Training and competing through achilles tendinitis

My advice would be don't, this quickly progresses to chronic and then permanent. Not worth it

Stained Achilles may be micro-tears. Training through micro-tears, increases probability of more micro-tears and also increases the probabilities of tears greater than micro-tears.

Sit and kick wrote:

My advice would be don't, this quickly progresses to chronic and then permanent. Not worth it

But what if the pain isn't progressing? If you find the pain is getting worse and worse every day, then you should really stop. But if it's not getting worse, you're good. Plenty of guys run through tendonitis all the time. You seem to be doing everything you can for it already. My one last piece of advice would be to avoid any and all activity outside of running that irritates it. If it hurts on the stairs, take the elevator. If it hurts to drive or bike, walk. Sounds super annoying, but avoiding irritating it between training sessions gives it a better chance to heal day-to-day. Since you are clearly very dedicated to the sport, this won't drive you too crazy.

I trained through it but it really was trial and error. And everything that you read, you eventually come across opinions to do exactly the opposite.

For me a couple of things worked and a couple of things really did not.

The eccentric heel drops you read so much about - they just seemed to correspond to constant flare-ups for me and when i stopped doing them, i generally felt better. But remember, this was while i was running through it, so maybe it was just too much.

The things that worked for me was stretching, and to a lesser extent, foam rolling. But it had to be done a certain way. The most effective was when done immediately after workouts and runs. Doing them half a day later or before the run was not the same.

If I can infer anything from that it is that what worked best was to not get tight in the first place. That means stretching immediately and then seeking active recovery the remainder of the time until your next run or workout.

In this regard, i found it useful to go for walks where i would take long strides with perfect flexion of the ankle, slowly and deliberately and even elongating the time spent on each support phase so as to build the unconscious confidence my mind has at the ability my body had to handle the stress and motion. And just staying generally active and flexible allowed me to approach the next run without some major negative outcome.

In particular, i found the stretch where you hold a towel at both ends, wrap the middle around your toes, and pull back to flex your ankle for at least 20 seconds at a time to be very helpful. It seemed the calf area in particular but the whole leg in general needed to get stretched. So leaning forward while doing that helped a lot.

Also, timing key workouts with adequate recovery in between was just taken for granted - never could have run through it without this.

tiny tears then maybe larger tears wrote:

Stained Achilles may be micro-tears. Training through micro-tears, increases probability of more micro-tears and also increases the probabilities of tears greater than micro-tears.

I trained through mine. Now my Achilles is calcified and I can either stop running forever or get surgery. I regret it.

There is also the possibility of rupturing it if you try to run through the pain. My belief for running is that if something hurts you should rest until it doesn't.

Drainthefecesswamp wrote:

tiny tears then maybe larger tears wrote:

Strained Achilles may be micro-tears. Training through micro-tears, increases probability of more micro-tears and also increases the probabilities of tears greater than micro-tears.

I trained through mine. Now my Achilles is calcified and I can either stop running forever or get surgery. I regret it.

+1

My Achilles are so damaged (numerous small to medium tears over the years), I mostly swim and go on walks now. If I do run, I run two miles only. I used to run through Achilles strains.

Try shockwave therapy on it, it will give you some respite.