Muscle vs. Tendon strength

[SoCalMK6GTI]

I'm 33, been lifting off and on since I was in high school. One thing I've been running into the last few years is as I gain strength in muscle....I am hurting my tendons. I know this because of reoccurring injuries like pulled muscles, sore tendons, tennis elbow, and during an injury the feeling of a tendon pulling away from the bone.

My body can gain strength fairly fast, I gained over 100lb on leg press in less than a year and gained about 50lb in flat barbell bench in the same period.

My issues are I get hurt not by muscle pain but by knee/joint/tendon pain. I know my weights increase most likely too rapidly but how fast is too fast? How would I know when I reach equal muscle limitation to tendon limitation?

Next question is....

If I continue to heal on my Osta 12-week cycle (tennis elbow feels much better) and jump on a strictly Test-e cycle with a small PCT should I maintain a steady weight or slowly increase reps/weight week by week?

Or...is there some cycle I can run oral or inj. that is more specific to tendon growth vs. strictly muscle growth?

Thank you.

 

[dylangemelli]

I'm 33, been lifting off and on since I was in high school. One thing I've been running into the last few years is as I gain strength in muscle....I am hurting my tendons. I know this because of reoccurring injuries like pulled muscles, sore tendons, tennis elbow, and during an injury the feeling of a tendon pulling away from the bone.

My body can gain strength fairly fast, I gained over 100lb on leg press in less than a year and gained about 50lb in flat barbell bench in the same period.

My issues are I get hurt not by muscle pain but by knee/joint/tendon pain. I know my weights increase most likely too rapidly but how fast is too fast? How would I know when I reach equal muscle limitation to tendon limitation?

Next question is....

If I continue to heal on my Osta 12-week cycle (tennis elbow feels much better) and jump on a strictly Test-e cycle with a small PCT should I maintain a steady weight or slowly increase reps/weight week by week?

Or...is there some cycle I can run oral or inj. that is more specific to tendon growth vs. strictly muscle growth?

Thank you.

you definitely don't want to get on something that will make you grow at a rapid pace... you need to be careful about what you want to use... slow steady gains is what you need to be working with... things like primo and eq... you should also look at sarms... these types of things that build lean muscle, slow and steady, and keep you cut up at the same time... stay with these types...

 

[stevesmi]

you are describing my problem that I described on here many times of when I used to compete in endurance races. I improved too fast. you posted you put on 100 pounds and 50 pounds on your lifts in a short period... well I improved my 5K time by minutes within a few months.. went from not even being able to finish a 4 mile run without stopping to getting 2nd place in my age group in a year!! unfortunately it cost me as my injuries ended my career in that.

so to answer your question the way you prevent it is by being smart, if it hurts STOP.. don't push through injuries and improve SLOWLY.. take 2 steps forward and 1 step back. if you juice use compounds that are slow builders like primo for example, instead of something like tren or halo. juicing will make the situation even worse and is why we tell guys to build a base first.

also in lifting if you are using belts, straps, gloves, and all that other crap then you need to burn them. those cause body imbalances and don't allow your core to strengthen. don't go heavy for a while, just go up to 60% of your max lifts when you lift. don't train to failure, just train to train the MUSCLE... your goal is to break up your muscle fibers, not to tear up your tendons/ligaments. and finally you should be training your legs as much as your upper body.. your back as much as your chest.. etc etc. I see too many guys who can bench 300+ but can only pull 80. and they wonder why they get injuries

if you fail to listen to this advice I am giving you then your injury will become chronic like they were with me as a runner. and you will have to possibly give up lifting. I still to this day cannot run without being in pain. and I learned my lesson the hard way when everyone was telling me "just run through it" ... BAD ADVICE!! if it hurts don't do it.. the ONLY guy to give me the right advice was a 62 year old former Ironman/Marine in Vietnam... I wish I had taken his advice then I would still be running today

 

[Zyglamail]

Another important aspect is to make sure to get ample nutrients for collagen production. Vit C is the biggie, its essential for collagen synthesis. I try and get at least 5-6 GRAMS per day split among multiple doses. Its taken some time but almost all of my nagging injuries are gone.....and im over 10 years older than you.

 

[TrueLiberal]

I never had an issue with joint/tendon/ligament pain, but I gain strength very fast. At 195# I could outlift many bigger men in the gym. I loved pushing heavy weights.

I am now over 40 and have changed my training philosophy to avoid any potential injuries. What I do is focus on muscle burn and pumps. I use constant tension and repetition patterns that drastically reduce the weights. Surprisingly shifting to this training philosophy resulted in me gaining around 15 pounds of muscle mass.

PM me and we can talk. If you give me your email address I will send you a PDF file of a book called "Matrix for Muscle Gain" which talks a lot about the repetition schemes and training philosophy that I now use.

 

[Zyglamail]

I never had an issue with joint/tendon/ligament pain, but I gain strength very fast. At 195# I could outlift many bigger men in the gym. I loved pushing heavy weights.

I am now over 40 and have changed my training philosophy to avoid any potential injuries. What I do is focus on muscle burn and pumps. I use constant tension and repetition patterns that drastically reduce the weights. Surprisingly shifting to this training philosophy resulted in me gaining around 15 pounds of muscle mass.

PM me and we can talk. If you give me your email address I will send you a PDF file of a book called "Matrix for Muscle Gain" which talks a lot about the repetition schemes and training philosophy that I now use.

Tendons and ligaments are designed to handle sharp/quick jolts better than they are long periods under tension. Their structure allows them to hold moisture which gets released under sudden stress to cushion the stress.

While I am an advocate of tempo work and do it regularly it can actually be harder on tendons/ligaments than explosive heavy work.

 

[SoCalMK6GTI]

Thank you all for the tips. As of right now I barely lift at all. Keeping diet in check and about 3 weeks into ostarine cycle, using elbow compression wrap, and eliminating any movements that cause pain. I will have to look deeper into my diet as IIFYM is good but it doesn't create any overall nutrient focus. There is more to diet than carbs and protein and the longer I train and the older I get, the more I realize this. Thanks to this forum I've been learning a lot.

 

[stevesmi]

^^^ although it might appear your compression wrap is helping I assure you it is NOT. it is actually creating more of an imbalance and making things worse.

also I hope you aren't taking any anti-inflammatories either. that's another example of something you think it helping when in fact, its making things way worse as well.. inflammation is your body trying to heal itself, trying to shut that off is like shutting off the chlorine to your pool.. eventually your pool will turn green

 

[TrueLiberal]

Tendons and ligaments are designed to handle sharp/quick jolts better than they are long periods under tension. Their structure allows them to hold moisture which gets released under sudden stress to cushion the stress.

While I am an advocate of tempo work and do it regularly it can actually be harder on tendons/ligaments than explosive heavy work.

SoCalMK6GTI should try the approach I suggest and if it causes him any pain stop. The heavy lifting is causing him pain. If the constant tension and pump oriented work is even more destructive, what alternatives does he have? You yourself have nagging injuries. Why don't you try the approach laid forth in "Matrix for Muscle" and see if it lessens your pain and injuries? PM me and I will send you a PDF.

Can you explain the physics of this to me? The poundage is less, therefore the force is less. The mass is less, the velocity is less, therefore the energy and momentum is less. Tendons and ligaments are designed to anchor muscle to bone and bone to bone. Injuries happen when the force and energy exceed the tensile strength of the connective tissues. By virtue of the fact that your tissues are releasing moisture to cushion stress means that you are testing the limits of their ability to resist an external force or you wouldn't need the cushion. I could see this being the case if the poundages and hence the force were equal because the tendons and ligaments would be exposed to the force for a longer period, but with the type of work I do the poundages are so much less, usually about 50- 60% less than heavy work.

Practical examples would be Vince Taylor or my girlfriend. Vince Taylor tore his bicep tendon using heavy weights, then switched to constant tension and high reps. He never reinjured the same bicep. If it is harder on your tissues than explosive heavy work why did he never reinjure the bicep? Heavy leg presses were giving my girlfriend knee pain. She shifted to to constant tension and higher reps now the knee pain is gone. Maybe I am wrong, but everything I have seen and learned tells me otherwise.

 

[Zyglamail]

SoCalMK6GTI should try the approach I suggest and if it causes him any pain stop. The heavy lifting is causing him pain. If the constant tension and pump oriented work is even more destructive, what alternatives does he have? You yourself have nagging injuries. Why don't you try the approach laid forth in "Matrix for Muscle" and see if it lessens your pain and injuries? PM me and I will send you a PDF.

Can you explain the physics of this to me? The poundage is less, therefore the force is less. The mass is less, the velocity is less, therefore the energy and momentum is less. Tendons and ligaments are designed to anchor muscle to bone and bone to bone. Injuries happen when the force and energy exceed the tensile strength of the connective tissues. By virtue of the fact that your tissues are releasing moisture to cushion stress means that you are testing the limits of their ability to resist an external force or you wouldn't need the cushion. I could see this being the case if the poundages and hence the force were equal because the tendons and ligaments would be exposed to the force for a longer period, but with the type of work I do the poundages are so much less, usually about 50- 60% less than heavy work.

Practical examples would be Vince Taylor or my girlfriend. Vince Taylor tore his bicep tendon using heavy weights, then switched to constant tension and high reps. He never reinjured the same bicep. If it is harder on your tissues than explosive heavy work why did he never reinjure the bicep? Heavy leg presses were giving my girlfriend knee pain. She shifted to to constant tension and higher reps now the knee pain is gone. Maybe I am wrong, but everything I have seen and learned tells me otherwise.

I HAD nagging injuries, they have all subsided by giving my body the nutrients it needs.

There is a delicate balance between weight moved and speed. I dont recall all the technical specifics but the info is out there in scientific journals for anyone who wants to look.

Saying someone injured themselves with heavy weight and then switched and didnt get reinjured doesnt necessarily prove light weight low tempo work is less strenuous because they didnt injure themselves again.

The slow tempo work does put more strain on tendons to a degree (depends on tempo weight obviously) super light super high tempo work isnt the same ad short tempo and heavier. But at the same time the tempo work also build tendon strength better. The trick is to to incorporate explosive/light, heavy normal tempo and varying degrees of slower tempo so your well rounded.

At the end of the day most injuries occur not because of the weight but because there is a structural deficiency. This is brought on by overuse injuries that are not allowed to heal, iced and drugged so intensity is kept high. Additionally poor form/lack of mobility leads to bad form, improper stresses on joint and in turn cause nagging injuries which are ignored.

Combine the above with inadequate nutrition and you have a recipe for disaster.