Do you train your tendon elasticity?

You can watch some videos on his yt channel. This video is one example, it's
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VtJSud1QWFo

Lots of calf stretching. Lots of walking.
In cycling, our feet are wide apart and in running and walking they are follow a line during foot plant, a very different action which requires lots of ankle mobility. That is one of the main things we lose when we bike a lot, ankle mobility.

High volume of running slow. If the calves feel stiff, run slower.

Speaking to weight training specifically.
To train a tendon to be stiff you need high velocity movement and moderate to light loads. More dynamic stuff like plyos or jumping for the achilles specifically. Think sprinters and jumpers. Jump rope is a great exercise to build a stiffer achilles.
For a more elastic tendon you use higher loading. The high load implies a decrease in speed of movement so it'll be slower. Heavy loaded isometrics and eccentrics are great also and where you'd probably benefit most for the achilles tendon. Heavy slow heel drops.
Coming from cycling where the ankle is kept in a fairly neutral position you'll see issues switching to running particularly if you're a heel striker. Flexion is more extreme. So although you're thinking your achilles is stiff, it might not be. You want stiffness and the perceived tightness might just be more from a change in mechanics and the loaded stretch that you haven' adapted to yet. If your achilles is getting injured it could be from lack of durability from transitioning from a somewhat non-load bearing, zero impact activity. The collagen in your achilles hasn't formed the matrix needed to take the abuse. One of the better ways to develop that matrix is going to be, again, loaded heel drops. The slow stretching forces will build collagen in the direction of the applied force. Incidentally that's also how you mitigate scar tissue in a tendon and reform damaged collagen matrix (scar) into healthy matrix and prevent future injury.

I just like to eat tendons and cartilages!

Kiochoge is one of the runners with very elastic running style without any plyo. It's not about plyo. Look at this video before and after few months of training elasticity and running technique
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k2T3x126pOI

Is there a translated version? I’m very interested to learn more about this approach. Dealing with the same problem as the OP. My lower legs are not adapting to even small amounts of easy running after 10+ year of cycling.

---

Very interesting wrote:

Is there a translated version? I’m very interested to learn more about this approach. Dealing with the same problem as the OP. My lower legs are not adapting to even small amounts of easy running after 10+ year of cycling.

---

Now he is the coach of an athlete with pbs 5000m 14:18, 10.000m 30:24. He made those Pbs in 2015 and 2016 but with too much mileage and too intensive training. In 2017/208 he had severe injuries and surgery. After surgery he started training with this coach. They are training together for sth like 1.5 year now. He makes about 50 km per week. He run about 15:20 for 5 km two months ago. Few weeks ago he made 2km in 5:38.
You can watch this here but it was more like tempo run not all in.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cqm6_OtXMw

Standing in one place, sitting on chairs and car seats, biking long sessions and even excessive running are not natural motions, but it's mostly what we do.

Some people can get away with having these things dominant in their lives without worrying about tendon and intrinsic muscle condition, but some can't and will get injuries to the point where they think they can't run at all.

For the ones that can't get away with it , they must figure out how to put their bodies , especially lower extremities through good amounts of natural motion in natural weight bearing styles.

How to do that , most of those motions are related to squatting, sitting on the ground in various ways and getting up and down off the ground.

The essentially element is being on and off of toe balance and toe presses and stretches that occur with these natural movements/ postures , but they works the entire body up to the middle of the spine in ways modern living and exercising can't touch.

Bare foot Tip toe lunges and tip toe skater lunges

Bare foot A$$ to grass squatted position with toe presses, very high volume, Stay down there a long time, like during watching some videos.

Go barefoot a lot.

Some barefoot running or walking (soft sand is good) . Don't have to become a "barefoot runnner.

Toe walking carioca.

Short foot exercises.

Hindu Squats, emphasize being on toes.

Wobble board and other balance tools, wide variety or exercises

Jumping rope.

Fire hydrants , straight leg and bent.

Weighted half squats and quarter squats on toes the whole squat.

Heel walking.

Walking on outside edges of bare feet.

dorsiflexion with therapy band, massive reps.

Etc.

OP here, had to register to post on another thread.

For reference, my muscles tend to be very flexible. If stretched regularly they end up being hyperflexible, which I realize is not good for running. My tendons, I assume, are just the opposite of my muscles; hypoflexible, if that's even a word.

Currently my achilles aren't what I'm having issues with, although I have in the past. It's the tendinous tissue at the top of my hamstrings that can't seem to handle the abrupt slowing down of the lower leg as it transitions from that whipping forward return motion to foot strike.

Would you guess doing hamstring curls in the gym and then return the weight down very slow to stress the tendon, similar to eccentric heel drops with a very slow return? Maybe have a partner help with the concentric part of the lift and then I control the eccentric part of the lift in order to use a heavier load?

Gym work doesn't help a runner too much. How doing slow exerices in the gym can help you in running when with cadence for example of 180 you have to jump three times from one leg to another.

I have noticed an interesting (to me) inverse of elasticity. If I use a rebounder (mini trampoline) and then try to do same work on a hard surface, I have almost no spring. Similar to the effect of using alter-g at reduced body weight and then taking full weight. Doing eccentric calf raises on rebounder is also a unique challenge.

I love this guy's videos. Thanks for sharing.

---

Alll wrote:

---

Very interesting wrote:

Is there a translated version? I’m very interested to learn more about this approach. Dealing with the same problem as the OP. My lower legs are not adapting to even small amounts of easy running after 10+ year of cycling.

---

I was also very interested because his approach is very diffrent. I will link his videos about running technique with subtitles:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hgkkkhT9M8c
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r_6SQc3RZpA
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2FOB5Ec1l5A
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4EzWhUPA2uM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LKopn8DIdFA

---

I've never seen someone talking and training about running technique. It's not about degrees in your legs, arms etc. It's about whole body and being very elastic.

He's athlete will be running 5km tomorrow I will post results. As I said before he does only about 50km a week. His training week consists of one overload workout/overload downhill workout. He has to gradually run faster and then run 10-15 maximum speed but no sprinting, middle/long distance running technique.
Once a week he also runs tempo/race to 3000m or 5km race

Hills are the secret, as Henry Rono said, "de heel!!! Any heel!!!"

Rest of his training runs are just jogging and sometimes before harder workout he does moderate run

In 5:30 minute of this video you can see one repeat of overload downhill workout
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QN_PIzuvTkg
In 2:40 minute of this video he does tempo 2km run. He's flying
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cqm6_OtXMw

You shouldn't try to train an isolated aspect of your physiology like "tendon elasticity." You should train with the goal of running your chosen distance faster by replicating as closely as possible the requirements of the event itself. This will challenge all aspects of the involved physiology in the exact manner and to the exact degree the event calls upon.