Movement · Lower leg

Progressive tendon loading

A tendon's tolerance for load, and the rate at which that load was added. Tendons adapt — but slowly, and they will take almost anything you build them up to and object to the same thing arriving suddenly. The word that matters is progressive: the failure is not the size of the load, it is the size of the jump. Good looks like: load climbing in steps the tendon has time to answer, with stiffness and pain settling between sessions rather than accumulating. This is also why tendons get better by being loaded properly rather than by being rested — protection is the one thing that does not build tolerance.