This week we discuss tendon adaption. This review aims to define the mechanoresponses that lead to tendon adaptation, and whether or not these are positive or negative adaptations. All adaptations can be considered through a person- or tissue-level lens. Person-level adaptations involve a number of systems and are measured via athletic performance tasks, while tissue-level adaptations are isolated and unclear how they impact the whole system. Adaptation is relative to the amount of load to the tissue, and there is likely a moving, tissue-level threshold which determines if an applied load is adaptive or maladaptive. Some changes we can see in tendon are changes to cross-sectional area, stiffness, structural organization of collagen, water content, and vascularity. However, there is no clear link between changes to these characteristics and injury risk or athletic performance since these changes are seen post exercise in pathological and non-pathological tendons. Potentially, whether a tendon becomes pathological or not is more related to the systemic response to these transient, load-related changes?

The abstract can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6737558/pdf/JMNI-19-300.pdf

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