Foam roller for Achilles Tendonosis - anyone tried it?

[Oldisthenewblack]

Anyone tried this? And does it EVER get any less painful?? I have achilles tendonosis and have always been told my calves are shockingly tight. I've been using the foam roller for a few days now and bloody hell, it's still agony. Does it ever get better? Does it really work?

I don't do the foam roller thing, but when I've had achilles tendonitis the only thing that helps is doing eccentric loading exercises and being really conscientious about my running form.

Thanks for that, CMOT, I will have a look. Have heard of eccentric loading before but failed to pursue it...

I've got horrible Achilles tendonosis at the moment which has kept me off proper running for weeks now
Physio has me doing calf stretches, eccentric loading exercises and foam rolling. I have huge knot in affected calf muscle and it is really painful to roll, but I am gradually breaking it down. Is taking weeks though, not just a few days. Physio says to keep at it, will work in the end. Here's hoping!

I feel for you, familygerms - it's awful. All that you've mentioned are exactly what I've been told to do. I'm trying to foam roll every night but it's always so painful. I was a bit hit and miss with the programme until this week when I realised I just can't live like this; I can barely walk! So I've been slapping on the anti-inflammatory gel too. Are you using an anti-inflammatory?

Do you mind me asking what kind of foam roller you're using? Mine is a 15x44cm - I wasn't sure which size to get and originally it was for my iliotibial band.

Oh, and I've just bought a rolling pin as I read that that do the same job as a foam roller, but I thought I could get a helpful friend to run it up and down my calf

Thanks Old, it is awful and I am getting really frustrated! I've had chronic Achilles problems for years but usually it was manageable by just reducing my mileage and going a bit easy for a few weeks during flare ups. This one is just not settling though. So if it's a new thing for you I would really really recommend doing the exercises diligently to try and get it settled. Physio said eccentric exercises can take 3+ months to see improvement
I'm not using any anti inflammatories, I've tried the gel and tablets previously but didn't find they made much difference. I do ice my tendon, used to help, not so much this time.
At my worst I could barely walk too, but find I'm much better after calf stretches. Currently doing these 3-4 times daily and eccentric ones twice daily.
I'm using The Grid Trigger Point foam roller (I'll try to link if I can) . It is bloody painful, but it is def reducing my calf knot, and I don't have one at all on the unaffected side so I can really feel the difference. Just hope that will eventually translate into healed Achilles.
Rolling pin sounds even more painful, I think I would be way too chicken for that

The Grid
Mine is orange

Some of the Excercises cmot linked to look very similar to those Dd does (on the advice of her physio & ballet teachers) to help with her tight Achilles. Especially the bottom stair one.