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Achilles Tendinitis: How to Strengthen the Achilles Tendon (Part 3)

Posted: 28 Jul 2011 12:40 AM PDT

This Part 3 of a multi-part series. Part 1 talked about the injury cycle and the 4 stages of diagnosing your injury. Part 2 explained why regular strength training does not work, and why you need to do heavy load eccentric contractions. Part 2 also showed the Heel Drop exercise.

So, here is Part 2 of How to Strengthen your Achilles Tendon, and it's called Eccentric Squat and Reach . I assume you are at the Stage 1 and maybe a mild Stage 2 of the injury cycle before attempting these exercises. If you are in Stage 3 or 4, you must wait until you recover (details in later articles on how to recover faster)

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As a quick summary, here are the 4 types of exercises that are heavy load eccentric contractions and emulate running mechanics.

Phase 1: the eccentric knee squat, two legs
Phase 2: the eccentric knee squat, single leg
Phase 3: balance and eccentric reach with toes
Phase 4: balance and eccentric reach with knee

Start with 6-8 reps, then go to 10 reps, then aim for 15 reps. Unlike the heel drop routine yesterday, you want to add all 4 exercises to your routine.

Once you can do all 4 phases at 15 reps, you can make it harder by: