What is the best way to build up your tendons and ligaments to make them stronger, stay in sync with you muscles, and prevent injuries?

Take is from someone who has torn a biceps tendon and is recovering from lateral epicondylitis surgery all with the last year, you must spend a few sets lifting light and make sure your tendons and warm before you lift heavy. I learned the hard way.

Bump that, warm-ups are critical for injury prevention. I always warm-up first on a stationary bike or treadmill for 5-10 minutes just to get the blood and oxygen flowing. Then I lightly stretch my muscles being worked and their ancillieries. Next I alway perform three to four warm-up sets of my first exercise before going into my working sets- stretching between these sets progressively with more elongation and intensity. By the time I am at my working sets my muscles are warm and limber and ready to get blasted.

As said above, warm up, stretch, warm up sets. And remeber just because your muscles are growing at a rapid pace when on AAS, that does not mean that your tendons and ligaments are growing at the same pace. They are not...so take your time, be safe and warm up even more when on gear.

Nitrateman

bump this, my shoulders and elbows used to click, pop, and hurt terribly after i exercised them. now i just to some stretching, light lifting and light burn sets to get them going and they are fine. there is also a good thread that is stickied in the nutritional section at the bottom.

LIke everyone said warm up and stretch and also keep an eye on your increase in weights. Dont make drastic jumps in weight when your lifting b/c that can lead to tears.

what about supplementing with msm/glucosamine/chondroitin? My mom loves the stuff...helps out with her joint pains...although it takes about 5 weeks to kick in.

Wheat wrote:what about supplementing with msm/glucosamine/chondroitin? My mom loves the stuff...helps out with her joint pains...although it takes about 5 weeks to kick in.            

i dont believe that will strengthen tendonds/ligaments very much. it basically just creates a build up in the joints and acts as buffer. it may strengthen them alittle because theyre not rubbing against each other all the time but nothing really big.

I always stretch and do warm up sets. I would rather strecth before and after my workout then not even workout at all. I feel stretching is a crucial part of any form of resistance training. Maybe I should have worded my initial post a little better. I ment are there any exercises one can do to strengthen the tendons and ligaments? It seems as if I read one time that say on flat bench take the 45 lbs barbell and lower it slowly down to your chest and pop it up quickly. Do this for say 20 reps? Maybe I am wrong here but I was wanting to know exercises to strengthen the ligaments and tendons.

Go through the full range of movement on lifts and use a lighter weight load. Also do the lifts at a slower pace. That will help your body adapt to lifting heavier weights without causing any sudden shock that could damage joints and such. That's how I lift when I'm off cycle and it always gets my joints and tendons back up to par before I start gearing up again.