sfce’s AchillesBlog

So, 2 weeks and 6 days and I am just now starting my PWB on my crutches and taking my dry foot out of the boot to do some ROM. Calf muscled and pretty much my whole leg is atrophy pretty noticably. My wound is healing well but my foot is still swollen, and my ROM sucks. Right about of wound theres a swollen mass I guess ill call it. Iced it today after PWB and ROM!

I have been catching up on my daytime TV as well as NBA playoffs and season 1 & 2 of falling skies on TNT which is not bad at all!

Besides the copious amounts of TV I have been reading a ton on the internet. My new obsession is easily this torn achilles tendon. I have been active my entire life working out and playing sports has been my hobby since I was 16. Taking supplements and such has always been a part of my life especially in the Crossfit community. This is what I have come up with:

The Achilles Tendon like the other tendons in your body is made up of over 90% of Collagen. Collagen like Muscle has to go through a synthesis to grow. Just as we take protein and utilize the Branch Chain Amino Acids to aid in the Protein Synthesis to grow muscle the Collagen in our Tendons needs to do the same. What drives the Collagen Synthesis well that would be good old Vitamin C. Once the Synthesis begins the body looks for 4 specific Amino Acids which are Glycine, Proline, Hydroxyproline and Arginine. Now Proline and Arginine are ‘conditionally essential’, meaning you need them at certain life stages or if you are genetically unable to synthesize certain amino acids or have a medical condition that prevents you from making them. So to get these building blocks as a full grown adult you must add them becuase you will not get them from your diet like you will the other Amino Acids.

So Whats the best way to supplement these Amino Acids? With a supplement. You can buy Amino Acids to mix in your drinks, You can get recovery Whey proteins which have Amino Acid cocktails in it, and lastly you can get Amino Acids in pill form. Now there are dozens of Amino Acids so you have to check the label to get the ones you need. With all this info I collected today I changed my Amino Acids to Optimum Nutrition Superior Amino 2222 which has the essential aminos to spark the Collagen Syntheis to aid in recovery of my ATR. I was previously using BLOX silk amino acids which werent as “all encompassing” as this new one.

Lets take a step back, we all know Vitamin C starts the Collagen Synthesis. As for Vitamin C I am not taking a supplement for the simple reason that foods high in Vitamin C taste good. I have been consuming Strawberries and Oranges in large amounts. The Vitamin C will start the Achilles making engine and the Amino Acids (the building blocks) will start to reconstruct the tendon.

So thats me here is a list of the other supplements I am taking, most of which I have been taking previous to the tear.

Zyflamend from New Chapter - All Natural whole body anti-inflammatory
GLC 2000 - All encompassing joint support
Fish Oil from New Chapter - OMEGA’s 3,6,9
Bromelin - Anti-inflammatory
Zinc - Aids in the connective tissues
Vitamin D - Gotta get 15 mins at minimum of sunshine everyday

Here are the links to everything plus some extra reading, check out the rats and their ATR.

http://www.vitaminshoppe.com/store/en/browse/sku_detail.jsp?id=OP-1071
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18309503