pain should lessen over three weeks. But remember that complete healing takes more time and doesn't even peak until at least six weeks following the initial injury. The reason is that when tendons start recovering, they form scar tissue initially acting like the glue to bond the tissue back together. This scar tissue continues to form and may even take as long as a year in severe cases. If you want to get back to the gym sooner than that, you need to treat your Tendonitis as after 6 months this condition is considered chronic and is much more difficult to manage.

Simple techniques may help you ease the symptoms of Tendonitis:

1.Loosen up the tendon and it by bracing any injured areas.

2.Lessen the pain and minimize inflammation by using a topical pain reliever which contains menthol. It has the ability to penetrate the skin barrier and contains anti-inflammatory agents that will not only relieve pain, but dilate the blood vessels. This allows for relief of the tendonitis, without causing any stiffening of the tissue.

3.Ice can relieve inflammation, but will also constrict the blood vessels and further stiffen the tendon.

4.Ultrasound and massage will increase blood circulation to the healing tissue and soften the scar.

5.Light stretches may also be performed if they do not cause any further irritation to the area.

Prevention

Increasing quality and quantity of connective tissue may improve the transmission of force from the muscles to the bones. Tendon training is a must for keeping your muscles and bones functional. Some scientists suggest that even muscle weakness results from ligament fatigue. Strength training can help ensure tendons remain tough and less susceptible to damage.

• Warm up before and cool down after workouts
  
• Support a lot of weight in physiologically correct positions
  
• Lift just a little more than you normally
  
• Perform full-amplitude high-rep work with lighter loads to stimulate connective tissue development
  
• Come to full stops at the top and the bottom of each repetitions to shift the load from the muscles to tendons and ligaments
  
• Progress with your training slowly and steer clear from overtraining
  
• Stretch your muscles regularly in order to lengthen the tendon connection and allow for less pulling during each loading movement
  

Before your joints weaken and have a chance to break, fuel them with high quality nutrients from whole foods and additional supplements. These small additions have shown the most promising results in strengthening the connective tissue.

• Glucosamine
• Chondroitin Sulfate
•  MSM (Methyl Sulfonyl Methane)
  
• Collagen Hydrolysate (Gelatin)
  
• Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) from fish, flax, primrose and borage oil
  
• Green Tea Extract
  
• Curcumin
  
• Humulus Lupulus
  
• Vitamins C, E, B12 Niacin