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My scumbag achilles...
Tendons are weird. Stupid and weird. And nobody knows shit about how to fix them.
Early in the summer, I strained my achilles playing soccer. I am old and this has happened before many times. This time I decided to GO HAM on my achilles. I adopted a strict stretching and eccentric exercise protocol. The sort that physical therapists have recommended in the past. I was 100% consistent and spent about 20 minutes each day. I did this for MONTHS. Did my achilles get better? Kinda, sorta, not really.
So I stopped doing the program. And I kept playing soccer. And the achilles pain sort of just... went away. It's completely gone now.
The only thing that changed was I switched to a low carb diet. GPT-4 tells me there is no evidence that this related.
One day, science will figure tendons out. We're a long way from that now. In the mean time, for those with nagging sports injuries, I advise not wasting your money on doctors and PT unless someone else is paying for it.
I've also got some persistent leg sinew issues, and so far I've gotten all sorts of advice:
Needless to say, none of that worked.
The issues did go away whenever I exercised regularly. No exercises tailored to resolve or avoid my issues, just whatever I enjoyed most. Swimming, hiking, biking, fencing. Maybe it's all psychosomatic in the end? But then things happened and I ended up extremely sedentary for many months, and ah, there we go, it's all messed up again.
No idea what's actually going on, but doing sports that are actually fun sure helps.
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