Top 3 Ways to Increase Tendon Strength (Mini-email Article)
Published: Mon, 11/07/16
goals is to get stronger.
But there are often times when you reach a
plateau, unable to get past a certain point.
And it's frustrating.
Often times these plateaus aren't caused by a
lack of strength in your muscles, but are actually
a weakness in your tendons and/or ligaments.
Tendons are the tissue that connects your muscles
to your bones. Without them, we wouldn't be able
to lift ANYTHING!
It would be like having an engine without a drive-
shaft - lots of power but nothing hooking it up
to the wheels!
Your ligaments are what hold your bones to each
other - and you have them at EVERY joint in your
body. Structurally speaking, if your ligaments aren't
strong, it won't matter how much weigh your muscles
can handle because you'll break the underlying
structure supporting it.
Bottom-line: if you want to lift hard, you need to
keep your tendons and ligaments healthy and strong.
If you don't, you'll reach a point where your progress
will stop and the pain will start...not a good place to be.
So how do you increase tendon strength?
There are 3 main things you can do to increase tendon
and ligament strength.
The first thing is to focus on the eccentric (negative)
portion of your lifts. Slow things down to a 4-5 second
negative.
According to Charles Poliquin, eccentric, or negative,
training can increase tendon strength because it promotes
collagen production.
Eccentrics will also lengthen the muscle-tendon unit,
increasing range of motion or flexibility around a joint.
The second thing you can do is work with smaller
ranges of motion with heavier weights. Partial negative reps,
such as lowering a barbell bench press with a 150% 1RM
load 5-6 inches (using a squat rack and spotter for safety)
for 6 slow reps can greatly increase tendon strength over time.
The third and final thing is much more simple, but every bit
as important as the first two.
You can read about it here on the Next Page ==>
Keep training hard,
Mike Westerdal
CriticalBench.com