Christopher Ellis explains why bodybuilders get tendon injuries while sprinters don't. Tendons get less blood flow than muscles and recover slower, but bodybuilders train through soreness without letting them adapt. Speed athletes load their tendons with high-impact work that hardens them, so they tear muscles instead.
Because that tendon deals with elastic load. And then the muscle starts to become stronger in comparison to the tendon. So bodybuilders tend to get tendon issues. On top of that, a lot of people train till they get sore the next day, and once they recover, they train again. Well, what they've done is allowed the muscle belly to recover. And remember that the tendon has poor blood supply, so it takes a little longer for the tendon to recover. So that's another reason this happens. Whereas if you took a different type of athlete, like a sprinter or someone who does a lot of plyometrics, they're gonna be doing a lot of jumping and things and landing where the tendons are absorbing shock and creating recoil. So what tends to happen there is the tendon becomes stronger, more durable than the muscle belly. So sort of speed athletes tend to have more muscle issues than tendon issues. Right.
