Tendons Don’t Need Rest Days: Understanding Load, Recovery, and Tendinopathy with Dr. Jill Cook

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This conversation is with Dr. Jill Cook — physiotherapist, researcher, and professor in musculoskeletal health at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. Jill is one of the world’s leading authorities on tendon health and pathology, and her work has fundamentally changed how clinicians and athletes understand, diagnose, and treat tendon pain.

We discuss:

• How patella tendinopathy in elite basketball players inspired her career in tendon research
• Proper terminology for tendon conditions
• How aberrant load is the underlying cause creates tendinopathy
• Why imaging findings of tendon pathology do not correlate with pain or risk of rupture
• The classic presentations of tendon pain
• Whether being postmenopausal puts a woman at risk for tendinopathy
• How loading is integral to tendon rehab and muscle capacity can be a limiting factor
• How to use pain the following day to determine optimal loading protocol
• Competition season strategies for managing tendon pain
• Adjunct therapies (like injections) are not a standalone solution

Connect with Dr. Jill Cook on X: @ProfJillCook

Connect with me: @casswarbeck

Resources:

• La Trobe University profile: https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/jlcook/about
• Achilles Tendinopathy video (E3 Rehab)
• Article: Revisiting the continuum model of tendon pathology
• Article: Treatment of Proximal Hamstring Tendinopathy

Audio editing and processing by Wyatt Pavlik

Theme music by Ievgen Poltavskyi from Pixabay

*Please appreciate that any information discussed is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, always seek the opinion of a physician or qualified healthcare provider.*