Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Methodol. Jun 26, 2015; 5(2): 51-54
Published online Jun 26, 2015. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v5.i2.51
Exercise for tendinopathy
Stasinopoulos Dimitrios
Stasinopoulos Dimitrios, Physiotherapy Program, Department Health Sciences, School of Sciences, European University of Cyprus, 1516 Nicosia, Cyprus
Author contributions: Dimitrios S solely contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Stasinopoulos Dimitrios, Physiotherapy Program, Department Health Sciences, School of Sciences, European University of Cyprus, 6, Diogenes Str. Engomi, 1516 Nicosia, Cyprus. d.stassinopoulos@euc.ac.cy
Telephone: +357-22-713044
Received: February 28, 2015
Peer-review started: March 2, 2015
First decision: April 27, 2015
Revised: May 6, 2015
Accepted: June 1, 2015
Article in press: June 2, 2015
Published online: June 26, 2015
Processing time: 128 Days and 21.8 Hours
Abstract

Tendinopathies are one of the most common sports/musculoskeletal injury in modern western societies. Many physiotherapy approaches have been recommended in the literature for the management of tendinopathy. The most effective treatment in the management of tendinopathy is the eccentric training. Load, speed and frequency of contractions are the three principles of eccentric exercises, discussed in this report. However, eccentric training is not effective for all patients with tendinopathy and the effectiveness of this approach when applied as monotherapy is lower than it is applied as part of the rehabilitation process. For this reason, clinicians combine eccentric training with other physiotherapy techniques such as stretching, isometric and lumbar stability exercises, electrotherapy, manual therapy, soft tissue manipulation techniques, taping and acupuncture in the management of tendinopathies. Further research is needed to find out which treatment strategy combined with eccentric training will provide the best results in the rehabilitation of tendinopathy.

Keywords: Tendinopathy; Exercise; Physiotherapy; Electrotherapy; Eccentric exercises; Stretching exercises; Electrotherapy; Manual therapy

Core tip: Eccentric exercises are effective in the management of tendinopathy. Eccentric training improves patients’ symptoms and reverses tendinopathys’ pathology. The ideal eccentric protocol is unknown in the literature. Eccentric training alone does not respond positively in many patients. Therefore, clinicians combine eccentric training with other forms of therapy such as stretching exercises, isometric contraction, electrotherapy, manual therapy, deep transverse friction, taping, acupuncture and improvement of lumbo - pelvic control. More research is needed to find out which treatment strategy combined with eccentric training will provide the best results in the rehabilitation of tendinopathy.