When you think about strength training, muscles spring to mind and everyone is quick to talk about the advantages of muscle, and there are many, but let’s not forget about those important ligaments and tendons. Ligaments and tendons are connective tissues, ligaments are responsible is responsible for attaching bone to bone while tendons attach muscle to bone. Resistance training makes our muscles contract, and in turn our ligaments and tendons grow stronger and thicker. These tissues take much longer than muscles to grow. After 10 weeks (for general population), you can expect about a 20% increase in strength and thickness of your ligaments and tendons with regular training. This goes a long way when it comes to becoming more active without having to worry about injuries around the corner.
Damaged tendons heal slowly and rarely retain the structural integrity and mechanical strength of a healthy tendon, which often lead to clinical challenges (2017, Fan Wu), as stated in his paper “Tendon injuries: Basic Science and new repair proposals”. This is important as it clearly shows us, prevention is once again, better than the cure. The American Journal of Sports Medicine conducted a study in 2005 which looked at the effectiveness of neuromuscular training in preventing ACL injuries in female athletes (this was a 2 year follow up study). In 2000, they gathered a group of young soccer players over 51 teams, which is a large sample size of 1041 female athletes all between the ages of 14-18. They simply implemented a certain warm up, resistance training, plyometrics and other simple measures. The results found were overwhelming as there was an 88% decrease in ACL injuries in the first year of the study.
The benefits of stronger ligaments and tendons go beyond tears and sports injuries, you may think that it only applies to ‘athletes’, but it is important for everyone and those who are else active, one they begin moving, they may be more susceptible to these injuries as their running mechanics are not as seasoned as that of an athletes. Mechanical factors and a sedentary lifestyle play a massive role in the pathology of ankle injuries (tendons in the Achilles). If you don’t use it, you lose it. By performing some form of resistance training, you will improve overall flexibility, your range of motion and strength of the ligament/tendon, in turn you can reduce the risk of muscular injuries or ‘pulling’ muscles as strong muscles, ligaments and tendons all take the slack of any stress or stimuli you put on the body.
Yet another reason for you to strength train, so what are you waiting for?
Damaged tendons heal slowly and rarely retain the structural integrity and mechanical strength of a healthy tendon, which often lead to clinical challenges (2017, Fan Wu), as stated in his paper “Tendon injuries: Basic Science and new repair proposals”. This is important as it clearly shows us, prevention is once again, better than the cure. The American Journal of Sports Medicine conducted a study in 2005 which looked at the effectiveness of neuromuscular training in preventing ACL injuries in female athletes (this was a 2 year follow up study). In 2000, they gathered a group of young soccer players over 51 teams, which is a large sample size of 1041 female athletes all between the ages of 14-18. They simply implemented a certain warm up, resistance training, plyometrics and other simple measures. The results found were overwhelming as there was an 88% decrease in ACL injuries in the first year of the study.
The benefits of stronger ligaments and tendons go beyond tears and sports injuries, you may think that it only applies to ‘athletes’, but it is important for everyone and those who are else active, one they begin moving, they may be more susceptible to these injuries as their running mechanics are not as seasoned as that of an athletes. Mechanical factors and a sedentary lifestyle play a massive role in the pathology of ankle injuries (tendons in the Achilles). If you don’t use it, you lose it. By performing some form of resistance training, you will improve overall flexibility, your range of motion and strength of the ligament/tendon, in turn you can reduce the risk of muscular injuries or ‘pulling’ muscles as strong muscles, ligaments and tendons all take the slack of any stress or stimuli you put on the body.
Yet another reason for you to strength train, so what are you waiting for?
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