How Can Achilles Tendonitis Be Prevented?

If you have Achilles tendonitis, you are probably questioning how can Achilles tendonitis be prevented from coming back or getting worse. With any injury, the first part is to treat it properly when it happens. If you ignore any injury and it heals itself (which is nearly impossible with Achilles tendonitis), it will likely come back to bite you with a bang when you least expect it. It will start hurting even when we get out of bed in the morning.

Treatments For Achilles Tendonitis

The primary treatment is to follow the R.I.C.E. method.

Rest

Rest the Achilles as soon as possible and refrain from the activity that causes the injury in the first place.

Ice

We should ice the injured Achilles for 20 mins every 3 hours for the first few days after feeling the injury.

Compression.

Wear a compression sock as this will give it added support when walking, and it should also prevent swelling.

Elevation

While we are icing the leg, we should keep it elevated as it helps prevent swelling.

How can Achilles tendonitis be prevented?

Hopefully, we have recovered from our Achilles Tendonitis, so we must look at ways to prevent it from returning. Unfortunately, even if we follow the following suggestions, we are not guaranteed that Achilles Tendonitis will not return in the future. Our prevention techniques fall under a couple of different headings.

Warm-up And Cool Down Properly

This is very important for all exercises as we need to actively warm up our muscles before we start our exercise routine, and we need to cool down to reduce our heart rate and stretch our muscles when we have finished the activity.

When we warm up properly, it helps prevent the tendon from becoming overloaded and irritated. There are two types of stretches.

Dynamic – these stretches are movement-based; the movement results in the muscles stretching. This stretch is not held for a period. These are usually done before we run or do another exercise.

Static – these stretches are done either standing, sitting, or lying down. It involves getting into a stretch position and holding it for a period. We generally do these stretches after we run or finish a different exercise.

Dynamic stretches

These are the dynamic stretches that we should do before a run.

– Leg swings front to back

– Leg swings side to side.

– High Knees

– Butt kicks

– Floor Sweeps

– Side squats

– Lunge

– Leg kicks

Static stretches

The stretches we do after a run mainly fall into the static category of stretches. However, stretches after running are very important to get our heart rate down.

– Quad stretch

– Calf stretch

– I.T. band stretch

– Hamstring stretch

– Glute stretch

– Groin stretch

The related post below explains these static and dynamic exercises in more detail.

RELATED===>Good Running Stretches

Increasing Activity levels Too Quickly

Avoid sudden increases in activity levels as if you are starting a new exercise regime or increasing your mileage, do so gradually to give your tendons and muscles time to adjust. As a runner, we should never increase our mileage by more than 10% in any week to help to prevent injuries. The experts recommend this as big increases in mileage contribute to shin splints.

Running Shoes And Gait

Always wear supportive shoes that fit well and provide good cushioning, as this will help reduce the amount of stress on the Achilles tendon. All runners’ should know what type of gait they have. Some runners’ will overpronate, more will supinate, and some will have a neutral gait.

Overpronation

Overpronation is a common condition that occurs when the foot rolls too far inward when walking or running. It can be treated with special shoes or inserts that help to support the foot and prevent it from rolling too far inward.

Overpronation can occur when the muscles and ligaments in the foot are not working correctly. This can be due to several factors, such as:

– Flat feet

– High arches

– Weak ankle muscles

– Tight calf muscles

Overpronation can also be caused by overuse, such as running or playing sports. This can lead to inflammation, foot pain, and balance and stability problems.

Supination

Supination, or underpronation as it is also named, is a condition in which the foot does not roll inward enough when walking or running. This can lead to heel pain, bunions, calluses, stress fractures, and Achilles tendonitis. Treatment for underpronation includes wearing shoes with good arch support and custom orthotics.

Supination may be due to the following factors

– Genetically

– Shoes that don’t fit well

– Very high arches

– Tight Achilles tendons and calves

RELATED===>What is the Difference Between Foot Pronation vs Supination

Bodyweight

If you are overweight, try and lose some weight as excess weight strains the tendons, leading to irritation and inflammation. It’s easier said than done to lose weight but to lose 1 pound, we have to use 3500 calories than we consumed.

Strength Training

Strengthening your leg muscles, especially your calf muscles, is very important after suffering from Achilles Tendonitis.

There are several exercises that we can do to strengthen our calf muscles.

Straight leg Calf Raises

Start with both feet on the ground near a wall or something to hold on to.

Raise your heels to go up on your toes as high as possible.

Keep your weight balanced evenly on your toes while keeping your legs straight.

Then lower back to the ground and repeat.

To make this significantly harder when you have mastered it on both legs. Do it exactly the same while keeping one leg off the ground and having all your weight on just one leg.

After this, you can always add dumbells when finding one-legged straight calf raises too easily.

Bent knee Calf Raises

We do bent knee calf raises the same as the above straight knee calf raises, except we bend our knees slightly instead of keeping our legs straight.

We can do the same variations to make it harder by doing it on one leg and adding weight.

Final Thoughts

I hope you now understand Achilles tendonitis better and how it can be prevented; if we can prevent any injury from happening in the first place or the injury from reoccurring, it is well worth putting in the time and effort at home.

Please comment below if you have further comments or prevention techniques.