The Achilles tendon is among the most powerful tendon within the body. This tendon attaches the calf muscles on the heel bone, therefore transfers the loads from your calf muscles through to the foot for running and walking. One huge anatomical disadvantage of this Achilles tendon would be that it and the leg muscles is a two-joint structure. Because of this the Achilles tendon and the calf muscles passes across two joints – the knee along with the ankle. When during activity the two joints will be moving in opposing directions, in this instance the ankle joint is dorsiflexing simultaneously that the knee will be extending, then the force on the Achilles tendon is pretty excessive and when there may be some weakness or problem with the Achilles tendon it may well rip or break. This may happen in sports such as tennis or volleyball in which there are lot of quick stop and start activity. Once the Achilles tendon may rupture it can be really dramatic. Sometimes there is an audible snap, although sometimes there could be no pain and the athlete merely collapses to the floor since they loose all strength from the leg muscles through to the […]
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