How to train your tendons, ligaments and joints

When it comes to exercise, muscles and bones are clearly the stars of the show. But to feel your best, you also need to take a little time to exercise the body’s supporting cast: connective tissues like ligaments and tendons.

However, what works for ligaments doesn’t work for tendons, and vice versa.

“Each part responds to different stimulus,” said Jay Dicharry, a professor of physical therapy at Oregon State University and the author of “Running Rewired.”

Here’s how to keep your tendons, ligaments and joints healthy.

Tendons connect muscles to bones.

“Think of tendons as springs,” said Joel Sattgast, an assistant professor at Eastern Washington University. “As with any spring, over time they stretch out and lose some of that springiness.”

To prevent injuries or keep them from returning, you need to train the tendons, and the muscle they connect to, slowly and with weights.

Similarly, if you are worried about your biceps tendon (on the inside of your elbow), do slow biceps curls, eventually increasing the weight.

Ligaments connect bones and provide stability. Unlike tendons, ligaments don’t degrade from chronic overuse; rather, they usually strain or tear suddenly.

So you need to retrain the ligaments and surrounding muscles with repeating movement patterns to help them “make smarter decisions” as they move, Dicharry said.

If you’ve suffered a ligament injury in the past, you should restore its stability with exercises targeting the surrounding muscles.

Where tendons love high loads and lower repetitions, ligaments respond better to low loads and high repetitions. For example, if you’ve sprained your wrist, use a tennis racquet and ball. With the racquet in your hand and the inside of your wrist pointing up, gently bounce the ball on the racquet.

As you age, the fluid in joints decreases, protective cartilage thins out and you might feel stiff and “creaky” or even suffer from osteoarthritis.

The key to healthy joints is giving them a variety of motions across multiple planes, Dicharry said.

For example, if your hand and wrist joints are sore, take a wad of Silly Putty in one hand and roll it into a ball, and then a hot dog shape, and then make a loop. Put your fingers inside the loop, open them up and stretch out the loop.

This same multiplanar, multidirectional strategy can be applied to other joints. Movements like standing rotations can be good for your hips.