While sports are a great way to keep fit, they can be brutal on your body too. Just look at all of the sports injuries and sports medicine doctors that treat these injuries. Before you begin any sport, you should be aware of four tendons you could tear, and how long it takes for each to heal. It may just pre-determine what sport you play.

The Achilles

Basketball players frequently destroy their Achilles tendons. Every time they leap into the air to make a shot, they will come down hard on their heels and stretch out the Achilles tendons on the backs of their ankles. Since these tendons keep your heel bones attached to your calves and ankles, you want to take very good care of them. When they are torn from playing basketball or any sport where you are leaping and landing, they require surgery to be repaired and reattached. That means several months of inactivity to heal and weeks of physical therapy.

The Menisces

The menisces (plural) or meniscus (singular), are some tiny, stretchy tendons in your knee. Football players rip their menisces all the time because they are constantly in a crouched position and dodging in awkward directions to get the ball to the goal. Tennis players also rip the menisces as they dodge and chase the ball. A meniscus tear also requires surgery to repair. Fortunately, you may be up and walking about faster with a meniscus tear than with an Achilles tear.

Rotator Cuff

The rotator cuff actually refers to a set of four tendons in your shoulder. A tear in any one of these tendons means surgery and immobilization for weeks until the tear has healed. You cannot expect to have free use of this arm during that time because it needs to remain motionless for it to heal correctly. So, even though your elbow, wrist, hand and fingers move fine on the side of the injured shoulder, you cannot use the rest of your arm at all. Baseball players, especially pitchers, frequently damage their rotator cuffs.

Biceps Tendon 

The biceps tendon connects your bicep muscle to your lower arm. The tendon itself is attached to the radius near the point where the radius and humerus (upper arm bone) meet. This is a less common sports injury, but one which is quite common among weightlifters, wrestlers and bodybuilders. If you are doing any intense upper body strength training, you may encounter this injury. You will know what happened when you hear a loud snap in your arm and your forearm all of a sudden goes limp and you cannot lift it up. Surgery is needed, as well as immobilization for at least a month.

For more information on tending to one of the issues above, check out a website like http://www.advancedphysicaltherapyofsj.com. 

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