Neuromechanical adaptations in achilles tendinosis

It is not just about the tendon. A perspective on asymmetry.

We are coming back to this important article again.
When you have a tendon problem, you have other problems. There is the muscle-tendon relationship, there is the CNS component, and there are the other muscles regionally within the related loaded chains. Because of these multiple integrated components, this "illustrates the human body's capacity to adapt to tendon pathology and provide the physiological basis for intervention or prevention strategies".
"If a component in the loop loses its integrity, the entire system has to adapt to that deficiency. "
We have discussed on recent TGG podcasts this important ability of a tendon to have sufficient stiffness, to be more precise, to produce sufficient stiffness. Degenerative tendons exhibit less stiffness and so when this issue is present, we move into the adaptive strategies of the entire system that was alluded to above. Adaptation begins; agonist, synergist, antagonist muscles, CNS, motor pattern adaptive patterns ensue.
It has been suggested by this study that these compensations are unilateral, on the affected side, thus driving asymmetrical neuromechanical adaptations.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553058/