Eccentric training may be useful towards repairing damaged tendons.
A new study involved 25 subjects who had suffered from Achilles tendinopathy for over a year. These subjects were instructed to perform eccentric training on their ankle joints. After the study concluded, 20 of the subjects had experienced dramatic decreases in pain. Ultrasounds revealed that 19 of these subjects had significant changes in the structure of the tendons, and that the subjects who were still in pain did not have any changes in tendon structure.
Conclusions
This study shows the importance of eccentric training for rehabbing damaged tendons. This study is also interesting in that it was able to predict who was in pain based off of ultrasound images. This is fascinating because other areas of the body, such as the low back, are not so easy to predict pain levels based off of imaging techniques.
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