Built from Broken: A Science-Based Guide to Healing Painful Joints, Preventing Injuries, and Rebuilding Your Body

by Scott H Hogan

Education: Learn about your tendinopathy causes, outcome expectations, and best practices for recovery. Unloading: For a brief time period, reduce training load and repetitive activities that cause painful flare-ups. Reloading: Build up load capacity gradually, starting with light resistance exercise and extremely slow repetitions that do not trigger a pain response (e.g. 3–5 full seconds to lift the weight and 3–5 seconds to lower the weight). Start by performing 3 sets of 10–15 repetitions on two nonconsecutive days per week. When you’re able to complete the exercises with minimal pain (3 or less on a scale of 1–10: 0 = no pain, 10 = unbearable pain) and recover fully in between sessions, then increase the resistance by 10%–20%. Continue with this progression until you reach a threshold of resistance that only allows you to complete 5 or 6 repetitions with good form. By this point, you will have significantly increased your load tolerance and joint integrity. As long as your pain levels stay at a 3 out of 10 or less as a subjective pain score, keep increasing the resistance each week. Prevention: Continue corrective exercise training for at least 8–12 weeks after symptoms resolve and take steps to prevent the underlying tendinopathy.