How Long to Rest After Developing Tendonitis

The following is an exerpt of a recent email conversation that I thought you all might benefit from sharing in.

... Sorry to bother you again, but I'll keep this short. Could you please tell me how long do you have your young athletes rest after developing tendonitis? Do they resume their training after recommended 3-6 weeks or when they are pain free?...

I sympathize with your situation, my friend and I understand that you are looking for a cookie cutter, one size fits all answer; however there are none.

Point 1: We never train through pain.

Point 2: We never stop training. Injuries are usually rather movement specific, so if they can't do one thing; there are almost always MANY other things that they can spend their time on.

Point 3: I do not allow them to train again on an injury until they are pain free. However long it takes to heal, is how long we wait. This is why it is so advantageous to always closely monitor your joint health and to never over indulge your ego while training.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Point 1: We never train through pain.

Hi Coach. I'm wondering if you (or someone) else can clarify this. How can we differentiate between pain from injury vs. normal muscle soreness or DOMS? For instance, my tricep tendon feels fine while working out (with correctly scaled exercises). But it feels sore sometimes afterwards, or it feels sore when I really dig and do some trigger point work at that point.

Then after the trigger point therapy, or massage, or doing some similar soft tissue release work around the surrounding muscles, the pain disappears.

Are there any easy ways to tell the difference between pain from injury vs. normal soreness or tenderness?

Thanks for all your work - J

I ask the kids does it feel like a numbing sensation or an OWW sensation. It's the difference between feeling something and OWW!

NEVER train through pain in a case of tendonitis, you'll most likely make it worse. I wouldn't advice you to train as long as it feels irritated, but once that goes away you may start with light rehab exercises to get as much blood flow as possible to the inflamed area to ''speed'' up the last stage of the healing process.

Complexed joints i.e. knee, shoulder, wrists and elbow don't have as much blood flow that's why the healing process is slower than other parts of the body, thus why light rehab exercises are important to get more blood flowing.

A severe case of tendonitis can take up to 12 weeks to heal.

timsen said:

NEVER train through pain in a case of tendonitis, you'll most likely make it worse. I wouldn't advice you to train as long as it feels irritated, but once that goes away you may start with light rehab exercises to get as much blood flow as possible to the inflamed area to ''speed'' up the last stage of the healing process.

 

Complexed joints i.e. knee, shoulder, wrists and elbow don't have as much blood flow that's why the healing process is slower than other parts of the body, thus why light rehab exercises are important to get more blood flowing.

 

A severe case of tendonitis can take up to 12 weeks to heal.

Please check the dates when replying to posts, the above conversation was 2.5 years ago

Jon Douglas said:

Please check the dates when replying to posts, the above conversation was 2.5 years ago

OH! Sorry about that, well at least I shared my experience and hope it can help somebody.

If timsen hadn't, I would've missed the gem (Coach's stance on tendonitis).

It's like revisiting the trunk in the attic :-)

I find contrast baths help. Kept my knee pain at bay and now I can do pistol squats again. Give contrast bath a try. What you want is manipulation of your blood circulation and direct it to where your tendonitis is. Its all about blood supply when it comes to healing.