Tendon Summit Insider

We continue to struggle with the most basic part of tendinopathy management: correctly identifying it. In Part IV, Ruth Chimenti walks through the diagnostic criteria for Achilles tendinopathy—where expert consensus and everyday clinical practice diverge—and we zoom in on movement-evoked pain: what it captures, and why a useful way to track symptoms isn't the same as a tool for diagnosis. Part IV...

Should the science of the Achilles subtendons actually change how you rehab tendinopathy? In Part III, Stephanie Cone walks through what we know about subtendon architecture in healthy and pathological tendons—then we lay out the case for and against targeting these units independently in practice. The honest answer sits in the space between plausibility and proof. Part III of The Debrief, revisit...

The Debrief revisits each presentation from our 2026 Summit, one speaker at a time. In Part II, Falk Mersmann examines how the muscle-tendon unit actually behaves—not as a simple spring, but as a system that reorganizes itself to meet the task at hand, whether the goal is conserving energy, producing work, or generating maximum power. Read this edition with full references at traversecitytendonsum...

The Debrief revisits each presentation from our 2026 Summit, one speaker at a time. In Part I, Neal Millar makes the case that the field has underperformed on tendinopathy because it has paid too little attention to the biology—and lays out the inflammatory pathways, and emerging therapies, that point to where treatment is headed. Read this edition with full references at traversecitytendonsummit....

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Tendons function as multiscale load‑bearing tissues that support energy storage and release, power amplification, and force attenuation during movement. • These capabilities emerge from interactions across hierarchical levels. No single level of structure can explain tendon behavior on its own. • Several structural features shape tendon mechanics, including limited fascicle load sh...