Achilles Tendon

Indiana Colts Quarterback Daniel Jones is done for the season after he was betrayed by his Achilles tendon during Sunday’s game in Jacksonville. “It’s not really that it’s fragile. It’s quite a strong tendon. It’s actually composed of three muscles; it’s the tendons of three muscles combined,” said Dan Michaels, DPM. “It’s very powerful, so there’s a lot of force generated through that tendon, especially in sports like basketball and football or gymnastics, where they’re asking for the tendon to generate a lot of power as the person is jumping up off the ground or sprinting.”

Dr. Michaels said a minor tear can heal on its own, a major rupture requires surgery, which can take up to a year to repair and yet still not have a guaranteed full recovery to pre-injury performance. “It’s a slow process, the repair, and the rehabilitation to get the area back strong again, and it is a hard injury to recover from,” he said. “We even know that with the best repair, it’s pretty hard to return to the same strength and functionality on that tendon that was there before.”