Tendon and power

[Wing Woo Gar]

Quantifying mechanical loading and elastic strain energy of the human Achilles tendon during walking and running​

"Tendons cannot generate force actively, yet their elastic behavior upon loading influences the muscle–tendon unit's function during locomotion...."
-- Quantifying mechanical loading and elastic strain energy of the human Achilles tendon during walking and running - Scientific Reports

So during dynamical movements, the tendons "buffer" energy created my the muscle, much like a spring. Relating and similar to what Gyakuto said in post #8 as well.

Exactly but that isn’t the whole enchilada. Loading one while releasing another simultaneously or more likely loading several while releasing several without thinking and while moving. That takes time to develop for most people. That assumes that people can even feel it in the first place. Good example is can you feel your fourth toe? I mean really feel it? For most people that’s a dead zone. If you feel it, you are exceptional. So that’s a first step for a lot of folks. Another example is extend your arm palm out and away from you. Fingers pointing up in a HALT! Sort of posture. Now, do not move your hand but rotate your humerus bone without disturbing or moving the hand. The elbow should go from pointing down to pointing to the side and back again without any motion in the hand or forearm. If you have trouble, place your palm flat against a wall and try again. Then you will get the idea. This type of coordination is not something most people can do without help. In fact, most people don’t even know that is possible until it’s shown to them. One more is hold your foot above the floor, draw a 6 in the air with your toe and a 9 with the same side hand at the same time. This is the same type of exercise that’s needed to get more control of the body. All other things being equal, If I feel me better than you feel you I have an advantage. If I feel you better than you feel you, I have an even larger advantage. These aren’t necessarily fighting techniques, they do add something to fighting techniques, plus it’s just pretty cool to be able to get additional fine motor control because it’s useful in everyday life.

 

[Badhabits]

Yes. My teachers pushed us to the point of vomiting from exertion. That’s an efficient way of teaching it but few people will actually commit and let you drive them that hard. Most people want immediate results and want proof before they start that they will get XYZ within a certain amount of time. I can’t tell how long that epiphany moment will take for each person. There were many AHA moments for me and many plateaus in between as well.

That brought back memories! The high school I went to a couple of years had a very very good soccer team, the coach was notorious for not letting people out of practice until they puked. There were guys that would eat before practice so they wouldn't have to stay as long

 

[Badhabits]

Has anyone else been told that when parts of the body are positioned certain ways, the tendons act as a sort of locking mechanism to hold the structure?

 

[JowGaWolf]

My guess is that many people are going to miss the value of things by going too specific in terms of learning how to generate power. By this I mean, that martial artist sometimes go microscopic with their analysis and forget that that it's the whole that make things work.

One can spend years to develop tendons independently of an action and be less powerful than the person who trains the action vs only training the tendon.

If I wanted to generate power, then I wouldn't care about training my tendons for generating power. I've played a lot of sports and the one things that has been clear is that tendons hold things together. Spend more time on that understanding, because there are many people who had more power than their tendons could handle and as a result the tendon failed.

One of the new things I'm currently dealing with is that a number of my tendons can no longer handle the power or the stresses that I can generate. As a result, 70% effort could mean weeks of recovery not because of muscle soreness but because my tendons have been overworked. Now I have to change how I workout to better strengthen my tendons.

Muscles generate power. Tendons hold things together. It's ok to talk about tendons and how they manage that power, but from training purposes. I would be more concerned with tendons holding things together.

 

[geezer]

I'm quite bad in using words . I wonder how can one keep structure when moving?

Umm, maybe ask an airframe and powerplant mechanic?

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[geezer]

"Many Chinese masters say that...."

Immediately seemed to me as red flags.

Red flags??? Of course. What would you expect?

 

[geezer]

Quantifying mechanical loading and elastic strain energy of the human Achilles tendon during walking and running​

"Tendons cannot generate force actively, yet their elastic behavior upon loading influences the muscle–tendon unit's function during locomotion...."
-- Quantifying mechanical loading and elastic strain energy of the human Achilles tendon during walking and running - Scientific Reports

So during dynamical movements, the tendons "buffer" energy created my the muscle, much like a spring. Relating and similar to what Gyakuto said in post #8 as well.

This is an extremely relevant post regarding this discussion. An important point is that healthy tendons and ligaments are slightly elastic. This allows them to flex a bit and rebound. With tendons that connect muscle to bone, this acts as a buffer under stress and their slight elasticity adds power to a movement motivated by muscular contraction.

Ligaments supporting joints have similar properties (my right anterior cruciate ligament or ACL was reconstructed many years back using a graft from my left patellar tendon). Ligaments must be firm enough to maintain joint stability and integrity yet have a bit of elasticity under pressure to resist tearing (mine didn't).

In two of the arts I practice, Wing Chun and pottery, we rely heavily on structure ie. skeletal alignment supported by tendons and ligaments rather than muscular strength alone. Muscles are too flexible and springy. In Wing Chun, with it's emphasis on small movements and "short-power", dependence on muscles without good structure uses too much energy and "bleeds" power.

Working the potter's wheel similarly demands a correct skeletal positioning, allowing a high degree of muscular relaxation while the less elastic ligaments and tendons to "do the work". On the other hand, if you depend solely on muscle to control the clay, you will have poor control, quickly become exhausted and accomplish little.

Here's a thought: Ever see a skilled instructor (in any martial art) effortlessly control an unskilled opponent? They are handled effortlessly, like clay in the hands of a master potter!

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Red flags??? Of course. What would you expect?


View attachment 31396

 

[geezer]

Here's a follow up to my previous post that many of you, I'm sure will understand.

Simply put, tendons and ligaments become less elastic as we age. My ACL injury in my forties was the first sign of this. Then I began to have shoulder issues, elbow and wrist problems, and in recent years my ankles, and specifically my achilles tendons have really been a problem ...to the point where they limit many of my activities including my martial arts, my pottery (no more large pots!), and even my ability to walk for any distance without pain.

Funny thing about pain. When you're young, there's good pain and bad pain. The good pain (like DOMS or nausea after a hard workout) really is, to use a motivational poster cliché, like weakness leaving the body. The bad pain tells you that you have damaged your body.

As we age, the ratio of good pain to bad changes a lot. I'll be 69 in about a week, and lately, all I get is the bad variety. My dad, at age 99, tells me I don't know how good I've got it.

 

[isshinryuronin]

Here's a follow up to my previous post that many of you, I'm sure will understand. Simply put, tendons and ligaments become less elastic as we age. My ACL injury in my forties was the first sign of this. Then I began to have shoulder issues, elboe and wrist problems, and in recent years my ankles and specifically my achilles tendons have really been a problem ...to the point where they limit many of my activities including my martial arts, my pottery (no more large pots!, and even my ability to walk for any distance without pain.

Funny thing about pain. When you're young, there's good pain and bad pain. The good pain (like DOMS or nausea after a hard workout) really is like "weakness leaving the body". The bad pain tells you that you have damaged your body.

As we age the ratio of good pain to bad changes a lot. I'll be 69 in about a week, and lately, all I get it the bad variety. My dad at age 99 tells me I don't know how good I've got it.

I'll be 73 next week and my right elbow tendon hurts when it's carrying some weight. For this reason, I've stopped most of my biceps curls and lightened up on all lifts. Tendons are definitely the weak link that gets to the point that it can't support the load muscles can. Lifting to your strength capacity will put tendons at risk in old age.

I've probably denied my age a couple years too long, but sooner or later one must accept their limitations. Kind of a bummer but overall, it doesn't affect my karate too much. I still plan on going to the gym just to maintain tone and do a little cardio.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Here's a follow up to my previous post that many of you, I'm sure will understand.

Simply put, tendons and ligaments become less elastic as we age. My ACL injury in my forties was the first sign of this. Then I began to have shoulder issues, elbow and wrist problems, and in recent years my ankles, and specifically my achilles tendons have really been a problem ...to the point where they limit many of my activities including my martial arts, my pottery (no more large pots!), and even my ability to walk for any distance without pain.

Funny thing about pain. When you're young, there's good pain and bad pain. The good pain (like DOMS or nausea after a hard workout) really is, to use a motivational poster cliché, like weakness leaving the body. The bad pain tells you that you have damaged your body.

As we age, the ratio of good pain to bad changes a lot. I'll be 69 in about a week, and lately, all I get is the bad variety. My dad, at age 99, tells me I don't know how good I've got it.

I’m 52 and I believe every word you say already. I can feel injuries I forgot about for 20 years.

 

[Fungus]

Another example is extend your arm palm out and away from you. Fingers pointing up in a HALT! Sort of posture. Now, do not move your hand but rotate your humerus bone without disturbing or moving the hand. The elbow should go from pointing down to pointing to the side and back again without any motion in the hand or forearm. If you have trouble, place your palm flat against a wall and try again. Then you will get the idea. This type of coordination is not something most people can do without help. In fact, most people don’t even know that is possible until it’s shown to them.

Sound a little bit like a sideways palm block of an incoming punch? This is an excerside I do myself (not something part of official training) in with hte heavy bag. The idea is to use a palm block to push your opponens strike off centerline, and ideally you step off the centerline at the same time. In sparring people often re relaxed and tense on impact, so redirecting the punch is easy.

But on the heavy bag as a exercise, I imagine that someone like the hulk is trying to strike me in the chest, and i may not be fast enough to move away from center line; then I "load" my blocking arm, like you suggest - palm up; elbow sideways; this feels like I am charging some pre-tension in my arm, then I fire this with muscles to the incoming fist, and unles I moved fast enough, I will push myself out of the way (pushing off the "hulk-hand"). what I then do is I stand cloks to the heavy bag and my palm strik with displace the heavy bag, it's like a combined block/palm strike going mostly sideways byt with a little forward force as well.

This excercise feels very good, and the "preloading" really helps with structure, and minimizes effort. But if you combine this structur with maximum power as well, the idea is that then you can block a the hulk punch.

After training this, blocking punches in sparring is a breeze, as they aren't the hulk any of them.

My personal reason for training this, is that I have to adapt to my own issue. Due to back issues, I am unable to jump back and forth fast. I can do it a few times, but not a hole fight. Thus I need to train forceful powerblocks, and this is one of them the suits me well.

 

[Fungus]

My guess is that many people are going to miss the value of things by going too specific in terms of learning how to generate power. By this I mean, that martial artist sometimes go microscopic with their analysis and forget that that it's the whole that make things work.

I am one that enjoys scientific analysis, but indeed when I am say punching the heavy bag, in the moment, I do not "think about" training tendons, muscles etc. I just focus on tuning the parameters of techniques to generate more power and more speed, and ideally in a way that takes less offort. All of that you get as feedback immediately. Then the whole is what you use as feedback, wether the total concert is about 46% muscle, 22% tendon, 32% timing/focus is not something you think about. My philsophy would be that if you train as close to the real thing as possible, you train automatically all parts at the required priority.

After one hour with the heavy bag session, I get muscle soreness in muscles in a different distribution than tha from juust doing pushups or lifting weights. And I like to think that is a good thing. When I started karate, i used to get pain in elbows etc. But that is all gone now, I learned how to punch hard, without overstressing, and perhaps I also trained whatever needs to be trained, be it tendons or growing your balls

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Sound a little bit like a sideways palm block of an incoming punch? This is an excerside I do myself (not something part of official training) in with hte heavy bag. The idea is to use a palm block to push your opponens strike off centerline, and ideally you step off the centerline at the same time. In sparring people often re relaxed and tense on impact, so redirecting the punch is easy.

But on the heavy bag as a exercise, I imagine that someone like the hulk is trying to strike me in the chest, and i may not be fast enough to move away from center line; then I "load" my blocking arm, like you suggest - palm up; elbow sideways; this feels like I am charging some pre-tension in my arm, then I fire this with muscles to the incoming fist, and unles I moved fast enough, I will push myself out of the way (pushing off the "hulk-hand"). what I then do is I stand cloks to the heavy bag and my palm strik with displace the heavy bag, it's like a combined block/palm strike going mostly sideways byt with a little forward force as well.

This excercise feels very good, and the "preloading" really helps with structure, and minimizes effort. But if you combine this structur with maximum power as well, the idea is that then you can block a the hulk punch.

After training this, blocking punches in sparring is a breeze, as they aren't the hulk any of them.

My personal reason for training this, is that I have to adapt to my own issue. Due to back issues, I am unable to jump back and forth fast. I can do it a few times, but not a hole fight. Thus I need to train forceful powerblocks, and this is one of them the suits me well.

Well you can use it however, it’s just a motion to me. I don’t think in terms of technique, it’s just a coordination exercise that I teach. Isolate and rotate the humerus without disturbing anything else is my point. If you can rotate the humerus independently of the lower arm you have some additional utility that some or most people don’t have. How you choose to adapt it is up to the individual.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I initially understood only one aspect of Sanchin training (and my own tension training), but as I sustain injuries in grappling, I'm beginning to appreciate another advantage of Sanchin. It likely offers a safer method to simultaneously strengthen various tendons all at once. While many people see hardening and strengthening exercises. It is rarely, from those who tell me what it's for, seen as an exercise for the stresses of grappling and as such, I often think it's trained in a way that neglects the focus that would allow the technique to strength the tendons for grappling.

Tension training for striking = Quick Tension where the tension is not held for long

Tension training for grappling = Long tension where the tension is a much longer hold, similar to what one would experience in grappling, force vs force.

Combining the two tensions would include short and long tension movements. When a form contains both then it's important to understand which techniques are striking and which techniques are grappling, for the purpose of knowing how long to hold the tension. Thanks to my recent injuries, I'll now have to go learn some new forms and exercises to help me with strengthening my tendons so that they can last longer in grappling.

Unfoturnately for me I don't think any of my teachers understood this at the time they were teaching me. Or it could have been that I was not at an advanced enough level to understand. When we are young, our tendons are stronger than our muscle and are able to mange muscle and weight. As we get older, many of us get heavier and stronger and our tendons are neglected and can no longer handle the new strength and weight.

The tension training I've done has all been for striking without taking into consideration grappling.

This makes more sense to me now. I hate that it took some injuries and age to help me understand it. But at least the next person that I teach will understand it from the beginning. It's things like this where I strongly believe that it's critical to use what we train because it helps keep that functional understanding present in the forms. Hopefully, this week I'll be able to get back to training. I'm tired of smelling like Traditional Medicine and 3 weeks off training sucks.

 

[JowGaWolf]

When a tendon is weak it will not be able to handle the force that it must deal with. Muscle is applying more power than what the tendon can handle

I believe the risk is similar to punching and kicking. More common examples would be things like tennis elbow and pictures throwing their arms out. Even though this thread is about tendons. It is possible for the tendons to be strong, and the muscles to be weak for the force applied and as a result the muscles tear. When I say weak, I'm referring to the structural weakness and not weak as in you can't produce power.

Things become weaker with age and fatigue. Power is usually the last thing to go in a healthy person. Many of the older guys probably have the power to do things but the structure that must deal with that power is not strong enough to deal with the power they currently have.

 

[ForGranted]

It is possible for the tendons to be strong, and the muscles to be weak for the force applied and as a result the muscles tear. When I say weak, I'm referring to the structural weakness and not weak as in you can't produce power.

Muscle tear happens during the lengthening phase of an exercise which results in soreness. By making the tendon stronger, the load will shift more to it. So having strong tendon will actually reduce muscle tear. And I think you might refer structural weakness to weak ligaments. Having strong connective tissues comes well into old age because muscles lose but they don't

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

When a tendon is weak it will not be able to handle the force that it must deal with. Muscle is applying more power than what the tendon can handle

I believe the risk is similar to punching and kicking. More common examples would be things like tennis elbow and pictures throwing their arms out. Even though this thread is about tendons. It is possible for the tendons to be strong, and the muscles to be weak for the force applied and as a result the muscles tear. When I say weak, I'm referring to the structural weakness and not weak as in you can't produce power.

Things become weaker with age and fatigue. Power is usually the last thing to go in a healthy person. Many of the older guys probably have the power to do things but the structure that must deal with that power is not strong enough to deal with the power they currently have.

Actually certain antibiotics and or improper magnesium levels can precede tendon rupture in many cases. It’s important to understand that causes other than age can contribute to this type of injury.

 

[HighKick]

Actually certain antibiotics and or improper magnesium levels can precede tendon rupture in many cases. It’s important to understand that causes other than age can contribute to this type of injury.

I know that sound (and feeling). Back in the '90's I was setting at a table programming an automated line, so the noise was moderately loud. I was bouncing my foot, which I do often, then it sounded like a .22 rifle went off. The operator standing about 6' away turned around and asked "what was that". My Achilles immediately stung badly and my foot sort of hobbed over to one side. I reached down and rolled my foot around a few times and the pain eased up a little so I kept working for about an hour, not bouncing my feet anymore.
When I finished my work, and when I stood up the tendon finished tearing. I could feel the muscle ball up under my pants leg. Hurt like hxxl.
Pretty major surgery back then, and that was the worst 16-weeks of a new cast every 2-weeks putting my foot in a different position that I can remember. I was able to keep working but I kept breaking the cast around my toes when the foot was pointed downward. If memory serves, 10-different casts were put on.
Oh, and all but one was put on in the cast room (by the cast pros). The doctor put one on and it was put on too tight. Had to had it sawed off about 6-hours later. Good times. Not!!!

 

[Fungus]

Actually certain antibiotics and or improper magnesium levels can precede tendon rupture in many cases. It’s important to understand that causes other than age can contribute to this type of injury.

No to mention insufficient warmup, right?

I never had any major injuries in muscles or tendons, but every single time I did catch some stretch that that took several weaks to heal, it happend DURING warmup, when i tried to do advanced things (like a 360 jumping back kick HARD against the heavy bag) that should be done after warmup, AS WARMUP.

I once caught a calve stretch (probably muscle) that took me several months to heal, but it from one of the most silly games invented - football, againt WITHOUT warmup. Don't ask my what i was playing, I think this was hint that I shouldn't.

But I learned from it.