Hawkes Physiotherapy Blog

The Achilles tendon is the thickest and strongest tendon in the human body. That being said, this doesn't mean you can’t injure it. I hear different terminology used all the time, so what is tendinitis, tendinosis or tendinopathy? Tendinopathy: This is a broad term encompassing painful conditions occurring in and around tendons, which includes tendinitis and tendinosis. Tendinitis:  This basically means inflammation of a tendon Tendinosis:  This means degeneration of tendon (meaning cumulative damage). So what does this mean to me? For a long time tendinitis was the term used and it was considered that injured tendons were simply inflamed. Then the thinking shifted to the thought that there was little or no inflammation present in these conditions (Andres & Murrell 2008). However as is with research, the thinking is changing again: There may be an inflammatory response associated with chronic tendinopathy, even though recent o...

Introduction: ACL stands for Anterior Cruciate ligament. It attaches to the area in front of the intercondylar eminence of the tibia it extends backwards and laterally, to attach to the posterior part of the inside of the lateral condyle of the femur. Its primary role is to resist excessive anterior translation and medial rotation of the tibia, in relation to the femur. The ligament is stretched or torn in 70% of all serious knee injuries (Tortora & Grabowski (2000). It is more commonly torn in women than men. This is due to the fact that the ligament is smaller and less strong in females. There are muscular strength reasons, less strength means there isn’t as much muscular protection to the ligament and the increased elasticity in females means that there is more of a delay in hamstring firing, which will protect the ACL less. The other reason is that the skeletal alignment of women is different, with wider hips changing the angle at the knees. How do y...