I had a look but couldn’t find a relevant thread. More than happy to be pointed to one if I missed it.
Chronic Achilles Tendon sufferer, mid portion. As we know eccentric calf raises are the recommended exercise for that. The trouble is as I try and do them pain develops on the ankle bone. Inside of the ankle, maybe slightly in front of the bone. It’s most obvious in dorsiflexion. It’s on the same side that I have the Achilles problem. It feels like the eccentric exercises are aggravating it.
It is going to be a little while before I can see a physio. I’ll use RICE and stop the eccentrics for a while. But any nudges in the right direction would be great because I’d like to get back to the eccentrics. Cheers.
Sorry for the hijack, but it fits the topic: I was told that my bad habit of pointing my toes down when pushing down on my pedals is contributing to Achilles tendinitis issues and it’s best to keep the foot flat.
Are there any decent ankle braces designed to minimize flexing the foot down an up when riding?
I’ve been dealing with ankle pain for years. Something I attributed to arthritis. As such, I’ve been plagued with a bunch of soft tissue and tendon issues. Finally, I got an xray and visited an ortho. Xray confirms a minor case of arthritis. But, it also turns out that I have arches that are falling. So now I’m doing exercises to strengthen the arches and wearing OTC orthotics. My running ability and ankle pain is slowly improving.
Sorry for the hijack, but it fits the topic: I was told that my bad habit of pointing my toes down when pushing down on my pedals is contributing to Achilles tendinitis issues and it’s best to keep the foot flat.
Are there any decent ankle braces designed to minimize flexing the foot down an up when riding?
I don’t see how. The more you lower your heel the more strain you put on your achilles.
I have weird ankles, I have a huge amount of plantar-flexion and not much dorsi-flexion, as a result I naturally pedal toe down, I have no achilles issues.
Obviously hard to tell officially, but often in these cases the patient has poor mobility of the talocrural joint (stiff), so when the ankle is forced into dorsiflexion during stance phase of running the poor mobility causes increased strain on the Achilles…deep heel drops would create the same strain.
PTinAZ is right. And if you don’t have the available ROM into dorsiflexion, you can do all the eccentrics you want, you’ll still have problems. Restoring active rom of the joint usually helps quite a bit in these cases.